“Birthplace of boredom and despair is more like it.” Olivia checked the time on her phone. “We should get going soon. We need to leave at a reasonable time tomorrow. I don’t want to show up to the wedding with a hungover date. According to my Aunt Sheri, it’s bad enough that I’m still single.”
“Marriage is overrated,” Nate said as he finished off his beer. “Trust me on that. Camilla is the unlucky one in this scenario.”
“You are so bitter.” Olivia shook her head sadly. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe the problem wasn’t marriage in general? Maybe it was you.”
“According to my ex-wife, you’ve hit the nail on the head.” Candace had told Nate at least a hundred times that their failed marriage was his fault. It was enough to make the most confident man begin to question himself. But after a lot of soul searching, Nate had come to realize that while he had been part of the problem, two people had destroyed his marriage. It was only too typical that Candace was too stubborn and arrogant to accept any responsibility.
“Nate, you know I was kidding right?” Olivia put a gentle hand on his arm. “It wasn’t all your fault.”
“So, you’re saying maybe I am still the marrying kind?” Nate’s attempt at a joke was weak, but Olivia laughed anyway.
“I’m not saying I would marry you. But some desperately lonely woman in her mid-forties might say yes if you got her drunk before you asked her.”
Nate gave her his best wounded puppy look. “Thanks for your vote of confidence. Now let’s go back to your place so I can curl up on that couch of yours and get some shut eye.”
“Stop it. You know I can’t take it when you look at me like that.” Olivia threw some money on the table.
Nate widened his eyes at her, feigning innocence. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ugh. You know exactly what you are doing.” Olivia pushed back her chair. “Fine, you pathetic divorcé. I will let you sleep in the bed tonight.”
Nate grinned in triumph as he followed Olivia to the door. “It’s the least you could do, really. Considering I’ve only been staying at your place to protect you from a serial killer.”
“Stop being so smug.” Olivia stopped and wagged a finger at him. “And you will stay on your side of the bed or I will use your gun against you.”
“You’re all talk, you big softie.” Nate planted a wet kiss on Olivia’s cheek and threw an arm over her shoulder. “We both know you can’t get enough of me. And now you’re begging me to sleep in your bed. It was only a matter of time.”
“I revoke my invitation.” Olivia slipped away from him. “In fact, you can sleep on the floor for all I care.”
“Too late. I already accepted.” Nate stepped out into the street to hail a cab. As he opened the door for Olivia, he said, “You should know, I sleep in the nude.”
Olivia glared at him. “Try it. I dare you.”
Nate really didn’t want to sleep on the couch again so he kept his boxers on when he slid under Olivia’s sheets. “Don’t try anything funny, Thompson,” he said with a loud yawn.
“In your dreams.” Olivia punched her pillow, likely wishing it was Nate’s face. “If you start snoring, I’m kicking you out.”
“It might behoove you to remember I keep my gun on the nightstand.” Nate turned over on his side, facing Olivia.
“I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that.” Olivia frowned at him in the dark. Her room was illuminated only by the faint glow of the streetlight peeking around the curtains. “This case is really bothering you, isn’t it?”
Nate was startled. He thought he was hiding it better than that. “She was just a young girl, Olivia. Just a young, pretty girl with her whole life ahead of her.”
“So was Rosie.” Olivia rolled onto her side and stared at Nate with unblinking eyes.
“She had just turned eighteen, right?” Nate had only heard the full story one time. Olivia had drank too much whiskey at a friend’s wedding seven years earlier and she had blurted out the story of Rosie’s murder over a line of shots and three slices of wedding cake.
“Her birthday was a week earlier.” Olivia turned back to the ceiling. “It was a Friday night. Our parents were out for the night visiting with friends, and Rosie was supposed to be watching me, but she had other plans. She told me she was meeting up with someone when she left me at the house.”
“And what time was that?” Nate hoped that something about Rosie’s last night might shed some light on Karen’s murder.
