Page 79 of The Girl from Widow Hills
Inside, the bed was made, and the bathroom was tucked around the corner, past the closet. There was no mess to speak of, other than the towels hanging from the shower rod and a toiletry case on the sink counter. The sink and vanity were just outside the bathroom, across from the double sliding mirrored closet doors.
I splashed water on my face, then looked for a face towel. The only ones I could see were currently hanging over the shower rod in the bathroom. I used my sleeve to dry the excess water, then turned to the closet behind me, where I’d usually find extra blankets and towels in hotel rooms everywhere.
Sliding one of the doors aside, I immediately found the towels, stacked on a high shelf. None of Nathan’s clothes were hung up yet. I found this quirk endearing; you could tell a lot about someone by the state of their things kept out of sight.
His suitcase was propped open on a stand instead. He wasn’t kidding about staying for a while—there appeared to be enough clothes to last more than a week. His laptop was in a case on the left, on top of a stack of folded shirts. His leather jacket lay on top of the other half of the suitcase. I ran my hand over it, wondering whether I could know enough about a person after a handful of days to trust him with the things I had told him.
My gut said yes. He was someone who could understand. But the events of the last few days had me disoriented, not sure whether I could trust even myself, let alone others. That article had sent me reeling—someone at my job had talked. Who else would be giving a statement in the coming days?
I was sure Bennett had looked around my house while organizing, and now I wasn’t sure what he’d been searching for. Elyse might’ve, too—someone had gone through my closet, after all. I could see her finding that bracelet and sliding it onto her wrist, not knowing what it meant to me, before Bennett showed up.
I picked up the leather coat, brought it to my face: I loved the scent. It reminded me of the first time I saw him, with his sunglasses on, standing beside Detective Rigby outside my house.
Underneath the jacket, there was a manila folder, a file of papers bound up inside a rubber band. My hands started to shake. I wondered if this was 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 markedReturn 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.
