Haunting Olivia (16 page)

Zach picked up another rock and flung it as far as he could, angry at himself for not believing in her back then. He had believed what he’d been told: that rather than ruin her life with a no-good 146

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punk like him, she wanted nothing to do with him or the baby and was going to college, where she planned to forget she ever knew him. He hadn’t believed it at first, of course. Scrounging for change to call all the way to New York, he’d rushed to every phone he could find, and then taken the train down to try to find her. But when she remained so unfindable, so unreachable, he began to believe what he’d been told.

But then Kayla, an unnamed baby girl who looked just like him, had been placed into his arms, and scared as he’d been, his life suddenly had a purpose. If he couldn’t be the guy Olivia wanted, he’d damn well become the father Kayla needed.

And he had.

And now here Olivia was, all of a sudden. No matter what happened, Olivia was good for Kayla.

He believed that even though he hardly knew Olivia.

He stared out at the ocean. A little self-control would have done a lot of good too last night. It was crazy to bring sex into the mix. Or maybe bringing sex in would clear things up.

At least he could clear his conscience about one thing: he hadn’t lied to Marnie about the status of his relationship with Olivia. He really didn’t know a damned thing about how he felt.

The police station was across from Zach’s office.

He stopped in and asked to speak with the detective handling the Olivia Sedgwick case, but apparently, there was no case.

“Hijinks,” the officer said, stamping paperwork.

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“Or she got on someone’s nerves and they paid her back. There are no leads.”

“Someone
did
break into her house,” Zach reminded him. “Isn’t breaking and entering a crime in Blueberry?”

For that Zach got a steely stare. “We’ll let Miss Sedgwick know if there are any developments.” He then continued stamping.

Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning to report the latest incident anyway, jerk,
he thought as he left. Blueberry was a small town, and the last thing he wanted was Kayla affected by what was going on in his life. With Olivia coming into her life and with the pageant, his daughter had enough for one thirteen-year-old.

At noon, Olivia and Kayla were in the kitchen of Zach’s house, making hot chocolate. Zach came in, his expression letting Olivia know that things hadn’t gone well with Marnie or the police.

As Kayla chattered on about how she liked her hot cocoa super chocolatey, Olivia realized that this was all she cared about. Being with Kayla, getting to know her daughter, sharing tiny moments about hot chocolate on a cold winter day. They were together. And not only did Kayla not hate her for being absent from the first thirteen years of her life, but she seemed thrilled by Olivia. Kayla would be staring at her one moment, then peppering her with questions the next. When did Olivia get her period? Had she also been thirteen? When did Olivia go to second base with a boy? Startled, Olivia had asked Kayla if
she’d
been to second base with a 148

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boy, and Olivia had been happy to hear she hadn’t even French-kissed yet.

Zach had to go into the office for a few hours, and Olivia had been delighted to stay with Kayla all day. They gave each other facials and pedicures, talking and laughing and having a blast—until the doorbell rang.

Standing on the welcome mat were two girls who looked to be Kayla’s age.

“So she’s not a total liar?” one of the girls said.

“You’re really her mother?”

“If you’re talking about Kayla, yes, I am her mother,” Olivia said, startled by how rude the girl was.

“You’re not so great,” the other girl said, blowing a bubble, which she popped with her finger. The girl looked Olivia up and down.

“Olivia? Who’s at the door?” Kayla asked, cotton balls between her toes to protect her freshly pol-ished lavender toenails. At the sight of the girls, Kayla’s smile was triumphant. “Told you,” she said to them.

“If she’s really your mother, why do you call her by her first name?” the red-haired girl asked.

“If she was really her mother, they’d look alike,”

the other said. “And they totally don’t. Except for the hair. But you could have dyed yours,” she told Olivia. “There’s no proof she’s your mother, Kayla.

Nice try.”

“She is my mother, you stupid freak!” Kayla shouted.

“Don’t call me a freak, loser!” the redhead shouted back. “You’re the freak. Only a freakizoid loser would pretend her dad’s new girlfriend is her mother.

