The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,39

Detective Rigby was on her way.

TRANSCRIPT—WPBC CHANNEL 9

OCTOBER 19, 2000, 7:17 P.M.

We interrupt the scheduled programming with some breaking news. Arden Maynor, the little girl who was swept away during a storm in Widow Hills, Kentucky, has been found. We repeat, Arden Maynor has been located.

Early reports indicate that she is alive but trapped. After nearly three days of searching, a cheer erupted outside the volunteer headquarters.

We’re trying to get to the scene, and as soon as we do, we will bring you right there. Until then, stay tuned.

CHAPTER 11

Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

BENNETT LET DETECTIVE RIGBY inside. He introduced himself, shaking her hand.

Her gaze slid from Bennett to me, sitting on the couch, leg elevated on the coffee table. “I’m glad you’ve got people checking in on you, Olivia,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” I said, and it was true. It was a terrible thing that had happened, but terrible things happened everywhere—I saw them come in every day at work.

My friends had come to help. It didn’t have to be how it was in the past.

She sat in the armchair beside the couch, and Bennett took our empty glasses to the kitchen, giving us the illusion of privacy.

“Did you take my advice and write down your memories of yesterday evening? I’d like to revisit a few points.”

I shook my head. “No, sorry, the medicine made me fall asleep pretty much as soon as we got back. I just got up.” I gestured to my wet hair as evidence.

“May I, then?” she asked, motioning to the notebook on her lap, the folder underneath.

“Sure.”

“I want to start here. I was wondering, did you run to Mr. Aimes’s house because you saw him awake in the house somehow?”

I blinked twice, trying to find my bearings. This was a trait I generally liked in people, when they were no-nonsense, straight to the point—telling me what they wanted of me, so there was no confusion. But I felt caught on my heels, and I was careful not to say something before I’d had a second to think things through.

“No, it was just instinct.” I hoped she didn’t ask why. It was the same question I’d been asking myself. Why there instead of my own home, where my phone had been left behind? Whether I thought there was still something out there; whether the thing I feared was myself.

“And what was he doing when you arrived?” she asked.

I couldn’t remember. There were parts that stood out in my mind: the phone, the body, the running, the bathroom, the gun. But there were already gaps forming, mundane details that I’d failed to hold on to.

Anyway, she was asking the wrong questions, focusing on the wrong element. I’d been prepared for questions about the sound I’d heard, the body I’d found. My own actions. Not about Rick.

I stopped talking, didn’t want to say something to incriminate him when he’d done so much to cover for me.

“Rick is a friend,” I said. “I went there because it’s where I felt safest.”

She continued staring, clicked her pen once. “Walk me through what he did after you arrived.”

I closed my eyes, trying to see. “He went to check outside. I don’t know. I was in the bathroom.”

“He checked before calling 911. Any reason why?”

Yes: for me. To make sure we knew what he was calling in.

“Neither of us thought to call 911. I wasn’t thinking at all. It’s not like we’ve dealt with dead bodies before.”

“That’s not entirely true,” she said, her calm face belying the subtle accusation.

“I work in hospital administration. I don’t deal with patients,” I snapped back.

I heard dishes in the sink, and her eyes cut to the side before sliding back my way. “You know about Mr. Aimes’s wife, right?”

“I know she died, that he lives all alone.” Had he seen her body back then, too? Had he needed to call it in himself? Had she taken her last breath at their home and not at the hospital?

“Do you know how his wife died?”

I shook my head, not wanting to say: I never asked. I didn’t want to pry. Neither of us dug too far in the other’s life, and it was there that I found comfort and safety.

She took a slow breath, dropped her voice. “I was just a kid. A senior in high school. Gunshot.” She punctuated the word with her hand, thumb and pointer finger in the shape of a gun. “One of those guns he keeps in his house. I’m sure you’ve