She nodded at Carol-Ann, then jerked her head toward the door. ‘Please come with me.’
I followed her down the hallway past the kitchen to a characterless room painted a cold gray. There were no pictures on the walls, no decorations, nothing except a window to the hallway with half-closed blinds and a table like the kind you’d find in a cafeteria with a handful of folding chairs around it.
I pulled Olivia’s phone out of my purse, set it on the table with a loud thunk, then glared at her as she sat down.
‘You didn’t take Olivia’s phone.’
Samson crossed one leg over her knee and studied me for a long minute. ‘Didn’t Detective McNally ask you for it?’
‘No.’ I started to shake my head, then stopped. I couldn’t actually remember. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We are pursuing a number of leads, Miss Knight.’
I gritted my teeth, knowing that was code for We haven’t found anything.
‘Olivia’s boyfriend, Tyler, he lied to me. He told me they didn’t see each other after she left the barbecue, but there’s a text here.’ I clicked into the text thread and handed the phone to her. ‘See? She says she’s going back to the barbecue. She would’ve met him at eleven thirty. And . . .’ I dug in my purse for the threatening pictures I’d printed from Olivia’s iCloud account and laid them on the table. ‘Somebody sent her these.’
Samson scrolled through the phone for a moment, then picked up the pictures, her face a cold, hard mask. She studied them for a long moment. ‘Were these on her phone?’
I shook my head. ‘No, they were in her iCloud account, which was synced with her phone. They must’ve been deleted from her phone.’
‘Any idea who sent these?’
‘No. None at all.’
Samson leaned forward and handed me her notebook and a pen. ‘Can you write down her log-in details for me?’
I did, then started to ask if she believed me now, but a knock at the door interrupted me. McNally’s head poked in, his flabby jowls stretched into what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He looked as exhausted and unkempt as usual, but this time there was something else I hadn’t noticed before: an unmistakable edge of animosity.
‘If I could just borrow Detective Samson for a minute.’
Samson carefully folded the printed pages and slipped them into her blazer pocket, along with Olivia’s phone and her notebook. The door closed with a sharp snap behind her.
I sat on one of the metal chairs and watched them through the slats of the cheap metal blinds. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. McNally was speaking forcefully to Samson. He looked angry. Samson gestured with both hands, more animated than normal. She lifted Olivia’s phone, but he shook his head and batted it away. Samson glanced at me, gave me a small tight smile, but something tilted inside of me when I saw it. I felt a sense of foreboding. Of time running out.
And right then I knew, with a dark certainty, that if I left it to them, I would never know the truth about what had happened to Olivia.
I’d spent my whole life hiding, just existing behind the walls I’d built around myself. I never got the answers I needed when my mother died. I was powerless to stop my mom killing herself. Powerless to make Olivia’s father choose me. Powerless to stop my daughter from – the pain of reality hit me in the stomach.
But I couldn’t afford to feel that way now. Self-pity was fine when you were ten, but in a few months I’d have Olivia’s baby to take care of. Wallowing was an indulgence I didn’t have. I needed answers now.
What do you do when you know something and nobody will listen? When you need answers and nobody will provide them? When you can’t trust anybody to help you?
I stood at a crossroads, half aware that my choice now would send me down a path from which there would be no turning back. The decision wasn’t a hard one. I didn’t want to be powerless anymore. I wanted answers.
I slammed the interview room door open, and Samson and McNally turned to me, eyes wide with surprise.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said, a crazed fury surging through my body. Rage had hijacked the rational part of my brain, the part that never stood up to people, that sat back while others told me what to do. ‘I know something’s wrong. And you both know it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to find out what happened to my daughter.’
OLIVIA
may
‘D’you guys wanna go to Java Café?’ Madison raised her voice to be heard over the racket of teenagers spilling into the hall. With its exposed brick walls and mismatched array of cushy couches, Java Café was our usual hangout.
It was one of the first really hot days of the year and everybody was either going there or heading for the beach. ‘I’m dying for a smoothie.’ She slammed her locker door next to mine and faced Tyler and me.
‘Can’t. It’s “Dad’s night with me.”’ Tyler air-quoted, his words laced with sarcasm. His parents had announced their divorce just a few weeks ago, and he already had to split his time between them. He didn’t talk about it much, but I could tell he was super pissed. I was trying to be nice. Honestly. But he was so grumpy I mostly just stayed away from him.
‘Umm . . .’ I thought fast, scrambling for a believable lie. Derek was taking me to Seattle after school so we could look up Kendall, who still hadn’t responded to my Facebook friend request.
Since I’d met Kendall a few weeks ago, I’d spent a ridiculous amount of time Googling her. I felt kinda stalkerish. She played tennis for her private Catholic school, was on the debate team, volunteered in the community.
Half of her pictures showed her with an older man – her dad, I presumed – but the weird thing was, I recognized him. At first I couldn’t figure out how I knew him. It was only when Derek saw his picture that he reminded me he was Gavin Montgomery, our state senator.
Duh! An election was coming up in a few months. His billboards were posted all over the place; his political ads ran constantly on TV. And then a thought had crashed into me: if I looked like Kendall and this Gavin guy was her dad, maybe he was my dad too.
Then I totally started tripping. Maybe my dad wasn’t dead. Maybe he was happily living in Seattle with his other family.
So I’d decided to talk to Kendall and see if I could find out anything else.
‘Ugh, I have to get an hour of swim practice in and then study for a math test. I can’t even.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Plus I promised Mom I’d fill out some applications for volunteering tonight.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Volunteering’s such a waste of time!’
‘Mom says it’ll help me get into college or whatever.’ I defended her half-heartedly, but made a face. ‘Anyway, if it makes my mom happy –’
‘–it’ll keep her off your back.’
I laughed. ‘Exactly.’
It was a weird thing we’d started doing lately. Madison would make fun of some stupid rule my mom had, and I’d say at least it kept her off my back.
Madison and my mom had never really gotten along. It wasn’t like they fought, exactly. My mom was way too nice for that. She was a worrier, overprotective, but she wasn’t a hater. But Madison was always throwing shade.
I shut my locker and gave Tyler a quick peck on the cheek. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Outside the sun was splitting the sky, cheerful