Page 21 of The Woman I’ve Become

“I’m not down yet,” I promise the woman in that mirror.

I am clearly not myself. It started only hours after arriving at this house. Is that a sign this was, as Rick suggested, a bad idea?

As I leave my room, I smell the scent of frying bacon and hear the laughter of my child. For now, I put the worries from last night on ignore. I’ll come back to it.

Olivia is munching on a slice of bacon when I arrive in the kitchen. “Good morning, girls,” I say with all the enthusiasm I can muster.

Olivia giggles. “Acacia is not a girl,” she scolds.

“She is so,” I argue as I join my sweet child at the island. “She’s just an all-grown-up girl. There was a time when she was a little girl like you. Mommy was too. Remember, I showed you the photos.”

Another happy giggle from Olivia. “Silly Mommy.”

Acacia settles a plate in front of me. “You should eat.”

Her voice sounds a bit clipped, but when I look up, she smiles one of those practiced expressions and adds, “You’re way too thin.”

I frown at the food and remind myself that eating is necessary. I pick up a slice of bacon and force myself to eat it.

As we eat in silence, I can see that Acacia is upset about something. No doubt she recognizes that I lied to her last night. We’ll get to that soon enough.

“What?” she asks.

I blink, realize Acacia is peering expectantly at me. I must have been staring at her again. “I was just thinking about how Olivia needs some time outside before starting her schoolwork. We should have a scavenger hunt.”

Olivia claps her hands. “Yes! Yes!”

“Sounds interesting,” Acacia agrees, her expression revealing a bit of confusion. She slides off her stool. “I should clean up the kitchen so we can get going.”

I watch as she wipes the stovetop and loads the dishwasher. I can’t decide if she’s worried about my restless night or if she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop in regard to the necklace.

My money is on the latter.

While Acacia is preoccupied I decide to give my PI a prod. Surely he has at least a little something for me by now.

With Olivia occupied piecing together a puzzle featuring her favorite Disney princesses, I sequester myself in Phillip’s study and make the call.

“Morning, Dr. Belmont.”

I wonder whether to be worried that Reed Archer, my go-to PI, didn’t say “good” morning. Any hope I dared to entertain deflates.

“Do you have any news for me, Mr. Archer?” I say rather than hello or any other greeting. I innately understand that if he had news, he would have called. Still, I say the words and hope.

“Well, I do have an update, though it doesn’t give us anything new other than confirmation of what you suspected.”

I hold my breath, silently urging him to go on, though I suddenly don’t want to hear the words.

“The autopsy was finally released.”

I close my eyes and ride out the pain that twists in my chest. Since Eleanor’s death involved a fall down a stairwell and allegedly no one was there to witness what happened, an autopsy was deemed necessary. I have been waiting what feels like forever to get this news. Autopsies typically take ninety days, and we’ve just hit that mark.

“The ME’s conclusions are,” Archer goes on, “that the fall down the stairs caused a fatal cervical fracture. Her death was ruled an accident.”

Frustration pinches my face. “That isn’t what I expected the ME to conclude.” What the hell? Archer just said the autopsy confirmed what I suspected.

“Hold on,” he urges. “There’s more. There were other injuries that I believe give us the real story. A spiral fracture to her right arm. And a bruise on her right cheek that looks to me like someone slapped her hard or pushed her into something. The ME didn’t say so, but I’m looking at the photos, and that’s the way it looks to me. Truth is, the woman is dead. She was seventy-six years old and has no family. With an already overwhelmed system, no one is going to follow up with any sort of investigation.”

The idea of the pain involved with the sorts of injuries he listed rips at my heart. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” I know damn well what I’m thinking. There was a struggle before Eleanor fell.