It was Olivia’s guilt over looking at the note that kept her from attending the vigil or even answering her aunt’s phone calls or texts. The same thought kept running through her head: Should she go to the police with what the note said? But then everyone would know how untrustworthy Olivia was and she could be fired from an internship she had just started, her future career in the toilet.
No, there was no way she could do that. After all, she gave the note to Tom. He had the same information she had andhecould go to the police if it was important. And maybe the note was unimportant in the end, something completely innocuous. Olivia knew she had to pretend everything was normal, and yet the stress of keeping it all inside was crushing. During her long walk yesterday, she had to stop multiple times to sob or dry heave. And she had been debating whether she could trust anyone.
Channel 9’s assistant news director had texted Olivia and all of the other interns en masse to see if they could hand out freeumbrellas at the exit of the vigil, and most said yes right away, but Olivia faked that she was sick.
After she returned home, she had grabbed Gizmo and gone straight to bed, where she stayed for most of the day, occasionally dozing but mostly just fretting. She saw her aunt’s text about attending the vigil but didn’t know how to say no without sounding weird, so she acted like she hadn’t seen it or had time to respond.
This would have been a great time to have a mom around to lean on, but Olivia’s mom was nearly impossible to reach. You never even knew what country she was in these days, and if you did talk to her it wasn’t about deep stuff. This situation would take too long to explain. Olivia’s dad was definitely not the type for this either. She could only imagine going to him. “You didwhat?” he would ask, that look of pure disappointment in his eye. She didn’t need that; she felt bad enough on her own.
So she settled on telling Aunt Carol.
The vigil was over and her aunt was inviting her for cookies and tea. The time was as good as it was going to get. Olivia drove over and was trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach as she pulled up at Jim and Carol’s ranch house, one that felt almost as familiar to her as the house where she had grown up and the condo where she now lived. She had the autographed picture of Faith in her purse to give to Carol as a gift too.
Taking a long, slow breath, Olivia pulled the car visor down to look at herself in the mirror. She looked tired. No wonder—she had barely slept the night before despite being in bed so long the past twenty-four hours even Gizmo got bored and moved to the living room window.
You’ll feel better when you talk about this with a trusted loved one,she counseled herself. Her therapist always said things likethat and told Olivia that speaking about things made them less scary and more manageable.
Walking up the front walk, she noticed her shoulders were rounded forward. Her feet felt like they were shuffling. It was not her usual upright posture. As she rang the bell she tried to keep herself from looking too forlorn.
The door flew open and there stood Carol, wearing a mustard-yellow shirt and a pair of Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club earrings that Olivia recognized. Olivia imagined many women at the vigil in similar outfits.
“Liv! Come in, sweetheart,” Carol gushed. “What’s going on?”
“Hi, Aunt C, how was the vigil?” she said.
“Lovely, just lovely. We’ll get to all of that. First, you said you had something to talk about. Your voice worried me. Is everything all right, honey?”
Just those words,Is everything all right?,caused the floodgates to open for Olivia. She bit her lip to fight back tears but they were coming, she could tell, and she couldn’t stop them.
“Oh dear, come inside,” Carol said, glancing up and down the block nervously and ushering Olivia into the foyer. Carol steered Olivia to the den, where a candle that smelled like key lime pie was burning.
“Sit in Jim’s easy chair,” Carol commanded. “He ran out to the store. There, there, honey, it’s OK…” Carol grabbed a box of tissues, a glass of water, and a throw blanket all in record time and handed the water and tissues to Olivia while tucking the blanket around her. Carol sat in her own easy chair and turned her body to fully see her niece.
“What is it, Liv?”
Olivia took a ragged breath and it all came tumbling out,starting with the parking lot and the folded-up note, the way Olivia felt compelled to look at it in the women’s restroom, the way she then handed it to Tom as if nothing had happened. She spoke of the deep guilt and shame she felt looking at the note and how it kept her up all night and prevented her from taking part in the vigil, even to hand out umbrellas.
“And then there’s what the note said. I just don’t know what to do,” Olivia summed up, sniffing.
“My goodness, what did it say?” Carol sucked in her breath.
OK, here it goes,thought Olivia. She had to tell someone, and Aunt Carol was truly the only person she trusted fully right now.
“Promise me you’ll keep this between us, maybe just Uncle Jim,” Olivia implored, and Carol nodded and put her hand on top of Olivia’s.
“It had a list of names on it. I’m not sure why but what if she knew something bad was going to happen and these aresuspects? I know two of them.”
“Whaaat?What do you mean you know two of them? Who are they?”
Olivia looked down and spoke so softly that Carol had to lean in to hear her.
“Matthew, the weekend weather guy, and Laura, the executive producer. Two people I work with at Channel 9. For Matthew it also said ‘and Tara,’ who it turns out is his fiancée.”
“Nooooo!” Carol replied, and her hand came off Olivia’s and flew to her own mouth. Her eyes grew wide. “Matthew? I’m telling you I noticed something weird Friday. He looked odd during the forecast. Like his tie wasn’t straight, his hair was sticking up, he seemed angry. But who is Laura and why would she be a suspect?”
“I never in a million years would have pegged her, she’s oneof the newsroom managers and like a new mother or something and looks tired all the time but she’s also super nice. Then there were other names I didn’t recognize: Steve and Kelly and Joel.”
Carol was speechless for a moment before saying quietly, “I saw a guy named Steve at the vigil. He said he and Faith were boyfriend and girlfriend, but he was a really weird guy and I don’t think anyone believed him. He also said Faith was pregnant. I wonder if that’s the Steve she wrote about on the note? Olivia, this is terrible. Faith might have known something bad was going to happen to her from one of these people. Oh that poor thing, that poor, poor thing.”
