The Night Olivia Fell

by Christina McDonald

  “That’s, like, nine o’clock! How about ten?”

  “Okay, but I’ll come pick you up. I don’t want you walking home in the dark.”

  “How about I get Derek to drive me?”

  She thought about that for a minute and agreed. He flashed me that slow grin just as there was a knock on the door.

  “Okay, Mom, gotta go. I’m heading to Madison’s. Byeeee!”

  I hung up before she could reply and rushed to the door.

  Kendall had cut her hair into a sleek, shoulder-length bob. Gone was the schoolgirl Catholic uniform. Instead she wore trendy skinny black jeans, black high-top Converses, and a form-fitting pink tank top under a black leather jacket. She looked very biker chic.

  She air-kissed me in a way that felt overly familiar, then breezed past me into the living room.

  “I like your hair,” I said awkwardly, still clutching the door handle.

  “Thanks.” She spotted Derek and extended a hand. “I’m Kendall.”

  Her heavily mascaraed eyelashes fluttered, and jealousy stabbed at me. She was so like me, but like me on some performance-enhancing drug. The way she looked, acted, dressed, everything just slightly . . . better. Derek had to see it too.

  Derek shook her hand and introduced himself. I shut the door and stood awkwardly, unsure what to do or say.

  Kendall tossed her expensive black leather bag onto the couch and flopped down next to it, looking around. For the first time, I saw my house through somebody else’s eyes.

  The old overstuffed tan sofas were rubbed raw. The river-rock fireplace at the far side of the living room looked dreary. The sunny breakfast nook at the back of the kitchen was in need of a fresh coat of paint.

  “Your house is super cute,” Kendall said. I couldn’t help but take it patronizingly.

  Derek cleared his throat and came to take my hand. He led me to the couch and we sat next to Kendall.

  “You said your dad owned a house here in 1999,” he said. “Do you have any other information to, I don’t know, show he’s related to Olivia?”

  Kendall lifted her shoulders and reached up to twirl a massive diamond earring in her right ear. “Sorry. I really don’t. I mean, how do we even know he is?”

  “My aunt told me my mom and your dad had an affair right before your parents got married,” I said. “They were together a few months, she got pregnant, and he disappeared.”

  Her eyes flashed with interest. “Shit, really?”

  I nodded.

  Kendall chewed her cheek. “I can ask, but I don’t think he’s gonna admit anything. Like I said, it’s an election year. Plus, our money comes from my mom’s side. I doubt he’d give that up.” She gave a harsh, metallic laugh that made my stomach clench angrily. She might resent him, but at least he’d stuck around for her.

  She stood and paced the living room, tapping her chin, deep in thought. Suddenly she spun to face me.

  “I know! Why don’t you come meet him? You could ask him yourself.”

  I laughed, skeptical. “Why would he talk to me?”

  “I mean, sometimes I hate him because he, like, mortifies me, but he’s not a bad guy. I bet he doesn’t even know about you. Did your mom even tell him she was pregnant?”

  I’d wondered that myself. Had she told him? Had she even given him a chance to know me?

  I was about to answer when she caught sight of the book sitting on the dining room table. She picked it up.

  “Hey, I love Gayle Forman!” she exclaimed. “Have you read Just One Day?”

  I nodded, my head dizzy at the sudden change of subject. “Yeah, I own all her books. I have all of John Green’s books too. I get, like, the whole set and read them all in a row.”

  “No way! Can I see them?”

  “Yeah, they’re in my room.”

  “I’ll leave you girls to it,” Derek said. He kissed me on the cheek and gave a funny little salute to Kendall.

  Once the door shut behind him, she lifted one eyebrow at me and smirked.

  “Hot friend or older boyfriend?”

  “Uh, neither.” I blushed. “I mean, it’s complicated.”

  “I see.” She winked at me. “I get the hint.”

  But I didn’t think she did. She had that look about her that girls get when they think the chase is on.

