Page 29 of The Girl from Widow Hills
CHAPTER 9
Saturday, 7:30 a.m.
ELYSE TYPICALLY BRIGHTENED Aroom or a mood. But there was no helping the situation of my house. It was the crime tape we could see to the left when we pulled up my drive. The voices carrying across the yard as she helped me up the steps, one leg awkwardly following behind, stiff from the stitches. And it was something else when we stepped inside, a scent I couldn’t place—not quite sweat but something that made me imagine a person. A whiff of product. A reminder that a detective had been in here with me, looking around.
I wondered if anyone else had been in while I was away. If Rick had let them in using the key I’d given him. There were probably guidelines against that, but these were all people who knew one another, with a shared history that meant more than protocol. Rick had even introduced the detective as Nina.
The lights had all been left on from the night before, but the house suddenly felt like a stranger. A creak in the hall where I didn’t remember one. An empty nail hole in the wall over the kitchen table. A tear in the window screen over the sink.
Elyse stood beside me, unfolding the directions that came with the prescription. “You’re supposed to take this one with food.” She placed the page faceup on the table. “Sit tight, I’ll get some breakfast going.”
I picked up the paper, reading over the details as Elyse took a carton of eggs from the fridge. I read the description of the medicine to myself, then bit back a laugh.
“You okay over there?”
A sleeping aid. The prescription was for a pain reliever that was also used, at times, as a sleeping aid. “Just realizing how much easier it is to get a prescription for something on the surface. The cut wasn’t even that bad, really.” I shook the amber bottle, tipped a pill into my hand, took it with a sip of water from the sink.
“I think it’s also about how you got it, Liv.”
I plopped down in the chair at the kitchen table, resting my leg on the spare one to keep it straight and elevated, per Dr. Britton’s written suggestions. Elyse cracked an egg over a bowl, then reached for another.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?” I asked.
She froze, the yolk running. “In this hospital?” she asked, staring at the bowl. She shook her head. “I don’t work in the ER, so I don’t see the worst of it, you know? Some of the other nurses, they talk, though. They see a lot more . . .” She was staring out the window with the torn screen, but her eyes seemed unfocused. “Anyway, it’s best to leave that at work. It’s really the only way.”
“I know, I just, with the texts you mentioned sharing, I thought maybe it helped to talk about it . . .”
“My job . . . it’s not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, really, but I need to shut it off at the end of the day.”
“I get it,” I said. I thought of Sydney and the bottle of wine, the promise ofLaw & Orderreruns waiting for her at home. Me with my glass of wine. We all had our routines.
Elyse crossed to the fridge, pulled out the milk and butter, kept talking as she moved around in my kitchen. “I was in a really bad car accident when I was seventeen. So much of my memory of the recovery was just . . . pain. The nurses kept me sane, kept me positive and focused. They’re who I remember, those same faces, day after day. I just wanted to be one of those people.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, my voice softer. I was always surprised by the things I didn’t know about other people, like I was the only one with an unknown past. I’d never been good with sharing, nervous about the past creeping in, giving too much of myself away—so people rarely shared in response. It had kept me guarded, closed off.
I wanted to tell her something now, to cross that divide. Something about last night that I didn’t have to keep hidden—
She stepped back from the stove abruptly, eyes fixed straight ahead. “Liv, someone’s out there.”
I stood, the chair scratching against the floor. “The police?”
“Definitely not. Some old guy in flannel.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart rate slowing. “It’s just my neighbor, Rick.” Elyse must’ve heard me talk about him in the past, but they’d never met.
I opened the back door, Elyse just over my shoulder. Rick was walking through the trees just beyond the edge of the yard, but he didn’t seem like he was heading this way. There wasn’t any place else he could be going, really, not without his truck.
“Rick?” I called.
He changed direction, ambling toward me, and when he came closer, he was normal Rick, in his flannel and work boots—a comforting sight, even now. “Glad to see you’re back home. I had to get out and clear my head.” He peered over his shoulder, like he was checking for someone, then lowered his voice. “They said it’s fine if I come and go as long as I keep off the marked area, but every time I step out front, I feel like I’m being watched.”
I nodded. After my night with Detective Rigby, I understood. I had felt like every word and action was being filed away and assessed. I thought then of the gun under Rick’s sink. The electrical tape. The things he had hidden away. Also: the light on at his house, the bed that was still made when I showed up. All the things the police could’ve found or noticed.
But he had gone to check on the body. He had made sure my hands were clean before the detective showed up. I felt partially guilty—I was the one who had pulled Rick into the nightmare, who had gone straight to him instead of to the police.
“I just got home. This is my friend Elyse.”
“Hi there,” he said, taking one step back. “I see you’re in good hands, then. You just holler if you need anything.”
