I swallowed, hard bubbles of anxiety rising in my throat. But I couldn’t hide anymore. The more I found out about Olivia’s last months, the more certain I was that he had something to do with what had happened to her.
“Okay. When?”
“I’m in court tomorrow supporting one of my clients and then at a support group I run in the afternoon, so tomorrow’s difficult. We could talk to her together on Friday?”
“Oh.” Impatience and fear mingled in my throat. Anthony mistook my hesitation for disappointment.
“We could meet tomorrow night to figure out who we need to interview,” he offered. “I just won’t be home until about nine. Why don’t you come over? I’m in Queen Anne. I order a mean takeout.”
I could hear the smile in his voice, but my body stiffened with terror. I couldn’t go to Seattle.
But I could, I reminded myself. The reason I’d stayed away from Seattle was to protect Olivia from Gavin. But that wasn’t necessary anymore. The revelation hit me, vivid, intense, terrifying.
“We can always just meet on Friday, it’s no prob—” Anthony began.
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “I don’t mind coming to you.”
“Okay, great!”
He gave me his address and I said, “See you tomorrow,” then hung up.
“See who tomorrow?” Sarah’s voice made me jump.
“Jesus, Sarah. You scared me.”
“See who?”
“Anthony.”
“But why?” She looked angry. Or sad. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference with Sarah.
“I’m going to find out what happened to Olivia,” I said.
“But the police—they’re investigating,” she said weakly.
I rummaged in a hidden pocket of my purse for a long-forgotten pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I rarely smoked. Hadn’t for years because Olivia hated it so much.
I lit the cigarette, the flame blazing brightly against the sky. I took a long drag, then exhaled slowly. Smoke twisted lazily up through the tree’s stark branches, hanging momentarily with the last shriveled leaves of autumn.
“No. They aren’t,” I said.
“It’ll just take some time.”
I sighed, irritation sparking in me, and told her about Tyler lying, the threatening picture texts, the note slipped under my door.
She didn’t speak for a long time, but when she did, it wasn’t what I expected. “I get that you think somebody pushed Olivia. Okay? But do you have to prove who? Looking for answers like this, it only distorts the truth. The truth about what happened and the truth about who Olivia was. It tricks you into thinking you have some control when you don’t.”
“I have to do this, Sarah.”
“Why?”
I sucked on the cigarette, letting the smoke sear my lungs. Finally I answered: “I never knew why Mom killed herself.”
Sarah looked like I’d hit her.
“There was no note. No good-bye. Nothing!” I slashed my hand through the air. “She killed herself and I found her and she didn’t even say why. I’ve wondered my whole life, and I’ve never gotten any closure. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what happened to Olivia. I need to know. For me. For Olivia’s baby.”
A chill wind whipped off the water, and I pulled my scarf higher on my neck. Sarah zipped her coat up to her chin and sat heavily on the bench next to me.
“Here, give me one of those.” She pointed at the cigarettes.
I held the pack out and she took one, bending forward so I could light it. We’d both struggled with the addiction off and on throughout our lives, but this was the first time we’d ever had a cigarette together.
Sarah tucked her hair behind her ears. Even though she was ten years older than me, my sister still had that natural, girl-next-door look: full lips, pale-blond hair, good skin. Only now was a lifetime of responsibility starting to show, her skin puckering slightly at the corners of her mouth, her eyes drooping at the corners.
Sarah held the smoke in her lungs for a second, then released it into the frosty air.
“God, that feels good!” she exclaimed. “It’s pretty fucking cruel they don’t let you smoke in the hospital. Don’t they know that’s exactly where you want to smoke the most?” She examined her cigarette. “I haven’t had one in years.”
“Me neither. Last time was when Olivia was twelve. She’d just started her period, and I decided it was time to have The Talk. I sneaked outside to have a smoke first, but she caught me and man did she lose it.” I laughed at the memory. “She said maybe I didn’t care about my life, but she did, and she wanted me in hers.”
The bittersweet aftertaste of the memory filled my mouth, and I wrapped my hands around my stomach.
“I want her back.” My voice strangled in my throat.
Sarah put an arm around me. “I know,” she whispered. “Me too.”
For just a moment I allowed myself the luxury of closing my eyes and soaking up my sister’s comfort. Then I imagined what it would be like if it were my mother comforting me. I pulled abruptly away from Sarah, wiping my eyes.
Sarah stubbed her cigarette out on the ground, then set it on the bench between us.
“I have to tell you something,” she started again. Sarah picked something off her lip. “Olivia called me a few months back and asked me to come over. Said she wanted to talk about her father. She said you’d been lying to her.”
“What’d you say?” I whispered, dread leaching into my heart.
Her eyes dipped away from mine. “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you. . . .”
“What—did—you—say?” I bit off each word.
Sarah finally met my eyes. “She already knew.”
“How?”
“She wouldn’t tell me how. She just said she already knew Gavin Montgomery was her father, and she wanted to know why you told her he was dead.”
I gasped. I had the sudden dizzying sensation that things were unraveling. I pressed my fingernails hard into my palms until they left deep half-moons in my skin, trying to control my shaking hands.
