The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,13

took a sip of Bennett’s coffee, dark and bitter. “This is terrible. Are you sure it isn’t a punishment?”

He took the cup from my hand, removed the lid, took a sip himself before wincing. “Okay, so, the coffeemaker in the lounge was empty, and I don’t actually know how to make it.”

“You’re going to start a revolt. People have quit over less.”

Just a few months ago, a bleary-eyed woman I barely knew had come into my office and quit out of nowhere. When I asked why, she said, It’s the scent, like something’s burning. But no one else seems to notice.

I’d asked her to show me. Hospital safety fell under my jurisdiction, after all.

No, no. At Mapleview.

The same apartment complex I’d once lived in myself. As soon as she said it, a whiff of a memory—singed plastic; the burned remnants in a toaster—and then it was gone.

I got it. There was always something about the apartment buildings that felt slightly off. Luxury amenities but sterile and void of personality. Everything was temporary there.

The Mapleview apartments were occupied mostly by nurses and doctors testing out the location, so everyone was respectful of the long working hours, the round-the-clock shifts. We’d grown accustomed to speaking in whispers. To catching doors with our feet before they slammed shut behind us. To standing too close when we spoke.

Working in health care consulting meant we were acutely aware that the state of our health and survival depended on the ability of the care providers to rest between shifts.

But the silence, and the constant schedule changes, they did something to our circadian rhythm. Some people adapted, and some didn’t.

Can’t you try a different building? I’d asked.

But she’d simply frowned like it was all too late. I gave it a shot, she’d said. But it’s time to go back. Looking around my office like she could sense it even there. Waiting for it to reemerge. Like a thought that had taken over everything else, impossible to escape.

All for the best, really. Elyse had been her replacement.

But it reminded me that all of us were really only one degree from the start of a slide. Something that worms its way inside and refuses to release you. A simple thing at first, that you can’t ignore and can’t shake. Until it permeates everything. Until you can think only in terms of this one simple thing—its presence or its absence—driving you slowly mad.

TRANSCRIPT FROM LIVE REPORT WITH GARY SIMON, CHANNEL 9 METEOROLOGIST, COOKE COUNTY

OCTOBER 18, 2000

What we had here was a perfect combination of factors.

The ground has been saturated from the record-breaking rainfall in September. The ground is like a sponge, to an extent. But at some point, it just won’t absorb any more.

Monday night into the early hours of Tuesday, we had a very slow-moving storm, and the system just sat on top of us for hours. We had more than two inches of rain come down between two and four a.m. It doesn’t sound like much, but six inches of rushing water can lift a car. How much do you think it would take for a small child?

CHAPTER 5

Friday, 5:30 p.m.

DR. CAL’S RECEPTIONIST LEFT a message that he would stick around after hours to fit me in. This was after she’d first tried to schedule me in two weeks’ time and I’d told her it was urgent. The magic word, especially from a colleague at the hospital.

By the time I left my office, the administrative wing was as empty as it had been when I’d arrived that morning.

Dr. Cal’s office was two floors up, on the fifth floor, and I took the stairs. The hallway lights were off. Only a strip of light filtered from under one doorway—the rest of the offices appeared closed up for the day.

I knocked before turning the handle, poked my head in. The receptionist was in the process of gathering up her things, eyes on the clock behind her.

She spun at my entrance. “Oh,” she said, hand to heart. “Olivia?” Her red lips pulled into a practiced smile. “We’ve been waiting for you. Go on in, he’s expecting you.” Her purse was already packed, sitting on top of the desk, a pair of heels sticking out.

“Thanks for squeezing me in,” I said, heading toward the door.

Dr. Cal was facing away when I pushed the door to his office open, though I assumed he’d heard us chatting—there wasn’t much distance between us.

But maybe I was wrong. Because he turned around with an expression that