Two days later, Livia completed the file and delivered her final report to the homicide detectives. The name of the man “floating” in the bay was broadcast to the public by every news anchor in Emerson Bay and North Carolina. The exact details about his death were kept vague as the investigation was in the preliminary phase, and he was still being reported as a “floater” whom fishermen had stumbled upon. The newspeople ate up any morsel of information they could find about this twenty-five-year-old man named Casey Delevan. They presented it dramatically on the evening news, but the sad truth was that no one had missed Mr. Delevan, and no one was looking for him. The story had no staying power. After a day, the identification of the body pulled from Emerson Bay was old news, overshadowed by Oktoberfest, changing leaves, and Halloween festivals.
It was ten p.m. when Livia started her bag work at the gym. In a tank top, shorts, and bare feet, she went at the Everlast bag with everything left inside her. It was soft but solid when her shin connected with it. As she brought her leg down, she danced on the balls of her feet before unloading a combination of three punches—two straight left jabs and a powerful right hook. Another kick followed. Sweat poured down her long, lean frame. Always athletic, Livia had formerly been a treadmill and Nautilus regular. Running and light strength training had been enough during medical school and residency to stay in shape and give her mind a break. But since she started her fellowship, something more than long runs were needed to offset the overwhelming volume of information her brain absorbed each day. She needed, too, an escape from the eerie morgue, where bodies lay on autopsy tables, the piercing cry of bone saws echoed off the walls, and the smell of formaldehyde hung in the air. Livia needed a release from the close quarters she shared with death, and evidenced by the sculpted body she witnessed in the mirror over the last few months, she’d found her refuge.
Bag work was how she spent the last fifteen minutes of her workouts. Livia had long ago given up on the “cooldown” feature of the treadmill. Cooling down now was saved for the shower.
“Good!” Randy said. He, too, was dripping with perspiration. His T-shirt clung to his hulking body and his arms tensed as though he’d like to get involved in the action. “Mix it up. You throw the same combination over and over, your opponent will anticipate it.”
About to release another side kick with her dominant right leg, Livia instead offered an axe kick with her left, followed by a spinning backhand right.
“There you go,” Randy said. “Variety gets you out of trouble. You stay stale with that side kick, and your opponent will see it coming.” He checked his stopwatch. “Time!”
Livia bent over, breathing heavily, and put her gloved hands on her knees.
Randy patted her on the back as he walked away. “Good workout. I’d take you back home with me as my bodyguard. The streets of Baltimore would never be the same.”
“I’m sure.”
“See you next week, Doc.”
Livia showered at the gym and was home and in bed by eleven thirty p.m. She grabbed the book off the nightstand, disgusted with herself for reading it. She’d spent twenty-seven bucks on the thing and knew some portion of her cash would find its way to Megan McDonald. The previous evening, Livia made it through half the book, which covered Megan’s stellar life and all her accomplishments. It covered in detail the summer retreat she championed, and all the girls she had helped in her young life. Livia read page after page about the driven person Megan McDonald was, the entire narrative implying, without frankly stating, what a loss it would have been had she not escaped from that bunker.
Livia hated the writing and the vocabulary and the foreshadowing. She hated that the book turned such a tragedy into a suspenseful true-crime noir. She hated that Nicole, who disappeared from the same beach party on the same night, was barely mentioned. She couldn’t stomach the implication that her sister was the other girl, the lower-profile, less-special girl who did not have the town’s sheriff as a father or a résumé that compared to Megan McDonald’s. Livia detested the suggestion that the world would be less a place had Megan McDonald not escaped, but would continue just the same without Nicole. Most of all, Livia was saddened that no one remembered her sister any longer. The country was transfixed, not by the girl who was gone, but by the one who made it home.
Over the past year, Livia watched every interview Megan McDonald had given. She was torn between believing Megan’s grief over Nicole, and thinking she was full of herself. Reading this money-grab was not swaying her low opinion of the girl. Why, Livia wondered, would someone put on display her innermost thoughts and horrors for the reading public to devour if not for attention and celebrity?
And despite all this, Livia couldn’t stop reading. The story was the closest thing she’d gotten to real details about the night Megan and Nicole were taken. Just as Livia turned the page to begin a new chapter, the phone rang. She answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Livia?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Jessica Tanner.”
Livia remembered Nicole’s friend. Ten years separated Livia and Nicole, and a strange relationship had developed between the two sisters. Livia was very close in a maternal way with Nicole; this motherly relationship lasted until Livia went off to college. Nicole was eight years old at the time, and their relationship blossomed whenever Livia came home for holidays and summers. Some of the greatest memories they shared were those times when Livia was home from college. Livia’s mind drifted to those nights, when Nicole would sneak into Livia’s bedroom. One late night, she lugged a thick Harry Potter novel with her and stood by Livia’s bed.
“You’ve got to go to sleep. You’ve got soccer in the morning.”
“Just for a little while,” Nicole said. “Just one chapter.”
Livia smiled. “Fine. Hurry up.”
She moved the covers to the side, and Nicole climbed into her older sister’s bed, tucked her head into the corner of Livia’s shoulder as they both lay on their backs. Livia found where they’d left off, marked with a Taylor Swift ticket stub from the previous summer.
Livia opened the book and read. One chapter turned to three and soon she heard Nicole’s breathing become deep and rhythmic. It wouldn’t have taken much to carry her nine-year-old sister to the bedroom next door, but Livia never minded sharing her space with Nicole. She stuck the stub back into the book, a new location farther along, and couldn’t help feel as though the same was happening to them. Each time, they got further along in their story together. Livia wondered what would come next when the book ended. Would another follow, or would the latest one simply end? Sisters don’t share beds forever.
Years later, Livia was finishing medical school when Nicole started at Emerson Bay High. Livia’s pathology residency occupied much of her life during Nicole’s high school years. Their relationship drifted during this time, the formative years of Nicole’s adolescence. The realities of life and work sent the sisters in different directions. Reading Harry Potter novels was a distant memory tarnished by time. Still, Livia knew most of Nicole’s friends from that time, and knew Jessica Tanner had been one of her sister’s closest. The last time the two had talked was at a vigil for Nicole more than a year before, and another time briefly when the town gathered to futilely search the wooded areas of Emerson Bay just after the disappearances.
“Hi, Jessica. Everything all right?”