Both of us telling a story and begging the other person to believe it.

We passed the locked cabinet of guns—where one must’ve been used to kill his wife—down the hall, to a room I’d never been in. I didn’t want to go any farther. Didn’t like the narrowing of the walls, the lack of windows, the lack of exits. But then he opened the door, and it was almost unbearably bright. Blue bookshelves, painted lumber, stretching up to the ceiling. A rocking chair in the corner. A china cabinet against the far wall, filled with glass figurines. Books circling the room.

“My son, he’s never coming back. Doesn’t want to face himself. It was a terrible, terrible accident, but I told him we could get through it. That was the last time my son really looked at me, and then you showed up, and I needed to run a check, make sure your funds were legal. It pulled up an old name, and I remembered it. Of course I did. We both followed your story.”

He limped to the far shelf and pulled down the book I hadn’t seen in years. The pale pink cover, the photo on the front—of her and of me. Both of us with the long, wavy brown hair, impossible to tell where hers ended and mine began. Finding Arden.

“Marie, she bought your mother’s book,” he said. “I couldn’t believe you were here, of all places, after everything.” He shook his head, like he was trying to make sense of things that could not be put to words. “Like I was supposed to help you,” he said, his voice barely audible. His eyes drifted to the box cutter in my hand. “To get it right this time.”

“Rick,” I said, begging him to understand. “I didn’t.” But at some point, you have to face the facts and yourself. “I would have defensive wounds, right?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but he gestured to my leg.

“That was after. I remember that. I fell.” I held out my arms, turned them over for him to see. “There’s nothing here. No marks, nothing.”

“Well,” he said, not conceding, not denying. “They’re going to search this house or yours. Nina asked me this morning if I’d let them take a look around. I’ve been through this once before, and I told her not without a warrant. But it means they’re going to get to one of us. They have to make a decision, though. They need probable cause, and that’s no small thing. They can’t just guess. But they’re watching, trying to figure out which of us that stranger was here for.”

I thought of Bennett and his suggestion to talk to his sister, her details sitting in my phone. “Have you talked to a lawyer, Rick?”

“No,” he said. “I remember how this goes, Liv.”

But he had the murder weapon in his house. If they came here with a warrant, he would be in so much trouble. And then I understood: He wasn’t consulting a lawyer because he was protecting me. And I couldn’t let him do it.

“That man was here for me that night,” I said. “I was coming here to tell you. He left me a letter in my mailbox, and I’m going to have to tell them. That man, he was involved in my case twenty years ago. I don’t know what he wanted. But his son is here now, and I have to tell them.”

Rick nodded, then gestured to the box cutter. “I cleaned that, I don’t think there’s anything left. But I’m gonna bleach everything anyway.” He paused. “Leave it.”

I shook my head. “I can get rid of it,” I whispered. At the hospital, there were multiple disposal containers for sharp objects, for biohazards. It could disappear without being traced to one of us. “Rick, until this is done, I don’t think we should be talking.”

He didn’t say anything at first. And then, finally, “All right, Liv.”

EVERYTHING WAS PUT ON hold after that—contacting Detective Rigby, calling Nathan.

I had to share the letter with the police, yes. But first I had to get this box cutter out of my possession before they came searching for it.

FINDING ARDEN

Copyright: Laurel Maynor, 2002

Excerpt, p. 19

They found her shoe the first day of searching. This little green sneaker with a pink flower on the side. It was stuck on the grate that had been pried away from the drainage pipe, wedged between two of the bars. It looked almost gray when they showed me, and I didn’t want to believe it was hers at first.

But the ditch beyond the end of our road led right there. The drainage pipe’s cover had been missing for who knows how long, they said.

It was the first sign of Arden.

I wanted to believe she was lost in the woods somewhere, not washed away with the floodwaters. But that shoe, it changed the search. It made us realize she probably hadn’t wandered very far at all on her own before she was overcome by the current.

Even now I don’t want to imagine what that was like. I don’t want to imagine how scary and dark and claustrophobic it must’ve been when she woke. Part of me thinks it’s better if she slept through that part. That she only woke after she was safe and could see daylight. That she will never remember those dark, harrowing days.

But I know, realistically, she probably woke far sooner. Most likely when the water swept her off her feet. The impact must have jarred her awake.

She must have been awake when her foot got caught, when she had a chance for a moment to stay out of the pipes and then lost it. I know she was awake; it was the only way to save herself.

She doesn’t like to talk about what happened in the time she was missing, what she endured. People say it’s impossible that she held on for three days before she was found, but what do they know about my daughter? I don’t want to imagine the alternative: that she spent hours or days in the pitch black, with nothing but water and filth, and no way to know whether it was day or night, or if she’d ever be found.

Whenever the doctors asked, she said, “I don’t remember.”

I thought it was cruel for them to keep pushing. Can you imagine? What that must have been like?

I don’t want to think about it, either. I believe it would be a gift to forget.

CHAPTER 19

Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.

I COULD FEEL THE WEIGHT of the box cutter in my purse, wrapped up in paper towels to keep it clean of any contamination that could be traced back to me, including my fingerprints.

I’d been waiting for the right moment to dump it—the right excuse to be down the hall in a patient’s room. I’d left a message asking Detective Rigby to meet me at my house after work, telling her that I’d found something. She hadn’t called back, and I was full of an irrational hope that the investigation had moved away from me and Rick. Or that something else more enticing had grabbed her attention.

My office door was open so I could hear when the right moment presented itself: discussion of a nurses’ meeting, maybe, when people would be off the floor except essential personnel. Worst case, I’d try to blend in during the lunch chaos and the changing of shifts.

I heard the voices as soon as the double doors at the end of the hall opened.

“Her office is right down here.” A woman’s voice—someone I knew? My pulse sped up, like my body could sense something instinctively before it registered.

“Thanks so much for escorting me up here. I didn’t realize there was so much security on the upper floors.” My back straightened, goose bumps rising on the back of my neck. That second voice I definitely knew: It belonged to Detective Nina Rigby, who was currently walking down my hall—toward my office. My purse was currently lying on top of the couch, the box cutter stuffed inside.