I leaned against the doorjamb, able to be honest here. “It was horrible,” I said, the word scratching at my throat.

He nodded, gesturing for me to come inside. “He’s locked up now, though?”

I walked across the living room and sank into his couch, staring at the bag on the floor, trying to process. “Yes. He’s being held in Kentucky.” I gestured to his luggage. “What’s going on, Rick?”

“Well,” he said, and now he was looking off to the side, out the window, his throat moving. “I thought I might try to talk to my son.” He shuffled his feet. “He’s in Atlanta, it’s not too far.”

“Now?” I asked. “Today?”

“Well,” he said. “As long as you’re okay. I was waiting on you.”

It seemed that the events of the last few days had shaken something loose in everyone. Like we could all see the potential for harm—how the past inevitably snowballs into the present. But that this moment, in turn, would soon enough become the past, the start of a new chain of events. “No, that’s good. That’s a good idea.”

And then he stepped forward, dropped his voice. “The weapon, is it gone?”

I nodded once, stoically.

“I’m not sure if we should’ve done that,” he said.

I wondered then whether he was leaving right now to avoid the questions, the lingering missing pieces of the investigation that we had disrupted with our distrust for each other—and ourselves.

“It’s done,” I said. “It’s gone.” Left behind in a hospital room, scrubbed clean and disappeared. Something that I now knew could’ve linked Nathan to the crime instead.

“Liv, he must’ve been in your house.”

I froze. Held my breath. Finally putting the pieces together. Rick was right—for Nathan to have used my box cutter, he must’ve been in my house while I slept. He worked in security. He could do it. I shuddered. That feeling of a person who had been inside when I’d returned from the hospital. The noise at the back of my house after I’d found out Elyse had died. How many times had he been in there, watching?

How close had I come to a very different type of story? Before, presumably, Sean Coleman showed up?

“He’s gone now,” I said. “Either way, he can’t hurt me.” Though that wasn’t entirely true. He could try to spin his story, tell anyone who would listen. But he was obsessed. He was a killer. He was not to be trusted. And, as Emma Lyons had told me, there was nothing to corroborate his claims.

“Go ahead, Rick. Before you’re stuck driving at night.”

“It’s just, I want to be sure. You could hurt yourself still, out in the yard . . . No one would hear you.”

I hadn’t had a sleepwalking incident since waking up over Sean Coleman’s dead body, and I was starting to believe that I wouldn’t. That I’d successfully exorcized whatever trauma had taken hold of me, whatever had been threatening to resurface. Anyway, I had that extra prescription from Dr. Cal, should I need it.

“It’s under control,” I said, standing from his couch.

He nodded. “All right,” he said, dragging his bag out the door, locking up after I followed him outside.

I wasn’t entirely sure of his reason for leaving right then. Whether it was to avoid having to lie about the box cutter, or because he couldn’t stand to waste another moment. Because I also understood how the present could suddenly seem urgent. That feeling of wanting to rush straight for it. How I’d wanted to come straight home. How I’d known exactly whom to call.

Rick walked to his car, hefted his bag into the back seat. “There’s a spare key in the shed, Liv. You need anything, you just help yourself.”

“That’s a terrible place for a key, Rick,” I said.

He grinned as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Hey, Rick, I was wondering. What was I saying the night you found me outside? You said you heard me?” I had always wondered what I had been yelling the first night Rick found me. If I was calling my mother’s name, the nightmare of being trapped underground, waiting to be found, kicked close to the surface with the arrival of the box of her things.

He turned his gaze out the windshield, and I saw his throat move, the muscles in his forearms twitching as he settled his hands on the wheel. “Get away from me,” he said, and a chill ran through me. “That’s what you said.”

I stepped back. A bad dream. A nightmare. Like I could see something coming for me. I ran both hands up my arms, brushing away the goose bumps.

“Drive safe, Rick,” I said, and he raised his hand one last time before driving out of sight.

Chances were, it was the nightmare. Calling out into the night to no one.

But I couldn’t shake the image of Nathan Coleman in my yard even then. Thursday evening, before the murder. I wondered exactly how much he knew. How much he’d be willing to say.

How much he would be believed.

OBSERVER ONLINE

August 28, 2020

Posted: 2:33 P.M.

Sean Coleman’s Son Arrested in Widow Hills: New Details Emerge in Murder Investigation

By Alice Perry

OBSERVER ONLINE previously shared details about the recent case of Sean Coleman’s death in Central Valley, North Carolina, just outside the property of Olivia Meyer, the woman once known in the media as Arden Maynor, the girl from Widow Hills (link: see previous article). Twenty years ago, Sean Coleman was the man who found Arden Maynor clinging to a storm grate. Arden/Olivia had been viewed as a person of interest in the case.

However, sources inside the police department are now sharing that Nathan Coleman, Sean Coleman’s twenty-nine-year-old son, has been arrested for stalking and assault in Widow Hills, Kentucky. Per the incident report, charges were pressed by Olivia Meyer.

There’s no word yet on how this might connect to the active investigation into the death of Sean Coleman, but sources say more charges may be forthcoming.

CHAPTER 26

Friday, 4:30 p.m.

I CALLED DETECTIVE RIGBY MYSELF.

I knew she wanted to talk as soon as I was back in town, and I was eager to find out what was happening with Nathan’s case. Whether there was closure in the immediate future; whether something was just about to crack open.

It felt like a delicate balance, like we were one step from everything tipping over again. There was no containing who I was any longer, but I could keep the rest from spinning out of control.

Detective Rigby’s steps echoed as she walked up my porch. I was waiting for her in the open doorway, and I watched her carefully this time—watched as she took everything in, seeing everything, making assessments, while trying to give away nothing.

“How are you doing, Olivia?”

“All right,” I said, holding the door open for her to step inside. “Can I get you something? Water, juice?”

“I’ll take water,” she said, following me into the kitchen.

“Any news on Nathan’s case?” I asked. I held my breath as I pulled a glass down from the cabinet.

“Well,” she said, taking a seat at the kitchen table, “he’s being held in Kentucky on the assault and stalking charges. We can try to build a case in the meantime. These things take time, though.”