“Just after nine o’clock. Our parents called to check in right at nine, and she left immediately after that.” Olivia closed her eyes as she remembered. “It was cold out. She grabbed a jacket on her way out the door.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Nate closed his eyes, too, trying to picture what had happened to Olivia’s beautiful sister, Rosie, on that tragic night.
Olivia’s voice sounded so far away. “She told me not to wait up. And then she smiled one of her perfect Rosie smiles and that was it. She was gone.”
Nate had interviewed a lot of witness in his time as a detective. He’d also interrogated a lot of suspects. But right then, lying in Olivia’s bed and listening to her soft breathing, he had absolutely nothing left to say.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I can’t believe you’re stopping again. Ohio isn’t that far away, Nate.”
Letting Nate drive had been a bad decision. His typical restlessness and inability to focus kicked into overdrive once he got behind the wheel. They had already stopped twice- once for gas and once for Nate to use the bathroom- and they were only halfway to their destination. Olivia was growing impatient.
“The whole point of a road trip is to spend some time enjoying the journey.” Nate turned off the engine empathically. “Now get out of the car. We’re going to have a nice time, damn it.”
Olivia rolled her eyes but she got out of the car. Despite his cool guy good looks and tough attitude, at his core Nate was a total dork. That was partly why he and Olivia had remained such good friends over the years. So it shouldn’t have been a big surprise that he wanted to stop at an apple orchard on their way to Mercy.
“Sometimes I think you’re a seventy-year-old woman trapped in a man’s body.”
Nate scoffed. “Please. A seventy-year-old woman wouldn’t know what to do with this body.”
“If you weren’t the one driving, I would so leave you here.”
“No way. You would miss me too much.” Nate grinned and tossed an arm around Olivia’s shoulders. She pretended to be annoyed but they both knew Nate was right- Olivia liked having him around. By the time they entered the old barn converted into a charming storefront for apples and pumpkins, Olivia was wearing a reluctant smile.
“You need to be on your best behavior this weekend, Nathaniel.” Olivia had already warned Nate several times about not making inappropriate jokes or drinking too much in front of her family. He had only partly listened each time.
“Liv. Stop worrying. People love me.” Nate grabbed an apple and tossed it in the air, catching it effortlessly.
Olivia didn’t smile this time. “I mean it, Nate. No jokes about our relationship. No telling embarrassing stories about me. And absolutely do not go into the details of your job.”
“My job? Really? You’re pretty much eliminating every possible talking point.” Nate grabbed a free sample of apple cider and chugged it down. “What am I supposed to do when someone asks me what I do for a living?”
“You can tell them. Just keep out the details.” Olivia frowned at an overwhelming display of pumpkin flavored products. “They don’t need any reminders of Rosie’s death.”
Nate finally understood. “Ah. I see.”
“They don’t like to talk about her on a normal day, so I’m pretty sure they don’t want any murder stories dredging up painful memories at Camilla’s day of happily-ever-after.” Olivia cringed a little when she heard the anger in her voice.
Losing a loved one was never easy
on a family, but having them taken away by a murderer was devastating. Having the murder remain unsolved for fifteen years only prolonged the torture. Talking about Rosie was like pouring acid in an open wound.
“Fine. I’ll keep it nice and light. No bloody details.” Nate took Olivia’s hand and pulled her toward the bakery. “But first you have to buy me some pie.”
Olivia bought Nate a slice of pie and scanned the morning newspaper on the counter while she waited for her change. After reading the headline, she realized it was an older paper- nearly a week old. It also wasn’t a local paper, but Olivia recognized the type font of the Mercy News Daily. The headline screamed: “Murder.”
A murder in Chicago wasn’t exactly breaking news. In one weekend, it wasn’t uncommon for the city to have a dozen murders. But Karen Collins’ murder was special. She was a pretty, young, teenage girl with seemingly her whole life in front of her. The newspaper hadn’t hesitated to lay out the similarities with Rosie’s murder. Olivia felt her chest tighten as she read the article.
