The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,94

the same thing I did ten years ago and ignore it. There’s nothing to corroborate it, so it doesn’t matter.”

I closed my eyes. “I remember,” I said, and I felt everything in the room stop moving. “Not all of it. But I remember the cold and the dark. I can’t stand enclosed places.”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “And you survived it. So let’s let this go. There’s no good that comes of it now.”

“Except,” I said, “Sean Coleman is dead.”

She frowned, and I could see all the questions rising to the surface.

“He died outside my house. And with everything you told me, it sounds like some people might think I have a pretty good motive.”

She stepped closer, so close I could smell the vodka on her breath. “Oh, honey, don’t you see? If this is really what it’s about, we all have a motive.” Her cold hands at my elbows, fingers pressing tight. “And if it comes out, we will all fall down.”

VOICEMAIL TRANSCRIPTS

AUGUST 27, 2020

NATHAN COLEMAN

9:13 A.M.

I feel we left things in a weird place. Driving by your place and would love to talk. I don’t see your car. Are you at work?

BENNETT SHAW

10:03 A.M.

Hey, listen, I heard what happened with work. Really shitty, seriously. If you need a place to crash and hide out from all this, I’m here. I mean it. I’ve been a crappy friend, Liv. I was upset you never told me. But I get it. I really do, and I don’t care what they’re saying. Okay? Call me back so I know you’re okay either way. I’m at work, but I’ve got my phone on me. I know. Don’t tell.

MACKENZIE SHAW

10:45 A.M.

Hi, Olivia, Mackenzie Shaw returning your call. Sorry, just got your message. This is my cell, please call back as soon as possible.

CALVIN ROYCE

10:59 A.M.

Olivia, this is Cal Royce. You missed our appointment today. I had a call from a detective and she’s coming in later. Please get back to me.

NATHAN COLEMAN

11:23 A.M.

I know you saw. I know you know. Let me explain. It’s not what you think.

CHAPTER 24

Thursday, 4:30 p.m.

THE SIGN FOR WIDOW Hills came up abruptly, before I was ready for it—so unassuming at the edge of the road, blending in with the woods.

I had to drive another mile, the road slanting upward into a crest, before I saw them: the peaks of the three mountains in the distance, huddling together in a cloud of gray mist.

My stomach dropped like I was at the top of a ride, about to tumble over. The anticipation before the fall; the fear before the scream.

As the roads started veering off from the main thoroughfare, I tried to orient myself. Tried to see the little-girl version of me. But it was all imagination and conjecture. There was nothing instinctive about the sloping road into town. I hadn’t been here since I was seven, and nothing looked familiar.

It had been too long, even, to feel a vague familiarity with the town itself. Even the mountains themselves in the distance, the very landmark that gave Widow Hills its name, I didn’t know whether I remembered it myself or if I was just remembering a photo, a story.

I remembered newspaper photos and interviews replayed. I remembered that pale yellow house with the gingerbread trim, a photograph of my mother in front of it. The humidity of the hallway; the screen door slamming shut.

More than this place, I remembered the after.

The hook-and-eye latch; the medicine; the hot chocolate. The doctors and my mother beside the bed. I remember the operations, the pain, the exercises. The looks.

Before, there was darkness.

Before, there were only the stories—the things people told me and the things I’d read. Sometimes I felt I was nothing more than a character brought to life by my mother’s book. A girl who came into this world kicking and screaming. A girl whose mother knew, before her eyes had even shot open, that her daughter was gone. A girl whose mother believed she would survive it.

She had called us both survivors.

As I turned onto the street where I’d once lived, I wondered—would I remember when I saw it? Was it possible to unearth a memory from twenty years earlier, to find out what had been worth killing for decades later?

All the documents Nathan Coleman had been accruing on me flashed in my mind. The interviews, the 911 calls, the excerpts from my mother’s book that he found relevant for some reason. Like he’d spent so much time dedicated