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“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I ask, thinking of thirteen-year-old Nola being accosted by Nick and his friend and no Eve to protect her. Nola has lied about a lot of things over the years, but in this case I actually believe her.
Nola gives a wry smile. “Like you said, no one would believe me. It was my word against Nick Brady and his friend. They concocted the story about me pushing Nick through the glass. They were pretty smart—just enough of the truth to make it believable.” Nola rubs the scar on her chest again. “It was kind of a win-win. I got the satisfaction of watching the glass slice through Nick’s arm and I got kicked out of the Grotto school system.”
“Nola, I can’t blame something on an innocent man,” I say, tears filling my eyes again.
“Then I’ll tell them you did it,” Nola says sharply. When she speaks again, her voice is soft, cajoling. “But I know you didn’t mean to hurt Eve. I know what guys like Nick Brady and Cam Harper do to girls. What they steal from them. If it wasn’t for Nick or Cam, you would have never killed Eve. I truly believe that. You were desperate to keep Cam and you lashed out in the heat of the moment. Who could blame you? Eve should have kept your secret but she had her own secrets to keep.” Nola says, taking a step toward me. “Nick hit her and demeaned her. And he sexually assaulted me.” She brushes a strand of hair out of my face. I try not to flinch. “Together we can take down Nick Brady.”
I begin to protest but she interrupts. “Remember, Maggie, I was there, I heard everything, saw everything. And I can make life miserable for you.” She drops her eyes to my belly. “And for your baby.” My heart skips a beat and I know that she’s telling the truth.
“But Nick has an alibi,” I say. “Jamie Hutchcraft was with him that afternoon and then he was with his mother.”
Nola gives a derisive snort. “Not a solid alibi. I bet if you pressed Jamie, you’ll find it’s not so airtight. And what mother wouldn’t lie for her child? And besides, DNA trumps alibi any day. DNA doesn’t lie.”
“But I don’t understand,” I manage to eke out. “Why would you want to lie for me?”
Nola examines me as if looking at a specimen through a microscope. “I told you, if it wasn’t for Nick or Cam, it would never have happened. And I thought about it. If I went to the police, I’d have to explain why I was at the caves in the first place, why I didn’t step in and help Eve. It would just complicate things.
“I’m giving you a gift, Maggie,” Nola soothes. “All you have to do is grab it. You don’t even have to do all that much. I’ll get the DNA, and all you’ll have to do is add it to an existing piece of evidence and send it in. When it’s retested Nick will go down for being the disgusting creep we both know he is. Easy-peasy. It’s another win-win.” Nola smiles brightly as if she’s just asked me to tear up a traffic ticket or something.
“It’s not easy,” I exclaim. “It’s nearly impossible to tamper with evidence once it’s been sealed and entered into the log. There’s no way we’ll get away with it.”
“Okay, not easy, but not impossible either. Come on, Maggie, we’re talking about the Grotto PD, not the FBI,” Nola laughs. “No one is going to notice a tiny pinprick from a needle. All we need is one drop of blood. Now go on home to that husband of yours. I’ll stop by tomorrow with what you need.”
“Why didn’t you...” I start, my voice deadened, flat. “Why didn’t you try to help Eve?”
Nola looks me square in the eye. “Because I didn’t really care.” I hold her gaze. She’s lying. For all her bravado, Nola is lying. She did care about Eve. She does care, or she wouldn’t be doing this.
I turn and numbly move from the room, down the stairs and out the front door. I want to run into my old house, up the stairs and to my old bedroom. I want to be little again and have this all disappear. Instead, I ignore Joyce Harper who is standing on her front lawn and wave away my brother who is waiting for me on the front porch.
“I’ll phone you later,” I manage to call out to Colin as I climb into my car.
I always knew that one day my actions in the caves would come back to haunt me in a real, concrete way. I already have the bad dreams, the flashbacks, the crippling guilt. But now I have to face what I’ve done and make a decision that is, in my mind, equally as evil. If I do what Nola is asking me to do, I’m for all intents and purposes killing Nick Brady. I’ll be branding him as a murderer. I’ll be taking away his freedom, his life as he knows it.
As I pull away from the curb, another thought comes to mind. Maybe there’s another way.
Therapy Transcript
Client Name: Nola Knox, 13 years
Therapist Name: Linda Gonzalez, LMHC, NCC
Date of Service: March 19, 1996
L. Gonzalez: Good morning, Nola. It’s so good to see you smiling. You had a good week since I saw you last?
N. Knox: It was okay.
L. Gonzalez: What made it okay?
N. Knox: I don’t know. I went to the doctor and he said my lung is all better.
L. Gonzalez: That must be a relief. It looks like the wound is healing nicely.
N. Knox: Yeah. After I got the stitches out, I practiced doing stitches too. I think I finally got the hang of it.
L. Gonzalez: Oh? How do you practice something like that?
N. Knox: I asked the doctor what they used in med school and he said that pig’s skin is the closest to what it would be like to work on a person. He also said oranges and bananas work too. I sliced through the peel of an orange and sewed it up with needle and thread. It took a few tries to figure it out, but my stitches actually looked pretty good.
