And then it all goes sideways.
“I think we all feel your pain and understand. I so appreciate your honesty. Just one more thing before we wrap up. Is it true you were on the scene of another death, in Florida? A teenage girl drowned during your college spring break, isn’t that right?”
Olivia tenses beside him, pulls her hand away in reflex. Unprepared, Park, heart pounding, sputters. “How did you find out about that?”
He hears how badly it sounds as he says it, and Pearl, smelling meat on the grill, doesn’t let up.
“And according to police records, when you were ten, a neighborhood girl went missing. Annie Cottrell. Her parents told St. Louis police they’d seen her playing with you and your brother an hour earlier. She was never found, isn’t that right?”
Lucía strides into the den, stepping in front of the camera. “We’re done here. You’ve gone outside the scope of this interview. Thank you for your time, Erica. Because you didn’t follow the rules of our agreement, we rescind our permission to have this shown on the news.”
Erica doesn’t look incensed, only prettily confused. “Lucía, we’ve been live this whole time on the app. I told you we would be.”
Park feels the blood drain from his face. “We’re live?”
Erica Pearl’s smile is nearly Cheshire. “Of course. Still rolling,” she adds sweetly.
Olivia steps in. She is steel, and she is Valkyrie furious; Park can’t remember seeing her this angry since they were teenagers. “Then we need to discuss one more thing. A stranger has been breaking into our house. We have footage from our security cameras. A white male, wearing a dark hoodie. He has a key to our home and knows our security codes. Personal items are missing. We have been violated by these intrusions, we have been shocked by the news this week, and we will not stand idly by and have any sort of accusations, oblique or otherwise, cast our way. For you to pretend to be taping an interview yet broadcast it is not only disingenuous, you’re taking advantage of a horrible moment for our family, for our friends, and for the women of Nashville, who are all terrified right now that they might be next. I hope you’re satisfied. Now cut your camera. We’re done.”
A bell cannot be unrung.
Cameras off at last, Lucía and Erica go at it hammer and tongs, but the interview is already out there. They are screwed. Park is screwed.
It doesn’t matter if he isn’t involved in the murders or disappearances. It doesn’t matter that Olivia dealt Erica Pearl a deathblow live. Public opinion has already judged him. Their phones have been ringing off the hook, and when he hears Erica Pearl say the word Dateline, he retreats to his trashed office, nauseated.
What has he done?
His office is a perfect replica of his brain at this moment—a convoluted mess.
Olivia ruined as much as she could find.
He retrieves the pieces of the laptop and sets them gingerly on the desk.
Replaces the slit cushion where he hid the demise of his life.
Pulls the bottle of Scotch from the side table drawer and pours a healthy slug into a glass. Shoves the rest of the mess around with his foot so he can sit without crunching anything else.
Brandon Cross. His tiny son. It won’t matter to Olivia that he only met the boy once. He hadn’t lied when he told Olivia that Fiona Cross wasn’t looking for a father for her child, but an easy paycheck.
He could have given her some money, but he knew where that train was headed, and balked. He talked to Lindsey about a “theoretical situation for a novel” in which the scenario played out, and she said it was “a disaster in the making. The perfect fodder for a plot. Can you imagine how messy that would be? You could have the guy swoop in and rescue the kid, or you could have him blackmailed into submission. Legally, though, as a donor, the guy is protected by the agreement he signed with the company. If he declined support or contact, the mother is breaking the contract she agreed to, and he would not be culpable.”
He’s always known this could happen. And like a damn fool, he hasn’t told Olivia about the possibility. Even after the Fiona Cross catastrophe, when it was an awkward but manageable situation, he hid this from her. Was he afraid to lose her? Yes. Or was he trying to push her away? Avoidance? Guilt? Shame?
His darling Olivia, who—understandably—has now put up an impenetrable wall between them. Just when he needs her the most, she is slipping away.
It was Perry the sainted white knight who had taken Olivia upstairs after the interview fell apart, practically carried her, and seeing them together cuts Park’s soul. It always has. Knowing they slept together, carried on their little revenge affair—it was an affair, Olivia was his girlfriend, damn it—until Perry left for school and Olivia spent the next few months grieving, not speaking to anyone, about killed him. He’d been overjoyed when their brief fling was over. Yes, he’d dated other girls, yes, he’d pretended not to care, but inside, he seethed with resentment. He stopped speaking to Perry—his twin, his closest friend—and bided his time until he made contact with Olivia again, hoping she would come around, and sure enough, she had. Maybe she felt sorry for him in the aftermath of Melanie’s death, maybe she missed him, maybe she even loved him like he loved her, completely and forever, but their lives had started over that day, and he had no regrets, none at all.
Olivia does. He saw the look on her face when that nasty reporter tossed St. Louis at them. Her recoil, her hand yanking away from his as if she couldn’t bear to be touching him anymore. He is losing her, he knows it, and he needs to find a way to keep her, and fast. She has to believe he isn’t capable of murder. That all of this is just coincidence.
Damn it, how did Erica Pearl, of all people, find out about St. Louis?
Poor little Annie Cottrell. Everyone in the neighborhood knew there had been a creep driving around, asking kids if they’d seen his puppy. It had been happening almost the whole summer. Everyone knew it had to be that creeper who took Annie. Everyone knew it.
But a vicious whisper campaign had started up among the neighborhood moms. The Bender boys had been paying too much attention to Annie Cottrell.
Without a clear suspect, the neighborhood had turned on them. Accused the boys of such terrible things. He and Perry hadn’t even been near Annie’s house when she went missing. They were at the field, Little League pregame batting practice underway. Park remembered the day vividly—he’d hit a homer and run the bases with a carefree smile, not knowing hours later their world would be under attack.
The police searched their house, talked to the boys, to Lindsey. Annie was their sister’s friend. Annie and Lindsey were playing by the fence, Lindsey had gone inside to get popsicles, and when she came back out, Annie was nowhere to be found. Yes, Park and Perry had seen her on their way to the field, but that was before. She’d been on her way to their house to play.
The creep was arrested a few months later exposing himself to another girl a town over. He denied knowing anything about Annie Cottrell, which fueled the flames all over again.
Eventually, their parents had decided they should move. They packed up and came to Nashville, and the course of all their lives had been altered.
Olivia Hutton lived across the street from the new house.