The Thin Wall (Corona Heights Book 1)

by E. M. Parker

  Fiona took a few steps forward as the knife in the girl’s hand slowly fell away from Arthur’s neck.

  “You know why she’s not safe, don’t you?”

  The girl nodded, as that fleeting hint of emotion suddenly took up full residence on her face. “My mom. I’m scared she’s going to…”

  “I know you are, and I know that Olivia is too. But I’m telling you right now that your mom won’t ever have the chance to hurt her again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know.”

  “She never tried to find me. They buried me right next… right next door to her, and she never tried to look.”

  “I’m sorry Hannah,” Fiona said as she choked back tears. “I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t have happened to you. You were a good girl who deserved so much better. You deserved a mommy who loved you and cared for you and watched out for you like you were the most important person in the entire world. She was so wrong for not doing that, because you were so very important. Do you know who else thought that?”

  “Olivia.”

  “That’s right, and she still does. She loves you so much, and she wants nothing more for you than to finally find the happiness that you always should have had.”

  “But what about her? She’s in a dark place, just like I am. I don’t want her to be there anymore.”

  “If you kill him, she will be.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “Then Olivia will finally have a chance to find that light. And so will you.”

  The girl lowered the knife from Arthur’s neck and let it dangle at her side. “Will you protect her, Fiona? Will all of you protect her?”

  “As much as we possibly can.”

  The girl surveyed the group with doubting eyes. “But how do I know it’s going to be enough?”

  “You’re going to have to trust us,” Iris said.

  The girl relinquished her grip on Arthur’s throat and he fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing as he frantically gasped for air. She then stood up and turned her eyes to an area of the room behind the group. After a moment of quiet that felt like infinity, the girl finally looked back at Fiona.

  “Prove it to me.”

  The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps suddenly gave way to the sight of a wild-eyed Natalie, running at them full bore. The hammer in her right hand did not become visible until she took a high-arching swing at Greer. He managed to duck away from the head blow, only to offer up his shoulder. His agonized scream barely rose above the crack of his shattered collarbone.

  The impact did nothing to slow Natalie down, whose beeline course was headed straight for Fiona.

  She could only manage the words, “You’ll never”, before a single gunshot to the back extinguished the burning light of hatred in her eyes. She fell lifelessly to the ground less than five feet from a frozen Fiona.

  Sullivan immediately ran to Greer. He had managed to sit himself up while keeping a hand pressed against his collarbone to deaden the pain. “Broken?” she asked him.

  “Into about twenty-million little pieces,” he answered as he grimaced through a pained smile. “Could have been worse, Chloe.”

  “A lot worse,” she concurred as she looked at Natalie.

  Had Sullivan not taken her down, she was convinced that the shock of the moment would not have afforded Fiona enough time to defend herself. The act of shooting her was completely justified, and Sullivan knew she could never second-guess herself. But the sight of that young girl’s dead body curled up on the ground in the fetal position left her empty beyond description.

  The feeling lasted only for a moment.

  When Sullivan looked up, the girl’s stare was fixed on her. She displayed no expression or identifiable emotion, but the air around her felt warm. The immediate sense of calm that resulted was both inexplicable and all-consuming. Suddenly, there was no more doubt, no more second-guessing, no more emptiness.

  “I’m sorry he got hurt,” the girl said, pointing at Greer. “I know he’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay now.”

  Sullivan could not find the words to respond before the girl turned back to Fiona.

  “I really do think everything is okay now,” she said, smiling for the first time.

  Fiona, still severely shaken, did not smile back. She struggled to find her words much like Sullivan had. But when she finally did, the question was the exact same one that Sullivan had come up with.

  “Did you make that happen? Your mother running in here?”

  She pointed at Arthur Finley. “Do you promise that he won’t be able to hurt her?”

  Fiona looked to Sullivan for a response.

  “I promise he won’t be able to hurt anyone.”

  “And what about Noah?”

  “He won’t be able to hurt her either. Not anymore,” Fiona said.

  “Then I can go now. No more darkness, for me or her.”

  “Hannah, wait. What about your mot—”

  “Thank you, Fiona. I’m sorry I scared you as much as I did.” Then she turned to Iris. “There are a lot of bad things here. People like me who can’t leave. You have the power to fight them, and I hope you do.”

  Iris nodded as she wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  The girl then walked up to Fiona. “Olivia is going to fall down. Make sure you catch her.”

  Before Fiona could respond, the girl collapsed in her arms.

  Sullivan and Iris rushed to help as Fiona gently laid her on the ground. When she didn’t immediately come to, Fiona began lightly tapping her cheeks. “Olivia? Olivia, wake up.”

  Her eyes slowly opened.

  “That’s it, sweetheart. You’re okay now.”

  “Fiona?” She spoke in the groggy voice of someone suddenly awakened from a long, deep sleep.

  “Yes, it’s me. Iris is here too, and the police. Everything is okay.”

  “Where is Hannah?”

  Fiona and Iris exchanged a look.

  “I think she’s gone now,” Iris said.

