The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,49

our lives.

When we moved to Ohio and I registered at the new school, I started going by my middle name. Some people knew, but few people cared. It was a thing my new classmates couldn’t really remember, either. By the time I enrolled in college, I’d made it official, changing my last name as well. Believing that the only way to escape was to become someone new.

By this point, Arden Maynor was as much a mystery to me as she was to anyone else.

Luckily, most of the original donated funds were tied up in a trust to be accessed for college. Though my mother bled through the money from her appearances and book advance, she couldn’t touch that. The fund paid for my education, including my master’s, and supported me while I was in school. And the fund financed a big chunk of this very house.

I didn’t know whether it was an act of supreme cruelty or bravery that I turned her down when the trust transferred to my possession. It was the last I saw of my mother, the last I heard of her. And I hated that this was the image that remained: that too-skinny person, fidgeting, biting the side of her thumb, looking nervously over her shoulder. Another possible version of me.

Maybe I did feel like I needed to earn it, for all the people who helped us.

I thought I had made good choices with the money: anonymity and a fresh start, and that wasn’t nothing.

But now that was in danger. I could see it coming, that slide, threatening to bring me back to the start.

I CALLED ELYSE. I had made a mistake in keeping this from Bennett. I might not have known her as well, or for as long, but she had made herself a part of my daily life; she had confided in me about her accident, what had brought her to this field. I had to be the one to share the news, not let her find out like Bennett had, tainted with the feeling of betrayal. I wanted her to understand, and to understand the need to keep it quiet.

I hoped Bennett hadn’t called her to warn her, in a sudden shifting of allegiance.

That was the problem with the start of any story. You had to get ahead of it.

Her phone kept ringing until voicemail picked up, with her trademark perky tone: You’ve reached Elyse! Leave a message! Every statement Elyse made seemed to be punctuated by an exclamation point, or a comma, or an ellipsis as she left her thoughts midsentence, drifting, waiting for you to pick them up and continue.

“Hey, it’s Liv. Please give me a call when you get a chance.”

I checked the time. I could catch her in person before she left the hospital if I hurried.

I HEARD SOMEONE COMING before I reached my car, and I gripped my keys in my hand—how I used to prepare myself in college, the first time away from home, the points jutting out between the fingers of my fist, like there was danger lurking around every potential corner.

People following, people watching and waiting until I was alone.

But when I spun, it was just Rick, hands in the air, fingers faintly trembling. “It’s me. It’s just me.” He didn’t move any closer. My eyes drifted to the yellow tape caught in the bushes between our yards.

“Sorry,” I said, lowering my hand.

“Well, I was just coming to catch up, to talk about . . . You’ve had company, and then I figured you were sleeping, so I didn’t want to call and wake you.”

He was watching for me, though. How easily could he see what went on here from his house? There were trees and bushes between us, but I could see the glow of a window when he was awake. Rick fidgeted on his feet. And I wasn’t sure whether the thing that was stressing him was the body in his yard or what the detective might’ve told me. What he might’ve done.

“I have to run out. Do you need anything?” I asked. I often brought him what he needed. Like he’d told Detective Rigby, we looked out for each other.

“No, Liv. I’m all set. I’m just worried about you. About what they were saying . . .”

I flinched. “What were they saying?”

He frowned. “That you needed stitches. That you’d gotten hurt. And I didn’t know, I didn’t ask you then . . .” His throat moved before he continued. “I didn’t ask