She’s never coming back, Liv.
Twenty-Six
Detective Olivia Newhouse
Sunday, May 6
Someone is screaming.
I feel myself drifting through the fog of sleep, rushing toward the sound. I need to wake up. He’s calling my name. “Liv! Liv! What the hell happened?”
My eyes open.
Sunlight filters in through the plantation shutters. It’s so bright. I close my eyes again.
“Liv!”
Hands grip my shoulders and shake me.
I open my eyes. David is staring at me, his expression clouded with fear, his eyes wide in uncertainty.
Walt. What if something has happened to Walt?
Air rushes into my lungs as if I have only now started to breathe. I sit up. “What happened?”
David blinks, stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“What happened?” he echoes. “That’s what I want to know.” He waves a hand at the bed. “Where the hell did all that mud come from? I’ve been all around the house, and I can’t figure out where this camefrom. Your shoes are on the side porch caked in mud. The floorboard in your Subaru is smeared with mud. Did this happen at a crime scene? What time did you leave the house?”
As the questions fire from his lips, my gaze travels down the length of me. He has pulled the covers back, and he’s right, I am covered in mud from the waist down. My jeans are caked with it. My socks are muddy. I stare at my hands; they are muddy as well as bloody.
Blood? Shit. Where did the blood come from?
“Tell me what’s going on, Liv? Please, baby. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. Something is very wrong.”
I meet his gaze. “I was called to a crime scene. It was storming.” I blink to hide the lie in my eyes. “A headache started on my way home. By the time I got here, I was out of my mind in pain. I must have come straight upstairs and climbed into the bed. I’m sorry.” I look at the mess I’ve made. “I’ll clean it up.”
“No.” He waves his hands back and forth. “Don’t worry about that. The housekeeper will take care of it. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, David,” I argue as I sit up. The room spins. “I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “Liv, you are not fine. You’ve had way too many headaches in the past few days. Something is very wrong,” he repeats.
My heart sinks and my stomach lurches.
“I ... I have to go to the bathroom.” I stumble from the soiled linens and rush to the bathroom. There’s nothing in my stomach to evacuate beyond the bitter bile that coats my throat and mouth on its way up and out. I sit on the Italian-tile floor, the cold leaching into my bones.
Finally, when I have heaved until I feel like my eyeballs will pop out of my head, the urge fades and I drag myself to the shower and turn on the water. Feeling like death, I peel off my filthy clothes and climb beneath the hot spray, allow the heat and pressure to cleanse my skin, to warm the muscles and bones beneath. My palms burn as if I’ve poured alcohol onto an open wound. I turn my hands up and stare. The skin is raw and red, and what looks like ruptured blisters seep blood.
The shovel. The words penetrate the cloud of disbelief still banked around my brain and images seep in. Digging. Rain pouring down on me. My hair plastered to my head. My hands burning as I kept driving the shovel into the ground.
A flash of lightning reveals the barn in the distance.
The farm. I was at the farm ... digging?
Did I bury the files? Try to hide my father’s connection to Fanning?
I shut off the water and grab a towel. As fast as I can, I scrub the high-end terry cloth over my skin and rush to the closet. Jeans, sweat shirt, socks, and sneakers. I run a comb through my hair. I should dry it, but I don’t care. There’s no time for that. I take my badge and service weapon from the bedside table. No phone. I glance around the floor. I check beneath the tousled covers. Nope. Dammit.