You’re only doing it to win the ugly girl pageant.”

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“Okay, that’s more than enough,” Olivia said.

She’d read that thirteen-year-old girls could be very cruel to each other, but this was a little too much proof of that. “For your information, girls, I am Kayla’s mother. Excuse us, please.” Olivia waited for the girls to turn and go, but they didn’t.

“I have a new name for you,” the redhead said to Kayla. “Kayliar.”

The other girl snickered. “Later, Kayliar.”

“I hate you both!” Kayla yelled at them. “Go to hell!”

Olivia took Kayla’s hand and stepped back from the door, then said, “Good day, girls,” and closed the door in their faces.

“What was that all about?” Olivia asked Kayla.

“They were my friends until they turned losers,”

Kayla said. “We were all smoking in the bathroom the day I was caught, but they threw their cigarettes in the toilet before that bitch gym teacher could see their lit butts. Only I got caught. That’s so unfair.”

“Kayla, please don’t refer to someone as a bitch,”

Olivia said.

“Oh, so now you’re telling me what to do?” Kayla yelled and ran upstairs.

Olivia stood in the center of the hallway, wondering what the heck had just happened to her perfect day.
You’ve got yourself a new teenager, that’s what,
she told herself, remembering all the drama of her life at thirteen.
You can’t just have the daughter without the
reality,
she reminded herself.

She had to hand it to Zach. Raising a daughter by himself all these years, no family, no relatives, had to be so difficult. Yet his relationship with 150

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Kayla was wonderful, a testament to him as a person and as a father.

She had a bad feeling about those girls. Add that to her bad feelings about Johanna and Marnie and whatshername from the general store who’d stared her down.

Chapter 12

As Olivia got into bed that night, she picked up the framed picture of Kayla that she’d placed on her bedside table earlier that evening. After her breakfast with Kayla, Olivia had bought a disposable camera and had taken shot after shot of Kayla, then someone had asked if she wanted a picture of the two of them, and thanks to the one-hour photo lab at the drugstore, Olivia had a photograph of herself and her daughter. She’d bought a beautiful pewter frame for it.

She held the photograph close, mar veling at what was. Days ago, there was only Olivia. Now there was a daughter. A daughter with her hair, her nose. Her laugh, even. And definitely some of her stubbornness.

Olivia had knocked her knuckles raw on Kayla’s door before the girl had unlocked it. Kayla had then thrown herself on her bed and sobbed, but she’d allowed Olivia to hold her, and when Olivia told her that mothers were supposed to say things 152

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like “No calling someone a bitch,” Kayla sniffled and then laughed and said she guessed so.

Later, when Zach had come home, Olivia filled him in during a brief walk around the property.

He’d shaken his head at what had occurred; all the girls had once been so sweet, and now they threw around words like
bitch
and
loser.
He’d assured himself that once she got busy with the pageant, she’d stop reverting back to some of her old ways. At least he hoped so.

Zach had looked exhausted. And so she’d gone home, wishing she were there with the two of them.

Now, she drifted off to sleep, thoughts of Kayla and Zach floating through her mind, but then half awake, she realized she was dreaming of the dream girl, just the girl this time. And she looked exactly like Kayla.

But the dream girl was angry. Very angry. She was shouting, or at least her mouth was moving frantically, her fists flying in the air, but no words came out.

Something was scratching her neck. Her eyes opened wide. The dream had gone. In its place was darkness. She sat up and something dropped to her lap. Before she could see what it was, she heard a movement, then saw a shadow.

Someone was in her bedroom. Running away.

She reached out for the glass pitcher of water on her bedside table and threw it at what appeared to be the intruder’s head just as he or she turned. She heard a grunt—a female’s grunt, she was sure—

and then the person continued running. Olivia turned on her bedside table lamp and saw what had fallen from her neck.

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A noose. A note attached said: “Next time I’ll tighten it.”

She flung the noose to the floor, her heart beating a mile a minute, then raced into the bathroom with her cell phone and locked the door.

