The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,87

information about the investigation. Things Detective Rigby had told him but not me. Details that could set me free.

I peered around the corner, could see Nathan sitting on the sofa through the crack in the door. I unwound the rubber band, gently opening the file.

The first thing I saw was that article from earlier today, the one he’d claimed he hadn’t seen—but must have recently printed out.

I turned it over, and I didn’t understand, my mind desperate to catch up.

It was a news transcript dated from twenty years earlier. From the day I went missing—the press conference, asking for the public’s assistance.

Behind that, more transcripts: witness interviews, weather reports, information on the drainage system. My hands kept shaking as I turned page after page. Transcripts from the live reports the day I was found, and the 911 calls made by my mother—and others. Articles from the ten-year anniversary. Letters marked Return to Sender, with a Lexington, Kentucky, postmark.

He had lied.

Nathan had known exactly who I was from the start.

“Olivia?” he called, and I dropped the papers on the suitcase. “You all right?”

“One sec!” I called back, running the water.

Then I fumbled for my phone, took photo after photo of everything in this stack. I didn’t understand why he had all of this, what it meant.

When I got to the envelopes, I looked inside, read the warnings, the threats. We had received so many after the ten-year anniversary—so many, we’d had to move. Had these bounced back after our move? They had been sent from Lexington, Kentucky. Wasn’t that where he and his mother had lived?

I had made a mistake. Nathan Coleman was not at all who I thought. Behind the letters, there was even more: articles, photos of my old house, a map of Widow Hills . . . like a long-running obsession.

There I was, a story in pieces, out of context, filed in chronological order.

What the hell was he doing with this?

I wondered then whether this was what Sean Coleman had been trying to warn me about with his letter: his son.

“Do you need something?” Nathan’s voice was closer, just outside the door.

I slammed the file shut, bound the rubber band around it all, and tucked it under his jacket again. I slid the closet door shut just as he pushed open the bedroom door.

“Olivia?”

“Sorry,” I said, rounding the corner. I knew my cheeks were flushed, and I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips. His eyes drifted to my neck, where he could probably see my racing pulse. “I should probably go, though.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, taking a step closer. “Did I say something? Because I want you to stay, Olivia.”

There was one way out of this room. Through the doorway behind Nathan Coleman.

Nobody knew I was here. I had trapped myself.

“I got a text,” I said, phone held awkwardly in my hand. “They need to talk to me.” I swallowed nothing. Held my breath.

“Who?” He shook his head. “You can hide out here,” he said, stepping in my path so that he stood directly between me and the exit.

My legs twitched with the need to run.

I tried to channel calm. Dissociate. I remembered that I had survived three days in the dark, underground. “If the detective finds me here, she won’t be happy.” Trying to remind him that Detective Rigby was invested, that she would be coming, that he couldn’t hurt me—not now. Not when others were looking for me, too.

He smiled then. “You’re not just using me for information, are you?” Something in my face must’ve cracked, because he put a hand on my cheek. “I’m kidding.” He ran his thumb along my jawline, and my skin broke out in goose bumps. It took everything within me not to flinch. Then he dropped his hand and stepped aside so I could get to the door.

Three steps to the living room before I took a breath. Six steps to the exit. I turned the lock, begging my body not to give me away.

“See you soon,” he said as I gripped the handle.

“Bye, Nathan,” I said without looking over my shoulder.

IT TOOK ME THREE tries to buckle my seat belt, my hands were shaking so much, my eyes constantly flicking back to the hotel entrance. But Nathan hadn’t followed me out.

I called Rick as I backed out of the lot.

“Everything okay?” he asked as soon as he answered.

I had told him we should keep our distance. Detective Rigby had warned me not to share intel with