  Olivia slowly sat up and surveyed the space. She visibly recoiled at the sight of Arthur Finley.

  “He’s not going to hurt you,” Fiona assured her.

  Olivia took a deep breath. “I know.” When she looked to the left of him and saw Natalie, the resolve in her gentle face immediately faltered. “Did Hannah do that before she left?”

  Her question was met with a prolonged silence that all but confirmed its validity.

  “Did she hurt anyone else?”

  Fiona shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m glad. I know she wouldn’t have wanted to.”

  “Sweetheart, what do you remember?” Iris asked.

  Olivia searched her memory. “The last thing I remember is being in Fiona’s apartment and Hannah telling me that we needed to go find him,” she said, pointing to Arthur. “I tried to tell her no, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “I know you did,” Fiona said. “Don’t worry about anything else, okay? It’s all over now.”

  Olivia looked at her with a solemn expression. “It’s not over yet, not until I know that Hannah is finally okay.” Her eyes drifted across the dark expanse of the room, in search of something that no one else could see. “One knock if you’re okay, two if you’re not.”

  The group held its collective breath as Olivia waited for a response.

  “Come on, Hannah. One knock if you’re okay, two if you’re not.” Olivia’s voice cracked as she repeated the command.

  The sound that followed wasn’t a knock as much as it was a cosmic collision that reverberated through every square inch of the basement before finally settling inside Sullivan’s body with a gentle vibration that only her soul could feel.

  The basement was suddenly bathed in bright light as the dozens of florescent bulbs hung throughout the space buzzed to life simultaneously. The familiar drone of two-way radio chatter and the heavy padding of patrol boots quickly followed.


  Before the chaos that Sullivan experienced with every fresh crime scene had the chance to set in, she caught one last quiet embrace between Olivia and Fiona. When they were finished, Olivia grabbed the purple stone hanging from her neck and gave it a tight squeeze. Fiona smiled.

  “It’s definitely over now,” Olivia said without a trace of doubt in her voice.

  And Sullivan was most certainly inclined to believe her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE A.A. MEETING HAD BEEN SPARSELY ATTENDED. The first sessions back after a long holiday weekend often were. If slip-ups were going to happen, they usually coincided with some big event, like the three days spent celebrating the official kickoff to the summer season.

  Fiona hadn’t spent that Memorial Day weekend celebrating. There were no parties, no barbeques, no flimsy excuses for popping open a cold one – or in her case, six. She had instead spent that weekend like she had most every other day since moving out of Corona Heights: building up the courage to tell someone the story.

  Sure, she had active and ongoing communication with the police and CPS officials since that night, but only Detectives Sullivan and Greer understood the full extent of what had occurred, and they were understandably tight-lipped about those certain aspects of the event that wouldn’t play so well in front of the judge or their peers in the department. They had careers to consider after all, and she couldn’t blame them – Detective Sullivan in particular – for wanting to put the incident as far behind them as they could.

  Fiona, unfortunately, had no such luxuries. The details of what happened replayed themselves in her mind every time she closed her eyes. They were there when she opened them too. Because she couldn’t trust her vision anymore, she had to vet every image that she saw for its tactile substance and grounding in reality. Thankfully, she hadn’t yet seen anything that was later proven not to have been there.

  She coped with it all as well as she could without the assistance from the bottle that she had previously been accustomed to. She’d certainly had her moments, especially late at night when the world was entirely too quiet to drown out Hannah’s ghostly voice. But she managed to keep herself clean. Three hundred and seventy-six days. And counting.

  The A.A. meetings helped, even when there were only a few other people in attendance, like there were today. The intimate setting almost allowed Fiona to broach the subject of Corona Heights, but when it came time for her testimonial, she couldn’t offer up much beyond a status update on her insomnia (still debilitating), and her nervousness surrounding an upcoming interview with the local publication Westword for its editorial proofreader position. When each of the attendees pledged an ongoing contribution of prayers and positive thoughts, she felt a little bit better about her chances.

  After the meeting concluded, Melinda Cordova, Fiona’s newly-minted sponsor, invited her out for a cup of coffee. This was the third such invite since Fiona had finally committed to weekly meetings, and the conversations that followed were usually uplifting and insightful. But today’s coffee chat was different. It hadn’t been that way by design. Fiona had no intention of bringing up Iris and Olivia and Hannah. It simply happened.

  Melinda had undoubtedly been privy to some of the details, as they had been extensively reported on in the media. According to the official reports, Hannah Shelby, who had originally been reported missing two and a half years ago, was found dead, presumably murdered, inside the apartment building where she lived. Arthur Finley had been arrested as the prime suspect in connection to her murder. There was no public mention of Donald Tisdale.

  But what the public didn’t know was that parts of Hannah had been found buried inside the walls of Fiona’s apartment, with others being scattered about in different locations around the building. Her apartment was immediately deemed a crime scene and she was forced to leave. The police department paid for her hotel room that night, and she never came back.

