occurred while she was enrolled in a previous school, so we can’t speak directly to the nature of the infraction. Though my hope is to provide some potential context.
Olivia recently turned eighteen and legally changed her name. Before that, her legal name was Arden Olivia Maynor.
Attached please find an article from the year 2000 (you may well remember the Widow Hills case yourself). There was a flurry of new press last year surrounding the ten-year anniversary (second article attached, from 2010). It’s my understanding that her family had to leave town over some form of harassment. They came to us at the start of this school year.
I’m writing in confidence, as she has never spoken of these things directly. This information was provided by her mother. Her mother mentioned an incident at the previous school, related to PTSD from her childhood ordeal, and asked us to keep watch for any troubling behavior. All I can say is, since attending our school, Olivia has been nothing but a model student.
When I first received her transcript last year, I knew right away who she was. I remembered that case. I remembered watching. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a miracle she’s here at all—a few minor infractions notwithstanding.
Regards,
Thomas Woods
Norfolk County Schools, Ohio
Director of Counseling
cc: Norfolk County Office, copy for file
CHAPTER 15
Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
THE DAY’S ADRENALINE WAS wearing off, and I stood in the kitchen toying with the prescription bottle of pills made out in my name, weighing which was the bigger concern: what I might do while sleeping; or being unable to wake in a true emergency.
There was a killer out there. Someone who had been within sight of my house. Who had been so close, while I was sleeping.
Bennett had said I’d slept like the dead. When I’d woken, hours after taking the pill, I hadn’t moved an inch. But if the smoke detector went off, if someone broke in . . . would I be able to regain consciousness? Would I be able to run or fight?
I slid the vial beside the microwave and got to work installing the hook-and-eye latch.
I found a power screwdriver in my office, in one of my plastic bins of batteries, nails, and random tools. I checked each bin, just in case—no box cutter. I carried the stepstool from the kitchen and installed the hook-and-eye latch on my bedroom door, fully out of reach. To unhook it in the night, I’d need to pull the ladder from the closet, climb the steps, reach my hand up. So many extra steps, like I was trying to outsmart my subconscious.
There was always the window in case of emergency—if I couldn’t get the door open in time. No screen to slow me down. A drop onto patchy grass and packed dirt, a farther fall than from the living room window in the front, due to the sloping ground and the crawl space. But not far enough to hurt me.
The sound of the screwdriver must’ve blocked out the signs of the car approaching, or the footsteps on my porch, because I’d just dragged the ladder back into the closet when the doorbell rang. My heart was in my throat as I walked quietly into the living room, trying not to make a sound—though of course my car was out front; it was obvious I was home.
I peered around the living room curtain, caught sight of a car I didn’t recognize.
I couldn’t see an unfamiliar car or hear a phone ring anymore without remembering how it used to be. The press tried the friendly approach first, hoping for a quote or a photo, but got increasingly invasive. At the least: The person inside did not answer the door—with an accompanying picture of my property.
I remained perfectly still, tallying the layers of protection and options. Phone in my back pocket, with Detective Rigby’s number programmed; screwdriver in my hand; back door; windows.
The person on the porch took a step back, now in view of the living room window. I could see only his profile, but it was the man from earlier. Nathan Coleman.
I opened the door just as he turned away, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hi, sorry,” I called to his back. Apparently, I was only capable of apologizing to him.
He shifted slowly, and in the twilight, he looked like a different person. Now that his glasses were off, I could see the hollows around his eyes, like his father’s. The lack of sleep, or the grief. What he’d