“Why didn’t she ask me?”
“Are you kidding? She did ask you. Like, hundreds of times. But you wouldn’t tell her the truth.”
My head fell into my hands. The thought knotted and spun in my mind, making me dizzy.
“No, no, no,” I moaned. A pale gray desperation hurtled through me.
“I’m sorry, Abi! I know you didn’t want her to find out, but she had a right to know! You should’ve heard the things she was thinking!”
I whirled on her and hissed: “You stupid fucking bitch. You have no idea what you’ve done!”
Sarah recoiled, her face blanching white. I’d never sworn at her before. Not even when I was a teenager. I wasn’t the type who lashed out. I held everything in, kept it inside.
“I never told Gavin that I didn’t get an abortion. If Olivia confronted him, if he saw her . . .” I wrapped my hands around my throat, panic clawing at me. Gavin wasn’t somebody to mess with. “If he knew she was his daughter, there’s no telling what he might’ve done.”
18
* * *
ABI
november
It was a monumental battle of willpower over fatigue to pull my running shoes on, but I knew I needed to do it. It was the best way to rejoin the living.
It was still dark when I slammed the door shut behind me and headed into the chill of the early morning fog. My shoes thumped heavily along the pavement, my arms pumping, and I let my mind drift.
Olivia had known who her father was.
Fury at my sister ground inside of me. Blame lay heavy as a brick on my heart, festering, ready to be propelled at somebody at the first provocation.
Maybe she’d confronted him. Maybe he’d been the one sending her those pictures. Maybe he’d hurt Olivia, followed through on the threat he’d made eighteen years ago.
I couldn’t push aside the niggling seed of
worry that he had something to do with her fall. Nor could I stop blaming Sarah for handing Olivia the tools to find him.
I’d first met Gavin Montgomery at the ice cream shop where I worked the summer I graduated. I knew his girlfriend, Cassandra Winters. She was a few years ahead of me in school, the bubbly, popular prom queen, rich parents, a giant McMansion home. Everyone knew she was dating a hot college boy from Seattle.
I’d seen them together around town, so the first time he came into the ice cream shop and asked for a scoop of vanilla in a cup, I knew who he was. When he started coming in regularly, I couldn’t help but feel special. I was savvy enough to know he wasn’t just there for the ice cream.
The memory was bitter, like vomit in my mouth, but I let it sweep over me.
× × ×
The bell above the door of the ice cream shop jangled.
“We’re closed!” I shouted, not looking up from mopping the sticky floors.
“Glad to hear it.” The voice was deep, throaty, obviously older.
I jerked my head up. It was Gavin.
“Back for another scoop of the world’s most boring ice cream?” I teased.
Gavin threw his head back and laughed. “You’re funny, Abi. And no. I didn’t come for ice cream.”
He crossed to stand in front of me. He was so tall, I felt like a child in comparison. There was something inherently powerful about him. He filled the room. It was a little intimidating. But the way he was looking at me . . .
I set the mop against the wall and cocked one hip, smirking. “You really need to try something besides vanilla.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe I will,” he said, moving closer still. “I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”
“You must not have much going on in there then. Even less than I have in mine. I’m just a boring teenager from Portage Point.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re gorgeous, and I’m sure very clever.”
“You sound like my big sister. ‘You’re so clever, Abi. Why don’t you study law?’ ” I imitated her voice, and he laughed.
“Do you want to be a lawyer?”
“No, not really. My sister just wants me to because it’s a steady job.”
“And what do you want?”
I shrugged and reached for the mop, continued swooshing it across the floor. I wanted what most girls wanted. To be loved.
He closed the distance between us, his mouth landing hard on mine. It surprised me, sending the mop clattering to the ground. But I didn’t push him away. His hot hands circled my waist, burning the skin under my shirt.
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand and tugged him out of sight into the back office, where the coins and bills from the till were still scattered across the desk.
His fingers tangled in my hair as we kissed, then dipped under the elastic of my skirt. He was rock hard against me. I undid his belt and lifted my skirt to rub against him.
Suddenly he flipped me over so I was bent over the desk. I pulled my panties down and reached between my legs, guiding him inside of me. I felt a secret thrill. I was having sex with Cassandra Winters’s boyfriend! Money and security weren’t everything after all. I had power, too.
After that we met maybe once a week, sometimes after I’d closed the shop, sometimes at the beach. The only rule was that I wasn’t allowed to contact him. He promised to break up with Cassandra, but he had to wait because her grandfather had just died.
One night after I locked up the shop he was there, leaning against his car and smiling that devilish smile.
“Picnic on the beach?” He lifted the wicker basket he was holding.
We drove to the far end of the beach, then hiked to a secluded spot where the sand dove into a tiny tree-lined cove. He spread a pale-yellow blanket on the ground and kissed me as he laid me down. Shivers dusted my head, splashed between my thighs. A full moon lit a silver path across the dancing waves and the water caressed the shore at our feet.
I knew then I was in love with him. But by the time I found out I was pregnant, everything had fallen apart. I knew things about him, what he was capable of, how far into the darkness he’d go for his career.