  Melinda listened to the story, like she always did, with her full attention. There were no unnecessary diversions, and most importantly, no judgements. After Fiona recounted the entire timeline of events, she felt weighted down by the utter insanity of it all, embarrassed to even look Melinda in the eye when she was finished.

  “That certainly is one hell of a story,” Melinda said as she ran a spoon through her third cup of coffee.

  “Now you know why I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else.”

  “Well, I’m humbled that you’d save it for me.”

  Melinda’s easy smile did nothing to ease Fiona’s anxiety.

  “I’d understand if you recommend that I find the nearest psych ward and immediately check myself in. Trust me, I’ve considered it.”

  “Furthest thought from my mind,” Melinda replied convincingly. “I think that what you did to try and help that girl was unbelievably selfless. Most people would have turned tail and ran the moment it got even a little bit scary. You literally put your life out there for her. I can’t say for certain that I would have been able to do it.”

  “I guess I did the only thing that I could have done under the circumstances. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything else happening to that little girl.”

  “Of course not. You’re a mom.”

  A fact that Fiona was always happy to be reminded of.

  “Where is Olivia now?” Melinda then asked.

  “Based on what I heard from Detective Sullivan, she’s living with her half-sister Eva and Eva’s father in Cheyenne. Had he not stepped up, I’m not sure where she would be.”

  “Probably lost somewhere in the foster care system.”

  Fiona trembled at the thought.

  “She didn’t have any other family here?”

  “Only her mother,” Fiona answered. “And you already know what happened to her. With any luck, Noah will spend the rest of his pathetic life in prison. Even if he doesn’t, he wouldn’t get his hands-on Olivia in a million years. Iris had considered petitioning to take her if Eva’s dad couldn’t, but there was no way Olivia could have stayed in that building after everything that happened.”

  “The same as you.”

  Fiona nodded.

  “Speaking of Iris, do you still keep in contact with her?”

  “Not since I moved out. It was difficult talking about things even while I was still there. It was almost impossible to reconcile what I’d seen. It still is. But to Iris, it was all second nature. It was like she expected it to happen all along. I also think she knew a lot more about Hannah than she’d let on.”

  “That poor girl. She suffered so much.”

  “Yet no one ever acknowledged her, not even Iris. It was like her disappearance, even her life, was this dirty little secret that the building wanted to keep hidden away from the world. I’ll never understand it.”

  “Do you think the subject would come up if you were ever to see her again?”

  Fiona shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, Iris is a wonderful woman and I hope that we can maintain a friendship, but she kept an awful lot from me.”

  “Like the fact that she’s a psychic?”

  Though Iris had never made a formal declaration of her abilities, and it was never discussed after the incident, Fiona had concluded that she was indeed psychic, based on her communication with Hannah, and the fact that she sensed Fiona’s thoughts as they entered the basement, and the way she talked about Corona Heights like it was a living, breathing thing (a notion that Fiona could not exactly dismiss), along with a host of other things that she did just as well to forget.

  “All I can say with certainty is that Iris Matheson is quite the interesting case.”

  “Sounds like it. I’m just glad you’re putting it all behind you, or at least trying to. There are far bigger fish to fry in your life right now.”

  Fiona nodded as she took in a nervous breath.

  “So how are you feeling about finally seeing him?” Melinda asked.

  “To be honest, I’m scared to death.”

/>   “I completely understand. Just remember how long you’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive. And now it’s here.”

  The moment that Melinda was referring to was the meeting that was scheduled to take place in less than an hour. As per their legally binding agreement, Fiona would need to check in with the court-appointed monitor first. After her briefing, she would spend a few minutes with Kirk (a nerve-wracking prospect on its own), and, if everything else went right, spend her first meaningful time with Jacob in over a year.

  Melinda was right, this was the single moment that she’d waited for since moving here. But now that it was here, she doubted herself.

  “You’ve been through hell and back, Fiona. This is the easy part. Just do what comes naturally.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. I’m just not so sure if it comes naturally anymore.”

  “You’re ready.”

  She took a deep breath in hopes of absorbing Melinda’s confidence. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am.” Melinda looked at her watch. “It’s time for you to get out of here. If you want, we can pick up this conversation next week, after you call me to report how things went today, of course.”

  Fiona smiled. “As long as you don’t start charging me by the hour.”

  “You keep talking about all this scary stuff and I might have to seriously consider it.”

  Fiona’s cell phone vibrated with a text message notification as she walked to her car. Fearful that it may have been Kirk telling her that he’d finally had second thoughts, she checked the phone immediately. Nothing could have braced her for the shock that followed.

  The message was from Iris. She had attached a picture of an amulet like the one she had previously given to Fiona (which Fiona had in turn given to Olivia), but this one was turquoise, with a Celtic design. The caption underneath the picture read: Yours if you need it. As Fiona stared at the picture, a second message came through: Had a random thought about you just now, as I often do. Hope you’re doing well. They’d better be treating you right in that new apartment building. Couldn’t be worse than C.H., right? Anyway, you take good care of yourself. When you see that beautiful boy, make sure to give him a big hug from Iris. And remember, if you need me, I’m only a thought away.