Page 94 of The Girl from Widow Hills
CHAPTER 25
Friday, 9:30 a.m.
IWAS THE GIRL WHOleft. Who did not look back.
I did not knock on the door to my old home, asking to look around. I did not peer into the windows to check for a basement door. After I left the station the previous evening, I got right in my car and started driving. And I did not stop until I was well outside Widow Hills.
I would not return.
I was born with a healthy dose of self-preservation. I let it be, just like Emma Lyons told me to do.
I left it all behind, stopping at the same motel I’d stayed at the night before, then hitting the road again at the first sign of light.
MY SHOULDER WAS KILLINGme. The adrenaline yesterday must’ve covered the pain from where Nathan had grabbed me—and pulled. Stretching my arm beyond its capabilities. I took a generic painkiller but had to drive carefully, keeping my left arm down low on the steering wheel.
I called Bennett on speaker while I drove, knowing he would be up and at work by now.
He answered right away, and I could hear the overhead announcements of the hospital in the background. “Hey,” he said, “I went by your place last night. I’ve been worried.”
“So, that’s what I’m calling about. I’m on my way home, but I was in Widow Hills.”
He paused for a beat. “Youwhat?”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m okay.” Something I should’ve known to do days ago. “I mean, I was almost hurt. I’m a little bit hurt. Slightly sore. It’s a long story, but I’m almost home now.”
He listened as I told him about finding the pile of material in Nathan’s things, about going to the reporter in Kentucky, about Nathan following me. But he cut me off abruptly.
“Who’s Nathan?” he asked. And I realized there were still so many things I had kept for myself.
“Sean Coleman’s son. He’d been obsessed with me for years,” I said.
“Jesus, Liv.”
“Well, I’m okay now.”
For a moment, I could hear only him breathing. “Heard you called my sister.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. I think I’m good, though. Nathan’s in custody.”
“Do they think he killed his father?”
“I don’t know. I’m meeting with the detective later today. But yeah, seems that way.”
I promised to call him when I made it back. I kept moving, yearning for home. For the detective to close the investigation, and something more I’d realized on the drive: I’d longed for the permanence of the place, and this house, and these people. Something I wanted to return to.
———
MY STOMACH DROPPED WHENI saw the shape of a car as I pulled into my driveway. Imagining the journalists or reporters who might be waiting around, hoping to catch a glimpse. The girl from Widow Hills, person of interest in a murder investigation. How long until their interest petered out again?
But as I drew closer, I recognized the car—and the person sitting on my porch steps, waiting for me.
Bennett stood when I exited the car. “Had to see it for myself,” he said, “that you were really still in one piece.”
“More or less,” I said, hooking my overnight bag over my right shoulder. I looked behind me at the empty road. “Anyone else been by recently?”
“Just your neighbor, looking for you. Think he saw me sitting out here.” He looked toward Rick’s house, through the trees. “I filled him in. At least with the gist of it.”
When I passed Bennett, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. I unlocked the door and let him in, then immediately dropped my bag. His smile was subdued, and I worried it was me, that I’d missed another nuance of our relationship.