“Hello?” The cashier waved Olivia’s change in front of her face.
“Oh. Thanks.” She held up the newspaper. “Can I take this?”
The cashier shrugged. “Sure. Some customer left it here a few days ago and I keep forgetting to toss it out.”
Nate’s face lit up when Olivia placed his pie in front of him. “Eat up,” she advised.
“In case you were wondering, the way to man’s heart is definitely through his stomach.” He ate half the slice in one giant bite. “Candace was a terrible cook and she couldn’t bake a pie to save her life.”
“Mhmm.” Olivia didn’t hear a word Nate said.
“Earth to Olivia. Pay attention to me.” Nate finished his pie and shoved away the empty plate. “Alright, I’ll take the bait. What ya got there, Olivia?”
“The police never had a solid lead in Rosie’s case. No good suspect ever emerged.” Olivia held up the paper. “According to this article, there’s new evidence that might change that.”
Nate grabbed the paper and read quickly, his dark eyes flashing. “This journalist seems to have been doing some rogue detective work. It’s possible none of this is true.”
“But what if it is true, Nate?” Olivia thought about how it would feel to finally know who killed her sister. She wondered if solving the crime would let her sister find peace on the other side.
Nate said slowly, “Try not to get your hopes up, Liv. But if you want, I’ll dig into this.”
“I want.” Olivia didn’t have to think about it all. Bringing Rosie’s killer to justice was all she had ever wanted.
“Well, then.” Nate pushed his chair away from the table. “We better get back on the road.”
There were no more stops on the way to Mercy. The drive also lacked conversation as both Nate and Olivia were thinking about the murders. Olivia kept glancing at Nate, his jaw clenched and his knuckles white on the steering wheel. She knew that he had been following Rosie’s case over the years, making calls to the Mercy Police Department to get updates. He spent late nights pouring over the evidence from the case, which wasn’t much.
Olivia had never asked him to do any of those things. It was just Nate, being a good friend. But now Olivia had officially requested his help and she knew he wouldn’t rest until the case was solved. It was a selfish thing to ask of him, but she was desperate. With the murderer striking again so close, she no longer had the luxury of time.
The town of Mercy hadn’t changed much over the years. Olivia had only been back about a dozen times since moving away at 18 and she always expected it to look completely different from her memories. But that wasn’t the case. She recognized every street name and house, remembered the turns to get to her childhood home, and knew exactly what would be waiting for her behind the front door.
Rosie’s murder had shocked the small town. Parents had kept their kids close and looked at every stranger as a potential threat. But for Olivia’s family, it had been more than just a simple reminder that evil things happened, even in small towns. The murder had torn her family apart, and even after all these years, Olivia had never found a way to put it back together.
Nate was practically giddy as Olivia rang the familiar doorbell. He had a bizarre fascination with her past and that included her dysfunctional family. Just a year after Rosie’s murder, Olivia’s parents had separated. In the following years, neither of them had ever mustered enough courage to follow through with a divorce so they remained in a state of marital blisslessness.
Olivia had finished her high school years living with her father while her mother had moved to an apartment on the far end of town. She hadn’t been able to stay in their home with Rosie’s undisturbed bedroom reminding them of their loss. Her mother’s exodus had felt like a betrayal to Olivia and she had never fully been able to forgive her for not being strong enough to stay.
“Olivia.”
Mr. Thompson greeted his daughter with minimal enthusiasm. Since the murder, her dad had been walking around numbly, an empty shell that was shuffling through life against its will. Olivia hugged him stiffly, faintly remembering how she used to run into his arms as a child, her skinny arms and legs wrapping around his strong frame. Now he was older, frailer, and so was she.
“Hi, Dad.” She couldn’t look at him too closely.
He glanced over her shoulder, eyes weary. Nate stepped forward and offered his hand.
“Nathaniel Tucker, Sir.”
“Call me Ed.” A flicker of recognition passed over his face. “You’re the detective?”
Nate smiled, pleased that Olivia had mentioned him to her father. “That’s right.”
