“I told him no fucking way was I going there. I wanted to go to an alternative school to study music, so you want to know what he did? He planted a bottle of oxy in my room and told my mom he’d caught me about to down the whole thing. So off I went to a mental hospital. D’ya see what I mean? He’s a fucking psycho.”
She flounced back against the seat, but she looked different now. Less the angry, defiant teenager and more like a victim. I knew what it felt like to be used as a pawn in Gavin’s game.
“I know what you’re saying, Kendall,” I said. “I do. And I know exactly what he’s capable of. But what does this have to do with why you followed Olivia? Nobody would blame you for being jealous.”
Kendall laughed, a harsh sound. “Don’t you get it? Yes, I was jealous, but not of her. I was jealous of him. For the first time in my life I had a sister, and she was on my side, not his. I didn’t want him getting in the way of that and I didn’t want them getting all chummy. I knew he’d turn Olivia against me the first chance he got. I wanted her to stay away from him so she would be mine, not his. He takes everything from me. I didn’t want him taking Olivia too!”
“Did you hurt Olivia?” I asked softly.
“No! Olivia was nice to me. I was sad when she got hurt. That’s why I’ve been calling you.”
“You’re the one who’s been calling?”
She looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hung up. I just . . . I wanted to talk about her, but I didn’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I wrapped my hands around my stomach, feeling the ache deep within. “Sometimes I want to talk about her too.”
We sat in silence for a long moment, staring out the car windows at a cluster of leaves that skittered across the pavement.
“Where was your dad the night Olivia fell?” I asked.
Kendall glanced at me, but her eyes slid quickly away. “I don’t know.”
Just then a loud revving sound came from behind us, and the gates clanked and opened. I twisted to look out the rear window and saw a silver Jag pull up behind us.
It was Gavin.
Kendall sat up straight. “It’s him,” she said.
And just like that, her eyes went flat and dead.
× × ×
Kendall and I scrambled out of her car. She came to stand next to me, and we huddled together like two guilty children.
Gavin stormed toward us, his shoes crunching on the gravel, his face like thunder.
“Abi, what are—Kendall, what’s going on?”
“Why are you home?” Kendall snapped. She hunched her shoulders, rubbing her hands over her bare arms.
“I forgot my briefcase,” he growled.
Fear braided my stomach, a shimmer of nausea rolling in me. The paranoid side of my brain screamed at me to run away. But then he met my eyes, and there it was stamped unmistakably across his face: fear.
He was scared of me.
I laughed out loud as relief pulsed through me, strengthening my limbs.
“I was just asking Kendall where you both were the night Olivia fell,” I said.
“What the—?” He threw his hands up, looking incredulous. “Are you stalking my daughter? You’re pathetic!”
My face flushed and I clenched my hands into tight fists.
“Where were you that night?” I repeated.
Gavin shook his head, as if he were dealing with a toddler. “We’re doing this, are we?” He turned to Kendall. “What were we doing that night, darling?”
Kendall glared at him, hatred radiating from her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what night it was.”
“The first Saturday of October,” I said.
“It’s not like I keep a diary of everything I do,” Kendall snapped. “I’m not eight anymore.”
“A diary.” Gavin slapped a free hand on one knee with a faux jolly air. “Excellent idea, darling.”
He pulled his phone out of his coat pocket and started scrolling. A breeze lifted his hair, and I noticed how thin it had gotten.
“Ahh. I remember.” He pointed at his phone and looked at Kendall. “We were at a rather spectacular campaign dinner at the Fairmont Hotel. Do you remember, darling?” Kendall looked at him as if he’d grown four heads. “Noah Harris. That executive from ComCore Tech. His company organized a dinner with the Republican Future Institute to raise funds for my campaign. His son took quite a shine to you, didn’t he?” He slipped his phone back into his coat pocket.
Harris. Was the name familiar? I racked my brain but came up blank. It was a common name.
“What time was that?” I asked.
“Seven o’clock. But we were there late into the night, weren’t we, sweetheart?” Gavin’s father-of-the-year display made me sick. It looked like it was making Kendall sick too. She’d turned a disturbing shade of white.
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
I could feel Kendall slipping away, and Gavin was about to call the cops. But somehow I knew Kendall wasn’t telling me everything. Gavin had disturbed her, made her flustered and uneasy.
Anger, hard as a pebble, swelled in my throat.
“Seven o’clock?” I exploded, whirling to face Kendall. “Please! You had plenty of time to go to dinner, then drive to Olivia. Was it you, Kendall? Did you push her off that bridge?”
Her head jerked up. “No! I told you—!”
Gavin took a step toward me. The air around us pulsed with tension, unspoken truths rattling through the decaying leaves.
“That’s it.” Gavin fumbled for his cell phone. “I’m calling my lawyer.”
“No!” Kendall bit the word off as if it were a foul-tasting piece of candy. “I’ll answer her.”
“Don’t say another word, Kendall.”