  Kendall’s eyes widened when we entered my room. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed.

  I swept dirty clothes from the floor into the laundry hamper, totally mortified. But Kendall wasn’t looking at the mess. She was staring at the medals, ribbons, and trophies displayed in a glass case attached to the wall.

  Mom had found it at a garage sale and meticulously took it apart, brought it home, then reassembled it in my room shortly after I started competing in swimming when I was ten. I think she built it to remind me how awesome it was to win, which worked for a while.

  Lately, though, I didn’t care as much about winning. It wasn’t like I was going to swim in the Olympics or anything. I probably wouldn’t even swim once I went to college. I’d been thinking lately maybe I’d study history. I liked the way you could almost predict what was going to happen in the future based on the past.

  “I don’t think I have any medals for anything,” Kendall said.

  “Do you do sports?” I asked, feigning innocence. I knew she did, but I didn’t want her knowing I’d Googled her like some total creeper.

  “Yeah. Tennis. And I’m on the debate team, but we don’t get medals. And”—she laughed—“I’m crap at tennis. I only do it ’cause my dad makes me.” She stared again at my trophies and medals. “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “Winning.”

  I thought about it. “It’s great at first, but then you have to keep doing better every time. It’s exhausting.”

  “Why don’t you quit?” she asked, as if it were so simple.

  “I don’t want to let anybody down.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed. I thought she’d say how stupid that was, but she didn’t. She got it. Even though I didn’t really know her that well, I could tell she knew exactly how it felt to be stuck in something that defined you, even though you didn’t want it to.

  She pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asked, but she said it that way some people have of asking, but not really asking. I hated cigarettes, but I knew I couldn’t stop her.

  “Uh, sure, but hold on a sec.”

  I opened my window all the way, then raced downstairs and grabbed a small plate from the kitchen.

  “Here.” I handed her the plate. “I don’t want my mom to know.”

  She took a long drag on the cigarette, then blew the smoke out the window. She held it weird: between her pointer finger and her thumb.

  We talked about school, how bitchy the girls could be, what colleges we wanted to go to. I decided I liked Kendall. She seemed a bit spoiled—maybe entitled was a better word—but I was glad we’d finally met up. And it was cool that she might be my sister.

  I’d always wanted siblings. Growing up with just my mom was a bit lonely. When I was little and hanging out at Madison and Derek’s house, I’d pretend they were my brother and sister. I knew Madison and Derek annoyed the shit out of each other, but when it really came right down to it, they’d do anything for each other. I wished I had that.

  My iPhone pinged, and I pulled it out of my back pocket. It was a text with a picture attached. Somebody had snapped me outside the chemistry lab. They’d drawn devil horns on my head and a red line across my throat, drops of blood dripping down the picture.

  Something in the background caught my eye, a reflection in one of the chem lab’s windows. I zoomed in. The reflection had caught someone taking a picture of me. But a glint of light blurred the picture too much. I couldn’t tell who it was. But I could read the message.

  Die bitch!

  22

  * * *

  ABI
/>   november

  Night was slowly falling around Mercer Island, the big-leaf maples lining the road barely visible against the inky sky as Anthony drove us to the Montgomerys’ house. I stared out the passenger-side window, silently quaking, terrified that Gavin would be there too.

  The last time I’d seen him, he told me he’d kill me and my baby if anybody found out about us. I knew it wasn’t an idle threat.

  The summer I met Gavin, he was interning in Senator George Winters’s office, dating the boss’s daughter. Obviously he didn’t want Winters finding out about us, so our relationship was clandestine. Usually we met for a quickie on the beach or in the back of his car.

  I fell in love with him hard and fast, but only in hindsight did I realize that to him I was just a bit of illicit sex on the side. The kind that men with a superiority complex engage in because they think they’re entitled to it.

  One evening, as the summer was drawing to a close, we were walking back to town from our secret spot on the beach. I saw the silhouette of a man coming toward us. The moon outlined him, revealing a narrow, wolfish, pockmarked face. I tripped on a ridge in the pavement, knocking into him just as he passed.

