Page 78 of The Girl from Widow Hills
“Mm,” Nathan said, settling back into the stiff cushions. “My dad had a drinking problem when I was younger. I didn’t notice until it reached a boiling point and my mom left with me. I think some people are just better at hiding it.”
Maybe that was why I’d come here. Because each time I spoke to him, I felt a little lighter, alleviated of some guilt. Like I was unloading a secret.
“My mom hates to see me drink. I’m twenty-nine and can’t have a beer when she’s over. I told her I’m not trying to hide anything, isn’t that the point?” He fought back a smile. “My youngest brother is gonna give her hell, I can tell.”
“Good he has you, then,” I said.
“They moved away a few years back. I don’t see them as much as I’d like anymore. I set up my business where I live, though. Not so easy to remake your life again.”
“No, I know.” I hated the feeling that I was being pushed to start over again somehow. If I even managed to make it through this. My gaze kept drifting back to the television, on instinct. Wondering whether the news would catch up to me.
“I can turn this off if you want,” he said. “I don’t want your friend’s death to upset you any more than it already has.”
I shook my head. “It won’t be in the news, even, I bet.” Overdoses were unfortunately all too common. It touched every area, rural and urban alike. “Meanwhile, there’s this article about me. Maybe you’ve already seen it.”
He shook his head once, sharply.
I took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not true. People I know were quoted in it. The things they said, God.”
“Did they accuse you?”
I could read between the lines what they were implying. Maybe he didn’t know the case well enough. Maybe, unlike Bennett, he hadn’t done a Google search the second after I’d left yesterday. Maybe he didn’t put much stock in the way stories were spun.
I wrinkled my nose. “Not exactly. The article just said I was a person of interest.”
“Well, you’re not the only person of interest. Maybe just the most interesting one.” He gave me half a smile, then tapped his finger against the side of the bottle a few times. “My father’s phone, it got a few calls that night. He didn’t respond. But they were from a burner phone. They can’t trace it.”
My back straightened. This.Thiswas why I’d come to him. Because it felt like we were on the same side. That we could uncover the truth together, from different angles. I felt myself pulling closer.
“Was there a message?” I asked.
“Nope, nothing.”
I shivered. I’d heard those calls coming through as I stood over Sean Coleman’s body. The ringing of the phone waking me. Someone had been calling him just as I’d found him. It was probably what had dragged me back to consciousness.
“Do you . . . When you first got here, did you ever think it was me?” I asked. Other people must have. Detective Rigby, even Rick. Maybe that was why Nathan told me things, to judge my reaction.
He took another drink, resettled into the cushions, buying time.
“Well, I’m looking at you, at your arms, your neck, and I don’t see how it could be.” I felt his gaze on me as he spoke. “I can’t imagine my dad went down without any sort of fight. Not someone his size compared to your size, unless you snuck up on him—and it seems like he was the one sneaking around. What I’m saying is, based on logic, I don’t think so. You don’t strike me as the type.”
I nodded, though I was thinking:Not unless I felt trapped, cornered.Then, subconsciously, and truthfully, I couldn’t say for sure what type of person I’d become.
His fingers brushed my hair, pushing it back—I wasn’t sure how he could be this close and still be sitting on the other side of the couch. “No,” he said, “I don’t think it was you.”
It was the logic that I hoped others saw as well. I looked back at him, thinking I was fortunate to have him here now. “I can’t believe, after all the press, I didn’t know Sean Coleman had a son. I never heard . . .” I trailed off, because I hadn’t gone searching. The stories had always come to me, whether I wanted them or not.
“It wasn’t the same for us as it was for you,” he said.
“I wish I’d met you sooner.” It would’ve been nice to connect to someone tangentially attached to the story. Who understood, like I did, how you could become a list of facts, a new persona crafted from public information. One that felt both familiar and unknowable—but one that others would view you as, all the same.
Sitting beside him now, I wanted to get lost in something, to forget, to have him tell me what he wanted from me and what to expect in return. His hand was in my hair, and I started to lean in to him, then stopped. Even now I was second-guessing myself. My motives, my intentions. I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to prove something to myself and others: that if Nathan Coleman believed me, and liked me, then it could not have been me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Can I just—have a minute? I need to wash my face or something. I feel like I’m a mess right now.”
“You’re not,” he said with a sad smile. But he dropped his hand from the side of my face. “Bathroom’s through there. Please excuse the mess.” He pointed to the closed bedroom door.
I let myself in, partly closing the bedroom door behind me. The volume of the television increased, and I could hear the news anchors discussing the latest figures in the opioid epidemic.