Kendall whirled on him, eyes blazing. “You’re such an asshole,” she hissed. “Pretending like you care about me. You don’t give a shit. Not about me. Not about Olivia. She was just a problem you needed to get rid of. I know you pushed her. You didn’t want anyone finding out you have a bastard daughter.”
She pinned me with her eyes, speaking fast so Gavin couldn’t stop her. “He left dinner early that night. Disappeared about nine o’clock.”
“That’s enough!” Gavin roared. Kendall’s eyes widened, and for the first time I saw her as a child, cowering in the face of his narcissistic bullying. “Get in your car and go to school! That’s an order, Kendall!”
Kendall’s eyes narrowed to glittering slits, but she didn’t argue. She threw herself in the direction of her car. A moment later, her tires squealed against the pavement as she raced away, leaving me alone with Gavin.
35
* * *
ABI
november
Gavin glared at me, furious, but after a minute, the strangest thing happened. His shoulders dropped, and he touched his fingers briefly to his forehead. He looked like he’d been leached of all vitality.
“Come inside, Abi,” he said, his voice resigned. “You can ask me anything you like, but not out here where people can see.”
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to be alone with Gavin. I knew what he was capable of. But a small piece of me was curious about this new Gavin. This wasn’t the blustering bully I remembered. And if he had some idea of what had happened to Olivia, I needed to know.
So I got in my car and followed him through the gates.
× × ×
Gavin led me into an impressive office tucked away at the back of the house. The furniture was dark masculine leather. An ornate mahogany desk with a green-shaded desk lamp was set in front of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He shut the door and peeled off his black knee-length wool coat, hanging it neatly on a hook on the back of the door before sitting in a plush leather chair behind the desk.
Seem like you’re okay. Don’t cry. Don’t puke, I told myself harshly. I could control my mind, but not my body—the anxiety made my limbs shaky and my head light. The pit of my stomach felt ice cold with fear.
/> “Have a seat,” he said.
I stayed standing. I wouldn’t let him have any power over me. Not anymore.
“What is it?” he asked. He leaned back in his leather seat and assessed me. “Do you want more money? Because let’s get one thing clear: that’s not happening. You stole my money last time and never even got that abortion. I should press charges against you for theft.” He shook his head in exasperation, as if he were talking to a naughty child. “You’re just lucky my wife’s out of the house today.”
The fear inside my belly caught fire and rose, white hot, until it rested on my tongue, pulsed in my neck. I walked to his desk and perched on the edge. I could tell it startled him, but he worked hard to cover it.
“So you did know Olivia,” I said.
“Yeah, I met her. In an extremely bizarre twist of fate, your daughter met my daughter and somehow they became pals. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together after that.”
“Were you sending Olivia death threats?”
He barked a short laugh. “Do you hear yourself? I’m a grown man, Abi. A politician, not some jealous stalker or jilted lover.”
“Did you push Olivia off that bridge, Gavin?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, his heavy brow folding into a V over his nose. “Why would I do something like that? Especially right before an election!”
“To get rid of her. Obviously. You wouldn’t want your wife, or your voters, to know about your illegitimate daughter.”
He threw his hands up in the air. “Look, not that you’ll believe me or anything, but I didn’t hurt her. She seemed like a nice girl. I was sorry to hear about what happened.”
I pushed myself off the desk and slowly edged closer to him.
“I want to know what happened to my daughter. And I think you know. Don’t forget, Gavin, I know you. I know what you’re capable of, what you’ll do for your own gain.” I leaned in, the intensity of my glare nuclear as I fixed it on his forest-green eyes, so much like Olivia’s.
“I don’t think . . .” He was calculating his next move, how to win this situation. But I had the upper hand now.
An intoxicating rush of power swept over me. How delicious it felt to turn the tables on him. The shy, insecure Abi he used to know was gone. I wasn’t powerless like I used to be.
“You’ve made it so the detectives are doing fuck-all about her case,” I hissed. “What I don’t know is why. I think you pushed her, afraid she’d tell everybody you’re her father. And now you’ve gotten Anthony in trouble for helping me look into it. Do you know what that makes you look like, Gavin?” I bent down so we were nose-to-nose. “Guilty!”
I straightened up and pulled the letter Kendall had given me out of my purse, smoothed it against my chest, and held it out to him.
“Shall I tell you what it says?” I asked. “It’s from Seattle DNA Testing Services.” I tapped my finger against my chin and quoted: “ ‘Based on the DNA analysis, the alleged father’—that’s you, Gavin—‘cannot be excluded as the biological father of the child Olivia Knight, because they share the same genetic markers. Probability percentage: 99.9942 percent.’ ”
Gavin snatched the paper out of my hand and tore it into pieces, his jaw set, the cleft in his chin more prominent than ever.
I laughed, a hard, dry sound. “I have copies upon copies of this document, including one in a safe deposit box, so if anything happens to me, all this information gets sent to the media. Oh, and speaking of the media, you’d better find a way to get Anthony out of trouble with the Seattle police chief or I’ll make sure they get a copy of this.”
He stared at me, jaw hinging open. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You don’t want to do this, Abi.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I do want to do this.”