  “Watch it!” he cried.

  Gavin stopped walking and stared at the man, who was now hurrying away. Something slid over his face then, something like calculation. “Wait here,” he said, his voice hard and cold.

  He crossed the road and was quickly swallowed up by the weighted darkness and the whispering pines along the beach. Time ticked by at an excruciating pace.

  Finally Gavin reappeared, but his hair was mussed, his blazer crumpled, something dark—dirt?—on his pants.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He walked quickly toward town.

  I hurried after him. “What’s going on?” A giant pulse inside my chest beat hot, then cold with fear. “Did he hurt you?”

  Gavin’s eyes glistened in the yellow glow of a streetlight. “Of course not. I just had a talk with him.”

  “Why? Who—?”

  “Shut up!” Gavin whirled to me, his face a menacing mask. “Stop with your incessant questions!”

  I let it go then because, honestly, I didn’t want to know the truth. I loved him. I didn’t want to see anything negative in him.

  The next day I saw on the news that a man accusing George Winters of misconduct was in the hospital after a “robbery” gone wrong. A quick snap of his face showed a bloodied, misshapen nose and deep bruising around his neck, as if somebody had tried to strangle him. A few days later, the man withdrew the lawsuit. At the end of the summer, Gavin was given a permanent position in Winters’s office and quickly rocketed through the political establishment.

  That was when I knew Gavin was capable of doing just about anything for his career. So when he threatened to kill my baby and me, I knew, unequivocally, he meant it.

  I loosened the scarf around my neck as Anthony buzzed the intercom at a set of ornate black iron gates. Fear was an invisible rope tightening around my throat.

  Anthony asked for Kendall, and a minute later the gates rolled open. We drove along an expansive driveway that fringed a palatial, three-story limestone house. Giant windows, a wrought-iron patio, and an elaborately designed stone chimney decorated the façade.

  To the left, the driveway swept to a four-car garage. In front of us, a set of stairs led to two oversize arches framing a solid oak door.

  Kendall met us at the door, and I knew her instantly. She bore such a striking resemblance to Olivia it took my breath away. But then our eyes met, and I could see immediately she was nothing like my daughter. Olivia was gentle and innocent. She was all soft edges and sweet smiles. This girl was hard and worldly. Insolence hung about her like a cloud of fruit flies around day-old watermelon.

  Kendall wore a crisply starched, white-collared shirt topped with a navy blazer she’d pushed up to the elbows. Tight black leggings rolled down to knee-high brown boots.

  “You’re Olivia’s mom,” Kendall said softly. The sneer had dropped from her face.

  I nodded, my tongue stuck fast in my mouth.

  “I was really sorry to hear about Olivia.”

  I dipped my head. “Thanks. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  She lifted her shoulders and flicked her expensive streaky bob behind her ear. “Whatevs. Come in.”

  We followed her into the foyer, a high-ceilinged affair with large, blurry Impressionist paintings of flowers, then down a long hallway to an elegant living room. A colossal stone fireplace stood at one end, accented by two cream leather couches. On the other side of the room was an antique wooden table holding a bowl of fresh flowers and an impressive floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelf.

  Kendall sat on one of the couches while Anthony and I sat on the other.

  “You already know I’m Abi,” I said. “This is Anthony. He works for the Seattle Police Department.” I was careful not to say what he did for the SPD. It was only partly a lie.

  Kendall settled back against the cream of the sofa and crossed her ankles. “What did you want to know?”

  “Well, how did you meet Olivia?”

  “It was totally random, actually.” She laughed, a polished, bell-like laugh, and reached up to twirl a diamond earring in her right ear. Her fingernails were painted black. “Our high schools were both at a college tour in April. We saw each other, and obviously we look a lot alike, so we got to talking.”

  “About what?” Anthony asked.

