Page 93 of The Girl from Widow Hills
I SAW MY CARthrough the trees, Nathan’s parked directly behind it. There was a police cruiser parked behind Nathan’s car. And another pulled up just as we arrived.
I wanted to feel relief, like I’d escaped something. But I could only see Nathan, hear his words in the woods, feel his conviction in his story.
And all the while, even as they questioned him and searched through his car, he kept staring at me—like he was merely choosing not to break free of their grip on him. As if he was only doing me the favor of not taking me down with him.
I sat in the passenger seat of my car, legs out the door, and couldn’t hear what any of them were saying until Nathan raised his voice. “Tell them, Arden. Tell them the truth.”
The newest officer on the scene stepped in front of me, squatted down so he was on my level. “Arden?” he asked.
“Olivia,” I said.
He nodded, held out a hand. “All right, Olivia. Come with me and tell us what happened.”
IT WAS LATE BYthe time they let me go, taking my statement, contacting Detective Rigby. Dusk was settling, and they offered a nearby motel. But I just wanted to get moving.
They knew who I was at the station, of course: The girl from their town. The mechanism that had put them on the map.
The officers were my age or a little older, had grown up with their own claim to the story. Their parents had searched. Their aunts and uncles had been interviewed. Their neighbors had drawn search grids. Their schools had lent lights and equipment.
They’d told the stories that only they knew, passed down from the generation before.
It was a rite of passage during high school to trek out in the night to that grate beside the plaque, find your way in the dark, make your own stories, and leave them there. Fade to black.
They remembered the name Sean Coleman. They did not remember his son.
“I’M COMING HOME,” Itold Detective Rigby on the phone, desperate to get as far away from Nathan Coleman, and all that had happened here, as possible.
“I’ll meet you there as soon as you get back,” she said. “I’ll send a cruiser by your place in the meantime, just to be safe. Okay?”
I hoped that would at least scare off any of the remaining attention around my place. But the danger had followed me here.
It was time to get the past contained again, keep it where it belonged—underground, in the dark. There was no good that could come of it now.
Everyone claimed to know things here.
I knew she was gone before I woke.The first line of my mother’s book.
The words seemed flat now. Deadened; wrong.
Of course she knew. She knew, because she had done it.
TRANSCRIPT OF 911 CALL FOR SERVICE
DATE: AUGUST 27, 2020
TIME STAMP: 6:17 P.M.
DISPATCH:911. What’s your emergency?
CALLER, UNKNOWN FEMALE:I’m on Devereaux Lane in Widow Hills, and I just saw a man follow a woman into the woods.
D:Can I get your name and location, please?
C:Devereaux Lane, about halfway down, you’ll see the spot. There are two cars. The woman’s was here first, and he just pulled in and took something from the bottom of her car.
D:What did he take?
C:I don’t know. He followed her in. I wonder if he was tracking her car.
D:Is it a hiking trail?
C:It’s a trail but . . . Listen, that man is going to hurt her. Sometimes you just know things.
D:Okay, we’ll have an officer swing by to check it out.
C:No, not to swing by. Hurry, goddammit.
