But the detective was more focused on the fragments that still remained, just like Nathan had been, from a story twenty years earlier. Hung up on the details that didn’t quite fit.

  “Here’s where I keep getting stuck, Olivia. You said the phone woke you that night,” she said. “That’s how you found the body.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t like how she was circling back, just as she had done that very first day, focusing on the specifics.

  “It was a call from a burner phone. Can’t trace those.” She repositioned her hands on the steering wheel.

  “Nathan,” I said.

  “You think he called his father’s phone so someone would find the body?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. It made sense to me, those conflicted feelings about a parent you’d lost contact with. The guilt that could haunt you after. Maybe he thought, hopelessly, that his father could still be saved.

  “I know he said they weren’t close, but there were several calls from Nathan to his father in the weeks prior.”

  I nodded, encouraging her. Nathan had told me that he’d gone to his father, who had refused to help. That must’ve been when Sean decided to do something—to come here and warn me. And Nathan must’ve found out somehow.

  She turned onto the main road, eyes narrowed, gaze out the window. “He thinks the story isn’t true,” she said. “About what happened twenty years ago.”

  So he was talking. He was telling his side, trying to shake everything loose. The story, threatening to unravel. “I know,” I said. “But does it matter?”

  He had killed over it, been driven by this singular focus. He had confessed to me that he had blackmailed my mother because of it—but I couldn’t tell the detective that part. Not without exposing all the rest.

  But maybe she knew. She must’ve seen those letters in Nathan’s hotel room, and she knew he had been after us for something.

  Your mother sure did pay up, Nathan had said. His words echoing. My mother had thought she was being contacted by Sean Coleman, the man who rescued me, and she had paid him off. Something I’d have to come face-to-face with. Except I’d thought Nathan was leading me down a path, manipulating me, until I couldn’t see another possibility.

  His words about the 911 calls, my mother, the injury. The underground cellar, the cinder-block walls. I shook the image. He could’ve been lying. Playing me.

  My mother could’ve paid because she knew that the words, and the implication, were enough on their own to damage us both. He was creating chaos with the story even now.

  But the fact remained that I was prone to sleepwalking. It was true now, so it must’ve been true then.

  “Well, we’ll get there eventually,” she said. “Like I said, these things take time.” But I wondered how much experience she had with cases like this in a small county. Whether the loose threads would gnaw at her, as they did Nathan, driving her to some other belief. Whether I would ever be free of this.

  “I’m just glad,” she said, “that someone saw him following you there and could sense it wasn’t right.” The sign for the hospital came up, and she took the exit, the same route I took to work every day. “You know that call was anonymous?”

  “The officers there mentioned it,” I said. Something surprising and not. The town of Widow Hills, protecting its people. Knowing who belonged and who didn’t. It would be almost supernatural, if not for the realization that people there had come to value their privacy.

  But I had a feeling that maybe it was Emma Lyons—that she’d known where I was going, and had someone watching me, keeping me safe, a true guardian angel. Maybe she was more worried about Nathan than she let on. I’d have to ask her one day, when this was all behind us.

  “You can drop me here,” I said, gesturing to the pull-through entrance in front of the ER. I didn’t want the detective to get any ideas about accompanying me into the hospital again, accumulating information when I wasn’t paying attention.

  She parked the car, put a hand on my arm before I turned away. “Have the medical report sent to me, okay? We’ll get it to the folks in Widow Hills. I assume you can find yourself a ride home?”

  “Yes,” I said, opening the passenger door.

  She tipped her head as I slid out of the seat, and I smiled back. I hoped it was the last time I’d see her.

  * * *

  I ASKED FOR SYDNEY Britton directly, grateful to hear that she’d just come on shift.

  It took longer, without the police escort, to be called back, or maybe it was because I was waiting for Dr. Britton specifically. I had my shoulder x-rayed and generally examined before being sent to the semi-private area to wait once more.

  Sydney Britton stood in the curtained entrance, glasses on top of her head, mouth a straight line. “We need to stop meeting like this,” she said. And then she slipped the X-ray into the slot against the wall, placed her hands on her hips. “I heard what happened. You all right?”

  She looked back once, and I nodded. She did the same, and that was enough.

  “No break,” she said. “No dislocation.” She turned back to where I sat on the exam table, tried to maneuver my arm, but stopped as I hissed in air. “Some ligament damage. There’s a lot of scar tissue as it is.”

  I looked over at the X-ray, wondering what she could see. “Can you tell what happened when I was a kid?” I asked. This was why I’d asked for her. To ask without being documented. To know: What had happened to me twenty years earlier?

  She moved my arm in another direction, gently, getting the full range of motion. “Not really. Twenty years is a long time, Liv. Your bone is much different now from when you were a kid, still growing. There’s only so much I can tell from an X-ray now—only the places the damage remains. Time covers the rest.”

  And so I might never know.

  She stepped back. “Rest and anti-inflammatories are what I’d suggest for now. But you know, there are things you can do about that. Things that could help.” She pointed to the X-ray. “It can take time, but I’ve seen people make good progress with physical therapy alone.”