Still, I waited outside the golf club, catching his eye from the edge of the parking lot as he walked to his car. Despite everything, I hoped he’d do the right thing.
At his car, he grabbed my arm roughly and pushed me inside.
“What are you doing here, Abi?” he growled. “I told you: I contact you.”
“I had to talk to you,” I said urgently.
“Why?”
“Gavin, I’m pregnant.”
Gavin looked shocked; then panic rolled across his handsome features. He looked like a cornered animal. “I thought you were on the pill!”
“I am!”
“Fuck.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, his face hard. “Take care of it.” He leaned over me and pushed the door open.
“I can’t get an abortion!” I exclaimed, ignoring the door.
“What kind of mother do you think you’d be?” he sneered. “You’re anxious and unstable. You serve ice cream for a living and you still live in your sister’s house. You can’t take care of a baby. You’re a pathetic mess!”
I stared at him, stunned. It was everything I’d ever thought about myself, right out there in the open. But an abortion? I opened my mouth to argue, but Gavin grabbed my face in one hand, pinching it so hard that tears filled my eyes.
“Do you understand how much this could fuck everything up?” he snarled. “I could be senator one day. Maybe even governor. And I won’t let a bitch like you ruin it. Not now. Not ever!”
He shoved my face away and pulled a checkbook out of his blazer’s inner pocket. He wrote a check and handed it to me. I took it, unsure what else to do.
“I’m not kidding, Abi. I will kill you and that baby if you ruin this for me.”
He leaned over me and opened the door, and this time I got out.
I went to the abortion clinic like I was told. But I looked at the other girls around me and didn’t see myself in them, and I couldn’t go through with it. I’d lived with my mom’s abandonment since I was ten. This was my chance to do better than she did.
But I also couldn’t have Gavin find out. I’d seen what his threats did to others. I knew what happened when you crossed him.
So I cashed that massive check.
It was completely dishonest, but I took his money and let him think I’d gotten an abortion. Instead I used it to go to college, buy a house. I raised my daughter—my daughter—to be a good girl, because bad things didn’t happen to good girls.
And that was the truth I’d hidden from Olivia. At least part of it. I’d taken blood money to get rid of my baby, and then lied about it.
Gavin had paid me to eliminate my daughter, and then he’d disappeared from our lives. He’d abandoned me and he’d abandoned her, and it rankled on a deep level. Maybe because I knew the pain of being abandoned by a parent. I knew what it felt like to be deserted by the person you should be able to count on no matter what. I knew better than most.
Which was why what I did to Olivia was far worse than what he did.
× × ×
When I got home from my run, a massive box was sitting on my porch. It was about three feet by three feet, my name and address typed neatly on the label. I maneuvered the bulk awkwardly through the door and set it next to the dining table, bewildered. I slit the top and peered inside.
Nestled in white Styrofoam was an exquisite pure-white orchid. The delicate fragrance—light and sweet—floated up to me. I carefully pulled the pot out of the box, and a small white envelope fell out. The card inside read:
Wishing you courage and strength. Please know that we are here anytime you need us.
Lizzie and Kelly
I stroked the velvety leaves of the orchid, the unexpected kindness causing a sharp stinging in my chest. I thought of how I’d kept myself apart from these women for so lon
g. In fact, when I analyzed my own behavior, I realized I’d denied myself everything: the anticipation of a date, laughter over coffee, the blur of a shot of tequila on a night out.
And for what? Olivia would’ve wanted me to have a life. She wouldn’t have begrudged me that.
I did it because I was scared. Of rejection. Of loss. Of hurt. Of being anything other than Olivia’s mom. It shocked me to realize that was all I thought of myself as. Olivia’s mom. I’d gotten pregnant so young that I never had a chance to find out who Abigail Knight was. I’d been thrust without warning into a very adult world without ever finishing being a kid.
Everybody around me had sharply forged personalities. But I didn’t even know who I was without my daughter. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost myself.
I looked at my watch. I’d seen Lizzie picking up her daughters from the high school. Maybe I could catch her and say thank you. It wasn’t too late for that.
And maybe I’d see Tyler as well.
× × ×
I parked across the street from the high school and slammed the car door just as the tinny sound of a bell jangled from the school building. It was a beautiful day, a cloudless turquoise sky shimmering above me, but the wind was sharp, gusting across the parking lot and slicing through my wool coat. Chills chased across my skin, and I tucked my chin deeper into my scarf.
Students flooded onto the manicured lawn that circled the front of the school. I scanned the crowd for Tyler, then Lizzie, then Kelly, but didn’t see any of them.
After a few minutes the parking lot was mostly empty. Disappointed, I turned to go, but just then I spotted Tyler halfway across the parking lot.
Poor kid. Agony was stamped indelibly on his body, weighted across the miserable hunch of his shoulders. He looked smaller somehow, shrunken, the way a grape shrivels into a raisin.
I jogged toward him, but he must not have heard me calling his name because he jumped when I touched his shoulder, his eyes wide, keys held out as if fending off an attacker.
“Tyler. Hi,” I said, breathless from my sprint.
The Night Olivia Fell Page 12