Gavin lifted hollow eyes to mine. The skin on his cheeks looked pale under his tan, and I could see a vein in his temple pulsing.
“I hear she’s getting excellent care,” he said quietly. “They’ve flown in a specialist to make sure she and the baby have the very best medical attention. It would be a shame to lose all of that.”
My stomach turned oily, and I gasped. “What are you—how do you—?”
“Who do you think”—he leaned forward—“is paying for her care?”
The anonymous donor.
I closed my eyes, feeling as if my brain were liquefying.
“But . . . wh—?”
“I couldn’t let anybody know she was mine, but that doesn’t mean I hurt her. In fact, I was going to set up a trust fund for her, but then I saw what had happened in the news. I wanted to do something to help.”
“You told me not to get in the way. You said you would kill us.”
“Come on, Abi. I was young, just breaking into politics. I didn’t want you ruining my career. Not then and not now. I can’t have anybody find out she’s my daughter. But I’m not a monster. If you give that paper to the media, I won’t pay for Olivia’s care.”
I stared at him. For someone who saw herself as observant, detail-oriented, analytical, I’d been awfully stupid. I was such a fool. I’d thought I could beat him. But once again he had me. Check and mate.
I had to do what was right for Olivia and the baby. And I couldn’t provide it on my own.
The agony of knowing that I would never learn the truth about what had happened to Olivia was like a kick to the stomach. I had to get away.
I turned and moved to leave, unable to speak.
Gavin’s face flashed a look of smug triumph. He’d won and he knew it.
The loss was awful, a disorientating, panicky feeling sweeping over me in harsh waves.
Gavin stopped me when my hand touched the doorknob.
“Did you never stop to ask yourself why somebody from the Seattle Police Department would be working on a case in Portage Point?”
I turned around slowly.
“What?”
“Anthony Bryant. Why is he helping you? It isn’t in his jurisdiction.”
“My sister—she asked him to help me. As a favor,” I stammered. “He’s being nice.”
“Don’t be stupid, Abi,” he said, his mouth twisting in incredulity. “Nobody’s nice for no reason.”
× × ×
The sky had changed while I was inside. Dark clouds were heavy with rain, and wind sent flurries of damp leaves scuttling along the ground in angry little whirls. I shut Gavin’s front door and dialed Sarah’s number as I walked toward my car.
“Sarah,” I said when she answered. “When you called Anthony and asked him to help me, did he ever say anything about jurisdiction? Or were you just asking him to help me as a personal favor?”
“Wait, hold on, I can’t hear you,” Sarah said. The sound of children’s laughter came through the phone. A second later it went quiet.
“Sorry,” she said, sounding breathless. “I’m about to talk to someone about getting Dylan tested for dyslexia. What’s up with Anthony?”
I started to repeat my question, but she cut me off.
“Wait, Abi. I never called Anthony.”
I froze, stunned. Rain started falling then, droplets soaking into my hair, so cold they stung my head. I thought back to our conversation in the hospital.
I know people at the Seattle Police Department through work. I’ll call around.
She’d never actually told me she’d called anybody. I’d just assumed it.
“But—but, why? Why would he help me then?” My voice trembled.
“I don’t know, Abi. I honestly don’t. To be honest, I thought it was a bit of a coincidence he was assigned to you and I’d worked with him before. But it’s Seattle. It isn’t like it’s a massive city. The police department and the psychologists work really closely. It wouldn’t be unheard of for that to happen.”
“He wasn’t assigned to me. He told me that from the beginning. He said . . .” I thought about th
e first time we spoke, his initial confusion when I said Sarah’s name. We’d quickly segued into the missing information on the police report, so I hadn’t pressed him for clarification.
I pounded my hand against my forehead. I’d been blinded by my desire to know what had happened to Olivia, who was responsible. I’d only heard what I wanted to hear.
“I thought he said he would help as a favor to you.”
“No, I never talked to him at all.” Sarah sounded worried. “Why are you asking this? Is everything okay?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t know,” I said. “But if you didn’t ask him to help me, who did?”
36
* * *
OLIVIA
september
I jumped off the school bus and glared angrily at the mustard-yellow rear, black exhaust belching from it as it chugged away. I’d gotten my license more than a month ago, but I still didn’t have a car. I was the only seventeen-year-old in my class who had to take the bus. It was mortifying. Sometimes it seemed like I’d get one step closer to a sliver of independence, only to have it swiped away from me.
I was sure Mom had planned it that way. “Sure, you can get your license,” she’d said, when really she was secretly scrubbing her hands together in glee. She’d let me win a tiny battle knowing she’d won the larger war.
I kicked a clot of dirt, then turned up the driveway to my house. The air was cool and cloudy, a warning that fall was on the way.
I sighed as I unlocked the door, letting myself into the quiet house. It wasn’t not having a car that was upsetting me. The small, rectangular box buried at the bottom of my book bag felt like it had been burning a hole there for the past three days.
I threw my bag on the couch and rifled through the mess of loose papers and books. I had to stop putting it off.
The Night Olivia Fell Page 23