I need it to go a different way.
“Sure did, and you are not going to believe what the lab report says. I’m thinking they got this one mixed up with that case a couple years back when all those cops got injured by that strung-out perp. You might not remember, but we had to separate out all the blood types, perform DNA tests, it was a real mess.”
My heart sinks.
“Anyway,” Reynolds goes on, “I’m standing here staring at the lab report on that second blood type from your crime scene, and I’m certain this can’t be right. There has to be a mix-up. Some kind of wacky mistake.”
But I know there’s no mistake.
Twenty-Nine
Detective Olivia Newhouse
I woke in my childhood room. The pain is gone, but I am left unsettled.
For a long moment I stand in the kitchen with my untouched coffee and ponder all that I have found in this house. The most troubling is the file labeled “The Child.” There were videos as well as the reports. I haven’t looked at those yet. I haven’t called David or Walt.
I set my mug aside and head back to the panic room. I sit down on the floor and pick up the file. Just skimming the pages, I am sickened by the words there. I look at the storage devices that are labeled with interviews and assessments. I pick up all of this and go to my father’s office.
When all is spread out on his desk, I sit in his chair. I’m not sure watching these videos has anything to do with how we can find Fanning, but I feel as if I need to watch them.
“Just do it,” I mutter. Walt will be calling to tell me it’s time to go to the meeting with Sanchez. David will wonder what I’m doing. The chief will be pressing me about my father’s involvement with the case. I need to get this done. I pick up the first of the memory sticks and reach to poke it into a slot.
My fingers fumble and I frown. Why won’t it go in? Since his desk sits against the wall, I have to turn the monitor around to see the back side. There’s already a memory stick in the port. It’s not seated firmly,which is why it wasn’t showing up on his desktop, I guess. Curious, I seat it more firmly, then turn the monitor around and check the display.
The icon for the storage device pops up on the screen, and I click it. The only item stored there is a video labeled “For Olivia.”
My heart jumps and I double-click the file.
The file opens, and I’m looking at my father seated at this very desk.
“Olivia, I decided to make this video when I learned of Carl Fanning’s impending release.” He looks away, his eyes glistening.
My hands cover my mouth and I want to cry. My heart hurts just hearing his voice.
“If you’re seeing this, then something has happened to me. I did not want the truth to die with me, but after your mother passed, I could never find the proper way to tell you the things you needed to know.” He falls silent for a moment. “Above all else, please know how very, very much we love you. You were and are our everything. What we did was wrong in the eyes of the law, but it was the right thing to do. For you and for us. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you the truth long ago. Read the file marked ‘The Child’ and watch the video sessions. Then you’ll know everything. I love you, Olivia.”
Tears are streaming down my face. I stare down at the file spread on his desk and start to read again.
Later, I’ve lost track of time and my head is spinning. Part of me wants to scream and rant that these are lies. All of it. But I know it isn’t. It’s the truth, and some part of me recognizes this.
I stand and trudge up the stairs to my bedroom. With all that I have read and watched in “The Child” file, I have lost a part of me that I will never get back. I am confused and horrified and deeply grateful at the same time.
I have cried until I am certain there are no more tears inside me. Within the pages of the file and in those video sessions, the truth aboutme and who I am is crystal clear. My lips tremble, and no matter that I thought I had cried it all out, more tears brim in my eyes.
Even as I devoured the horrifying words and watched the shocking interviews, the memories of my real life tumbled one over the other into my brain. It was as if some wall fractured and then broke, allowing a past I had forgotten to burst free.
In my room, I reach down and pick up the photo album I tossed aside before. There, on every page, are my memories. Each recollection of my life burned into my brain came from these photos ... from the stories my parents told me. From the pieces implanted using hypnosis and neuro programming.
But none of it ever happened to me before the age of fifteen.
A halting breath shudders through my chest as I lay the album aside, get to my feet, and do what I know I must.
I walk out of the house. I stare toward the big barn that once housed beautiful horses. Dr. Lewis Newhouse told me about all the graceful creatures that once grazed in the pastures surrounding his home. His wife, Corrine, was an internationally famous equestrian in American dressage. Once upon a time, her trophies lined the walls of their home. But it was their child, their beautiful, sweet daughter, they hoped to groom for Olympic competition. There was never a horseback-riding injury. I have never ridden a horse. I am not that child.
I draw in a heavy breath and consider all that I learned from that file. It’s almost like some sort of science fiction movie or maybe some twisted fairy tale.
There once was a child named Olivia Newhouse. Her parents protected her so carefully from the ugliness of the world that her prestigious and lettered father experienced in his work every day. She had private tutors, never once attended school outside her home. Everywhere Olivia went, her mother or a cautiously chosen and carefully vetted nanny was sure to go. And still the child, at the tender young age of eleven, encountered her first taste of drugs. For the next two years, she sneaked behind her lovingparents’ backs and found a way to fulfill this new need that pulsated relentlessly inside her.