  My mom had stopped taking me to my follow-up appointments. And I’d been afraid to visit doctors; afraid of what they might see. I hopped off the table. “Maybe,” I said.

  * * *

  I WAS WAITING FOR Bennett outside the hospital entrance. I’d asked if he had time to swing by to pick me up and take me home before he headed in to work, partly because I wanted to see him again, partly because I knew he’d hear about this anyway, and I wanted it to be from me.

  “What’s the prognosis?” he asked. He moved his messenger bag to the back seat as I let myself into his car.

  “A sprain.” I had the X-rays and documentation tucked under my arm to send to Detective Rigby and the Widow Hills Police Department. “Just have to take it easy.”

  “Well,” he said, “I’m glad you called me.”

  As if on cue, his cell started ringing from his bag in the back. I twisted around to be able to reach it with my right arm. “It’s fine, leave it,” Bennett said, “probably just work.”

  But I was already unzipping his bag.

  “Liv, stop—”

  The phone was in my hand—yes, it was work. I didn’t answer it. Because I had just understood the urgency in Bennett’s voice. The thing he didn’t want me to see. My name on a form tucked away under his phone. I pulled the paper out, and his hands tightened on the wheel.

  I wished he would look at me so I would know what this meant.

  “It’s not important,” he said as I was reading the heading. “Liv, I was bringing it out of the hospital. I was going to get rid—”

  “What the hell is this?” I asked, trying to process the pieces. It was a hospital incident report. One of the things Bennett was in charge of, reporting infractions up the chain of command.

  But this had my name on it.

  It had a list of infractions: unauthorized access to medicine room; unauthorized access to patient room—

  It had the signature of the person who had reported it: one Erin Mills.

  And it had Bennett’s signature and date beside it.

  “What the fuck, Bennett?”

  “I was going to get rid of it,” he repeated, which sounded wholly unlike Bennett. “Look, someone reported you. Unauthorized access to medicine room. Unauthorized access to patient rooms. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t do anything with it, I swear.”

  Someone had been watching me. Noticed what I’d been doing. I’d thought only Bennett knew. The name, though. I had never even met her. “Who the hell is Erin Mills?”

  “She’s a nurse in the ER, hangs out in our lounge a bunch. Older than us. She was friends with Elyse.” I remembered the name now. The person who lived next door to Elyse, in 121. “She was supposed to fill in for us and then quit. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter. She quit now. So no one’s gonna know. I’m the only one. I didn’t escalate it. It’s in my bag, I’m taking it home. I’ll get rid of it there.”

  The opposite of how I’d disposed of the box cutter.

  My hand was shaking, though. Because someone else knew I’d been inside the medicine room. And someone else knew I’d been in a patient room—did she know about the box cutter? If she had reported me to Bennett, would she have reported the rest to the police?

  I could remember only one nurse in the lounge the day I’d sneaked into the medicine room. That curly auburn hair, facing away. I hadn’t known her; hadn’t thought she knew who I was, either. Now I was worried about what else she had seen. What else she knew.

  “Liv, please. Say something.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He moved his lower jaw, and I thought I probably already knew the answer. Because he hadn’t decided what to do with it. And now the decision had been made easier for him.

  “You had a lot going on,” he said. “A lot to deal with already. I thought I was helping.”

  We pulled onto my road, but I was still working through this piece of information. Bennett had caught me in the medicine room; he’d heard everything the detective said that first day; he knew about Dr. Cal; he’d been through the things in my house while I was unconscious; he’d convinced me not to search harder for Elyse.

  “Take it,” he said, looking straight at me before turning in to my driveway. “Take the paper and destroy it. There’s no copy.”

  He’d also given me the information for a lawyer; he’d also shown up any time I called. At some point, I had to choose to trust him and the things he told me. “Okay,” I said.

  He parked the car behind my own in the driveway, looking to the house. “Can I come in for a sec?” he asked. “Make sure everything’s okay?”

  I understood what he meant: make sure we’re okay.

  Bennett would be leaving for work. The detective was gone. I thought of Elyse all alone at the campgrounds. What might happen to any of us with no one around and no one noticing when something was wrong.

  “Yeah, come on in,” I said. “How long do you have?”

  He checked his phone and grimaced. “Not long.”

  He followed me up the steps, followed me as I unlocked the front door, dropping the X-rays on the entryway table, walking straight into the kitchen.

  I caught him yawning when I turned around. “You need a break,” I said. We all did after this. I thought of Dr. Cal’s suggestions: to take care of myself, make sure I was getting rest and putting myself first.

  “I do, and I’m planning on it,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve got so much vacation accrued, it’s ridiculous. I’m really bad at taking breaks.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said, smiling.

  “Well, I’m going to take some time off. Starting this weekend. So, I’ll be around.” He grinned. We stood there in my kitchen in silence.

  “Can I help with anything before I go?” he asked.

  I took down a glass from the cabinet with my right arm. “You can open the bottle of wine in the fridge,” I said. I hadn’t had any since I’d finished the last bottle, the night after the bar, the night I’d found Sean Coleman. And I wanted to get back to my routine. Relax, watch TV, fall asleep, wake up tomorrow for a fresh start.