Her knees trembled and she slid down to a sitting position on the cold marble floor. Her hands shook so wildly that she dropped the phone. She snatched it back like the lifeline it was and pressed in Zach’s telephone number. It was just past midnight. In some fuzzy corner of her mind, she hoped that Kayla was in such a deep sleep that the phone wouldn’t wake her.

Zach answered on the first ring.

“Zach,” Olivia said and then couldn’t speak.

“Olivia, what’s wrong?” he asked, the alarm in his voice matching her own. “Olivia?”

“Someone . . .” The reality of what she was about to say was too much and Olivia broke down, the phone dropping onto the marble floor. She could hear Zach’s voice, calling her name. She reached for the phone. “Zach, someone was in my bedroom,” she said, her heart beating too fast, her breath rushing in and out in gasps. “Someone tried to . . . there was a noose lying across my neck and chest.” She took a breath, and then told him about the note.

He sucked in a breath. “Did you call the police?”

“No. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door and called you. Oh, God, Zach, I’m so scared.”

“Don’t move, okay? You don’t know if they’re still in the house. It’ll take me two minutes to get to you. Stay on the line with me.”

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“Okay,” she said, her voice shaking. “Hurry, please, Zach.”

“I’m just going to leave a quick note for Kayla in case she wakes up that I went over to your house for a bit.” After a moment he said, “I’m out the door now. In the car.”

He talked to her through the drive and when he said he was at the front door, she bolted up and raced downstairs.

She flung herself into his arms, and he held her.

“Let’s get inside and close the door,” he said.

“You must be freezing in that nightgown.”

She vaguely realized she was wearing nothing but a short ivory slip. She’d been so tired when she’d gotten home that she’d taken off her clothes, but hadn’t put on real pajamas.

“I’m so cold,” she said, her body shaking. “And so scared.”

Zach bolted the door, then scooped her up and carried her to the sofa, where he sat her up against the cushions. He grabbed the chenille throw from the armchair and draped it around her shoulders.

“I’m going to call the police.”

She nodded. She then opened her mouth to speak but just shook her head.

“It’s okay, Olivia,” he said. “Just catch your breath.

You don’t have to speak right now.”

She took a deep breath. “They have to catch this psycho. Stupid pranks are one thing, but tonight, someone was in my room. They could have gotten that thing around my neck before I woke up.”

He came close and sat down beside her. “Let me see your neck.”

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She arched her neck up and he tenderly ran his fingers over her neck.

“I’m just grateful they didn’t get the chance,” he said. He let out a breath, then an expletive. He held her hand as he called the police and tersely explained the situation. He placed the cell phone in his back pocket. “The police will be right over.”

“Who could possibly want to kill me?” she asked, her shoulders trembling. “And why? What did I ever do to anyone in Blueberry? I don’t get it. Yeah, I was ready to point the finger at Johanna or even Marnie over the nasty notes or slashed tires, but attempted murder? Would my father have dated someone nuts enough to kill someone? Would
you?
”

“Olivia, I hate to say this, but you just never know about people. What makes them snap. What’s lurk-ing, festering inside them. What your father did to both of us was unforgivable. Would you ever have thought your own father capable of such a thing?”

“Even with the way he treated me and my sisters—

no,” she said. “So I guess you’re right, that you never know. But that’s damned scary, Zach.”

The doorbell rang, and the police did their work, dusting for prints, asking questions, checking the entrances, hunting for clues.

“This time we have a footprint,” one of the officer’s said as he came in through the living room from the back door. “Appears to be a woman’s size eight.”

“The grunt I heard—it did sound like a woman’s voice,” Olivia said. “Size eight—that’s a very common size.
I
wear a size eight.”

The officer nodded. “And it doesn’t necessarily 156

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mean anything, either. The footprint could have been left by anyone, not necessarily the assailant.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” the officer asked. “Did you smell anything? Perfume? Soap? A strange smell?”

Olivia shook her head. “I’d been barely able to breathe.”

“What about the rope?” Zach asked the officer.