The Night Olivia Fell. Christina McDonald

      I crossed the living room to the small oak desk in the corner next to the fireplace and sat down. Once my old laptop had booted up, I opened my e-mail, prepared to send a request for another leave of absence to my boss.

      I had thirty-four new e-mails: a mix of junk mail, persistent interview requests, well-wishers at work, friends and acquaintances in the community who were too scared to talk to me face-to-face. And then my eye fell on something else.

      Your invoice from Apple – Invoice APPLE ID

      [email protected].

      Tears sprang to my eyes. It was yet another reminder that Olivia wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t need to pay this bill anymore, but I didn’t want to stop because that would be an admission that my daughter wasn’t coming back.

      I wanted to drop my head to the desk and let my broken heart overwhelm me. Instead I took a deep breath and typed iCloud.com into the browser. I logged in with her e-mail and password, which I’d insisted she give me when I bought us both the iPhones, and a number of brightly colored icons filled my screen: e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos. The guts of Olivia’s life were here.

      I clicked the Mail icon, but the mailbox was empty except for a welcome e-mail. I shut it and moved on to Contacts. There were hundreds of people listed. Some I knew, but a lot I didn’t. I scrolled slowly down the page, staring hard at each name. Who were they? Had one of these people hurt Olivia? Next I opened Photos.

      At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Horror stole over me like a mist, uncurling deep within. And then a fiery knot began to burn in my stomach.

      I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them again. The pictures were still there. The first one was slightly blurry, as if it had been zoomed in from far away. Olivia was standing outside her school staring at something in the distance. Somebody had drawn devil horns over her head and a red line across her throat with what looked like drops of blood below.

      Die bitch! was written across the bottom.

      In the second one, Olivia’s face was colored over in hard, angry scribbles, a red noose twisted around her throat. But I could tell it was Olivia by the clothes she wore, her favorite swim-team shirt. I leaned closer to read the red text.

       Kill!

      And another: a knife drawn plunged into Olivia’s heart, blood dripping down her chest. The words U die! were scrawled on the picture.

      Shock rippled through me.

      There were a handful more, all variations of the first three: pictures of Olivia with her neck slit, blood dripping down the image, her eyes whited out, bloody intestines vomiting from her mouth. All with die, kill, and fuck you scribbled across them.

      ‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. A rush of adrenaline thumped hot and silent in my blood.

      Someone had been cyberbullying Olivia.

10

       ABI

      november

      I started to shake all over, a shocked and angry vibration that started at the very core of me and radiated out.

      Why would somebody send these to Olivia? And who?

      I scrolled down through the rest of the photos, but there was nothing else there. Nothing threatening, anyway.

      I rested my head on the desk and thumped it softly against the edge, as if that would knock loose rational thoughts that might solve this puzzle.

      ‘Think, Abi. Think!’

      Her phone. I bolted upright. Maybe there were more on her actual phone. I racked my mind, trying to think where I’d put it. I barely remembered what had happened since Olivia fell. It felt like I’d been sleepwalking since then.

      I ran to the kitchen and grabbed Olivia’s phone from the coun ter I’d thrown it on after the detectives left. The fact that the police hadn’t even asked for or looked for Olivia’s cell was further proof they weren’t taking the investigation seriously.

      I plugged the phone in to charge, and after a few seconds it chimed and burst to life.

      There were two unread text messages.

      The most recent was from someone Olivia had saved as K at 10:42 a.m. later the same morning Olivia was found: You ok? I’m so sorry. I seriously didn’t know. Anyway, he’s a dick. If you’re like me you’ll cut him out for good!

      I brushed a hand over my face, more baffled than ever. I scrolled down and read the other text.

      It was from Tyler at 11:20 p.m. the night Olivia fell.

      I scrolled up to read the whole thread.

      Olivia: You’re right. We need to talk. You still at bbq? Meet in 15?

      Tyler: Yep. See you in a few.

      I paused, letting the part of my brain that allowed me to analyze numbers so well take over. I latched on to something as my mind anchored and examined it. The thought crystallized into something cold and hard.

      ‘Fuck,’ I whispered out loud. Tyler had told me Olivia left at 10:45 p.m. and he hadn’t seen her after that. But according to this text, they’d met up at around 11:30 p.m. ‘Tyler lied to me.’

      I scrolled back through some of Olivia’s old texts. The most recent ones were from K and a string of texts from somebody called only D. As I read, I realized they were sweet, some rather romantic, and I remembered Tyler telling me the baby wasn’t his. Perhaps this D was the baby’s father.

      The shock of finding the disturbing images in Olivia’s iCloud account and the texts from Tyler had begun to dissipate, leaving behind a completely clear view.

      This was the proof I needed. Somebody had hurt Olivia on purpose. I had to go to the police.

      × × ×

      The Portage Point Police Department was situated in a miniature antebellum-style brick building on the far side of town, nestled under tall pine trees and fronted by a series of low boxwood shrubs.

      I drove too quickly up Main Street, flying past the white, steepled church, a handful of indie coffee shops, a yoga studio, and the small town square, then turned right past a children’s playground and baseball diamond. I parked outside the station, between a police SUV and an American flag flapping aggressively in the wind.

      Carol-Ann, the police station receptionist, recognized me as soon as I walked in.

      ‘Abi!’ She came around the desk and reached for me, folding me against her massive, doughy bosom. She smelled of lavender and soap, which made me suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d showered. When Carol-Ann pulled away, her soft brown eyes sparkled with tears.

      Carol-Ann was like the police department’s built-in grandma, complete with thick glasses and permed graying hair that poufed around her face. She’d run the front office as long as I could remember, helping the town’s four police officers and two detec tives organize legal paperwork, answer the phones, and comfort victims.

      ‘Carol-Ann, I need to see Detective Samson or McNally. Are they here?’

      I took a step toward the half-open inner door and caught a glimpse of Samson sitting in a small kitchen, a sandwich in front of her as she stared at her cell phone. The murmur of police radios floated out to me.

      Carol-Ann stepped in front of me and put her hand on my elbow, gently guiding me to a chair by her desk. ‘Let me see if they’re free. I’ll be right back.’

      A few minutes later she returned with Detective Samson.

      I jumped up, anger flaring in me. ‘Where have you been?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve left a thousand messages for you guys, and nothing! No wonder