  He took the fresh bottle from the inside of the fridge door. Unscrewed the top. Held the bottle to my outstretched glass, poured more than I’d typically give myself.

  His mouth twitched. “I don’t know how you drink this extra-sweet screw-top wine, Liv. Seriously.” He took a step closer, and I raised my glass. I didn’t know everything about him still, and it set my pulse thrumming.

  “Dare you,” I said, holding out my glass.

  “I have work.” But he took a tiny sip, indulging me. His nose crinkled up, tongue out to the side. “I mean, seriously. It’s really bad.” I laughed, and he grinned. “I really do have to go.”

  “Go, then,” I said. “Leave me to my wine and television.”

  I saw him out, standing on the front porch, watching his headlights disappearing, dusk settling in. Nothing but the crickets, the fireflies. Darkness at Rick’s house. The single light from down the hall in the kitchen, behind me. And I felt at home, and secure, and good.

  Back inside, I took the glass of wine into the living room, settling on the couch. I turned on the television, tipping the glass back.

  But I gagged at the first sip, coughing as it went down. Bennett was right, it was horrible. But not in the way I’d thought he meant.

  It had turned.

  But it was a new bottle—I hadn’t had any yet, had stopped my nightly routine when everything spun out of control. I didn’t think I’d opened it yet, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I went back to the kitchen, dumped the rest of the glass into the sink, then picked up the bottle on the counter. I couldn’t find any crack, any other way for the wine to turn bad.

  It had definitely been opened, though—and I didn’t think it was by me.

  My hand started shaking.

  Bennett had told me the drugs that had gone missing: opioids, yes; and benzodiazepines. I knew what those could do. They could act as sedatives to calm you. Some were used for anesthesia, to lower anxiety, so you wouldn’t recall the trauma of a medical procedure. I’d had an adverse reaction to one when I was younger.

  I sniffed the bottle, swirled the liquid, peering through the faintly tinted glass, wondering if this was just paranoia. I set it down carefully on the counter, took a step back, then stared out the window into the darkness.

  It was possible there was nothing in my wine at all, just a bad bottle, turned on its own. Except for the timing. Each night, starting when Rick had found me. A glass of wine, the fuzzy details of the entire night, waking up outside… the box cutter taken.

  Which meant that someone had been drugging me.

  Someone had been in here.

  Hand to my mouth, another step back, flipping through the possibilities:

  Elyse, who had shown up at the hospital so fast I wondered how she knew I’d been there… She had been here with me after, had access to the drugs. She’d been out at the bar that night, too.

  But so had Bennett. Bennett, who made me coffee at work. Who brought me juice, who gave me food. Bennett was in my office all the time. He could’ve taken my key, made a copy—

  Stop it. Not Bennett, not Bennett, it couldn’t be Bennett.

  He legitimately had not known who I was. I’d witnessed the betrayal he’d felt when he found out. Except all the questions started swirling: why he’d talked me out of looking for Elyse; why he’d had that paperwork in his car—

  When would I stop seeing the darkness in everyone, the terrible possibilities? Would I ever look and not see the darker intentions of people surfacing?

  It had to be Nathan. He could’ve bought the drugs from Elyse, he could’ve told her what to do. He could’ve been in here. He must’ve been, to take that box cutter. Maybe that was what he’d been doing in here all along.

  Except someone else had tried to frame me for taking the medicine. That was what that paperwork implied. The paperwork that Bennett had signed off on, that someone else had reported to him.

  Why me? What did she have against me?

  Maybe it hadn’t been Elyse but someone else, someone who understood that an investigation was going to kick off—and was running.

  Erin, who lived next door to Elyse in apartment 121, who hadn’t answered even when I’d sworn I’d heard movement inside.

  According to Bennett, she had been in our lounge, on our floor, across from the medicine room. Maybe I hadn’t seen the signs in Elyse because it hadn’t been her. Maybe Elyse knew and was chased—the chaos of her apartment, like she knew someone was coming for her.

  And now this woman was trying to blame it on me instead.

  I just had to look her up. Pass the information on to Detective Rigby—that bottle of wine could be proof, the last thing she needed to pin Nathan Coleman, and all of this would be over. If he’d been drugging me… it was so much worse than I’d thought. If this Erin Mills was involved, it was another angle we could take. Another person who could point the finger at Nathan Coleman.

  I’d been the only one to see the state of Elyse’s apartment. To believe that she was running from something, in a panic.

  Get away from me—the thing I’d been calling out in the night. Had it been Nathan Coleman? Someone else?

  I opened my work laptop. Searched for her name. The thumbnail photo from her badge, small and grainy, like they all were. Only the doctors had full bios and head shots. Everyone else had a small ID photo from their access badge, blurry when enlarged.

  I could tell she had long, curly auburn hair—yes, the woman who had been in the lounge that day, whom I’d seen from behind. But now I could finally see the rest of her: a thin face, large glasses that distorted her face’s dimensions. I leaned closer, trying to get her into focus, and something prickled. A twinge of familiarity. I might’ve seen her other times in the nurses’ lounge, maybe. Or in the cafeteria. Downstairs near the gift shop.