  She pursed her lips, like she was trying to think. “She said she was from Portage Point, and I told her that’s where my mom’s from too. And that was it, really. Later we became Facebook friends and started hanging. She told me she thought my dad might be her dad and she wanted to meet.”

  “And did you?” Anthony asked.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, she seemed cool and all, so I wanted to help.”

  “Where’d you meet?”

  “At her house.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “She told me her aunt said you had, um . . .” She glanced at me and cleared her throat. “. . . an affair with my dad and she thought he was her dad too. I told her she should come here and meet him, but I doubted if he’d admit anything.” Her face turned nasty, an ugly sneer marring her delicate features. “It’s an election year, and he wouldn’t want anything to ruin that.

  “There was one weird thing,” she continued. “She got this really creepy text. It was totally effed up.”

  “What did it say?” I asked.

  “It said”—she hesitated briefly—“it said, ‘Die bitch!’ ”

  My brain struggled to sweep through the cobwebs of information. So Kendall had been there when Olivia received one of the texts. I opened my mouth to ask if Olivia had any idea who’d sent it, but a loud shout cut me off.

  “Kendall!” The angry voice was deep and masculine, coming from right outside the living room door. “Kendall, whose car is that? I told you no press right now!”

  I jumped up, heart slamming in my chest at the familiar voice. Gavin. Fear, metallic as a penny, vibrated against my tongue. A tight ball lodged in my throat, and the room felt suddenly airless.

  Anthony stood and touched my arm. His presence brought me comfort, but my fears were deeper than simply physical. I was scared of what I’d find out.

  “In here, Dad,” Kendall called. She leaned back against the couch and crossed her ankles, showing off her knee-high boots.

  “What are you up to, Kendall?” Gavin’s face was creased with irritation as he entered the room, but as soon as he saw us a charming smile smoothed his handsome features.

  Just like when we were younger, Gavin’s presence filled the room. He was, if possible, even more handsome now. The years melted away as he recognized me. His face momentarily dropped in shock.

  Dressed in a navy-blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a blue pin-striped tie, he had just enough silver at his temples to look distinguished. His broad shoulders
and confident frame gave off an aura that said “trust me.” His square jaw indicated strength and power.

  He looked every bit the power player I’d met all those years ago. It was no wonder Washington State voters were beguiled by him. You just looked at him and felt compelled to follow.

  “Abi?” he said, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

  I flinched at the sound of my name, but kept my face blank.

  He kissed me on the cheek in greeting. He smelled expensive, faintly of citrus, like Acqua di Parma. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”

  “Hello, Gavin.” My mouth felt full of cotton. I tried to keep my voice even, but I heard it: I sounded pathetic and weak.

  Kendall watched her father, her head tilted to one side—and, my God, she had a smile on her lips. She was enjoying his discomfort.

  “So you know Abigail Knight, Dad?”

  Gavin turned to Kendall, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “Abi and I were . . . friends . . . a long time ago.”

  “And this is Anthony, with the Seattle Police Department,” Kendall said, her eyebrows raised in a mocking gesture. “They’re here to talk to us about Olivia Knight. You know the tragic accident that happened last month in Portage Point? It’s been all over the news. Abi is Olivia’s mom.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Gavin said immediately. He blew his mouth out and tilted his chin down in a calculated conveyance of sympathy. He looked like a blowfish with neck pain. “I’m not sure how we can help. We didn’t know your daughter.”

  “Actually, Kendall did know Olivia. We were just discussing how they met,” Anthony said.

  Gavin’s smile dropped just a hair. “Oh.” He arranged the smile back on his face, as easily as if he were draping clothes on a clothesline. “Is my daughter being questioned?” He crossed to Kendall and put a hand on her shoulder. Jesus. They looked so much alike—so much like Olivia. All of them with their blond hair and forest-green eyes, their sharp Slavic cheekbones, and the slightly off-center cleft in their chins.

  “No, not at all.” The laid-back smile didn’t match the steel in Anthony’s eyes.