Ed sighed. “I suppose we had to meet eventually. Come on inside.”
Nate looked at Olivia, eyebrows raised, but she ignored him and moved inside. To appease her father’s worries about her living in the city as a single woman, she often talked about Nate’s presence in her life. It was possible that her father had interpreted their relationship as something more than just a close friendship. Bringing Nate home for her cousin’s wedding wasn’t likely to change that interpretation.
“You should take your stuff on upstairs. I won’t inquire into sleeping arrangements as my heart is already susceptible to failure.” Ed pointed to the stairs. “I’ve been sleeping in the guest room down here these days so you’ll have the second floor to yourselves.”
Olivia didn’t ask why her father chose to sleep in the drafty, musty guest room rather than the master bedroom. She suspected that he had grown tired of walking past his children’s’ empty rooms on a daily basis, stark reminders of a time when the house had been full of laughter and life.
She pointed Nate to her brother’s old room. Brian, six years younger than Olivia, still lived in Mercy with his wife, Taylor, and their two kids. Olivia usually saw them a couple of times each year when they brought the kids to the city for extended weekend visits. She loved her niece and nephew more than anything, but sometimes seeing her brother surrounded by his family reminded her that she was completely alone. Unless you counted Rosie’s ghost.
Olivia’s childhood room remained untouched- a shrine to the teenage Olivia that had hung posters on the walls and tucked photos into the corners of the dresser mirror. Standing in that room, Olivia was instantly transported back to a simpler time.
She was fourteen and awkward, all limbs and bony joints. A boy had sent her a note in class, asking her if she would be his girlfriend. It was Olivia’s first crush and she couldn’t stop grinning, bouncing around with excitement. As she danced around her bedroom, Rosie stuck her head through the partially opened door.
“You’re grinning like a goof,” Rosie teased, her smile infectious. “Who’s the boy?”
“Ben Briarson,” Olivia replied, not bothering to try to hide it from her sister. Rosie was too good at guessing exactly what Olivia was thinking. “He asked me to be his girlfriend.”
Rosie entered the room completely and leaned a
gainst the doorframe. “You like him?”
Olivia nodded.
“Then I’m happy for you.” Rosie suddenly looked very serious. “Just promise me you will protect your heart, Olivia. You can never count on a guy to keep it safe for you.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Olivia teased with a laugh. Rosie didn’t return it.
“You should listen to me, little sis. I won’t always be here to give you advice.”
Olivia rolled her eyes, certain that her big sister was just trying to sound wise and mature. Rosie was always acting like she knew more than Olivia, imparting words of wisdom and making bold declarations. Next autumn, the elder Thompson sister would head off to college and Olivia knew that she would miss Rosie, even if she was a bit of a know-it-all.
“Stop being so fatalistic, Rose. You have decades to boss me around.”
Rosie would be dead in less than a month.
“Your brother has a serious porn collection under his mattress,” Nate informed Olivia happily, interrupting her blast from the past.
“I guess we know how you’ll be occupying your time later this evening.” Olivia’s mind was still returning slowly to the present. Immediately after the murder, she had spent hours lost in flashbacks of Rosie. This was the first one she’d experienced in months. “I think Brian also kept an impressive baseball card collection in his room, too.”
“Sex and baseball. Two of my favorite pastimes.” Nate grinned wickedly.
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Remember, no sex jokes in front of my father. He has guns, and he’s not afraid to use them.”
“You worry too much. Parents love me.”
It was true- everyone loved Nate. That was part of the problem. Olivia hadn’t seen most her family in over a decade, and she would no doubt be awkward and impersonal around them. Nate would win them over in seconds, his charming personality further exacerbating Olivia’s hard and cold demeanor.
“Try not to be too Nate this weekend, okay?”
“What does that mean?” Nate pretended to be offended. “If I didn’t know that you love me, my feelings would be hurt.”
Ring Around the Rosie (An Olivia Thompson Mystery Book 1) Page 3