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That was exactly what she feared. The disappointment would be crushing.
“Then at least I’ll know.” She swallowed. “Gotta go—time for my run.”
The empty streets of Durango spread out before Liv as she ran, the only sound her rhythmic footsteps and breathing. The temp agency had picked a decent place to put her up for the summer, a newer development north of town. It hugged a red-tinged hill running up Durango’s east side, and as Liv ran, she admired the gorgeous views of the La Plata Mountains.
She passed a few other early-morning runners but did not allow anyone to pass her—a point of pride, stemming from her high school and college track days. Running had pulled her through after Kristina’s death. Or rather, Gran’s insistence that she get off her ass and do something. At her first track practice she’d run so hard she vomited on her scuffed-up sneakers. That’s what had hooked her: the promise of pain from a different source, cleaner than the pain within her. Running became a way to channel the anger, to compress it.
The next day she was back again, running even harder. A few months later, she lost her first meet by a fraction of a second and vowed it wouldn’t happen again.
In high school she’d run almost everything, including cross-country, but at the University of Pittsburgh she’d specialized in the 400 and 800 meters. She’d done well enough to keep her scholarship, her golden ticket out of the life she’d been heading for: dead-end job, maybe an unplanned pregnancy, like her grandmother and mother and sister before her.
In college she discovered something else: if she could choose the classes, she enjoyed school. She did well enough to get accepted to Pitt’s physical therapy program, one of the best in the nation. Sometimes it still shocked her that she, Olivia Kay Barrett, daughter of an addict mother and a deadbeat, unknown father, had ended up with a doctorate-level degree.
Maybe it was all the thoughts of Kristina, but as the miles passed, Liv’s mind refused to go blank, no matter how hard she pushed herself. Memories of the morning after Kristina died kept drifting back. The way all the color had drained from Gran’s face. Dear God, she kept repeating. Dear, dear God. They were all sitting together on her stiff floral sofa. Oliver had cried silently, smearing tears across his face with the back of his hand. Liv had dug her nails into her palms and tried not to throw up.
“We are investigating this as a homicide,” Detective Rasband had said. He looked like Mr. Clean, Liv remembered thinking, with his shiny bald head. No earring, though. “And we must assume the child is in danger, as well. I’m so sorry.”
Kristina had been beaten to death, he said, faltering over the words. Blunt force trauma to the head. Liv remembered how he’d wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. The entire police department was devastated that this had happened to Joe’s girl, especially Rasband since Joe had been his partner years ago.
Liv had jumped in: “Kristina’s ex-boyfriend came here looking for her last night.”
Detective Rasband’s eyebrows shot up as he fired questions about Sam and Kristina. How long were they involved? Is he the father of the child? Did they ever argue?
But then Gran had cleared her throat and told Liv and Ollie to go upstairs. Later that day, she told them to start packing. They were going to spend the rest of the summer with their aunt and uncle in West Virginia.
When Liv thought back, she wondered what might have been different if Gran hadn’t sent them away. It had been nice to avoid the intensity of the investigation, the police officers and FBI agents, the reporters who came by looking for a scoop. But Liv’s aunt and uncle had followed Gran’s advice and refused to speak about the case, which meant Liv and Oliver had to learn everything from the media.
Which only made Liv more obsessed. Whenever she closed her eyes, she’d see Kristina’s head bashed in, her skull crumpled like an eggshell.
At first, the media had focused on Sam Howard. The ex-boyfriend was the obvious suspect, especially because he had disappeared. But over time, the narrative shifted. Kristina’s autopsy revealed high levels of alcohol in her system, as well as antidepressants, opioids, and benzodiazepines, which matched the prescription bottles in her medicine cabinet. Speculation mounted that she was selling them, had gotten in with the wrong crowd, leading to an altercation and her death.
Liv never believed it. Kristina would not have put her daughter at risk.
But she was powerless to stop it, this narrative that distilled the entirety of her sister’s existence to a single point: the negligent mother, the addict. Liv had wanted to scream at the world, to make them see her sister as a real person. Kristina loved boy bands, Dr. Pepper–flavored LipSmackers, and big hoop earrings. She made the best triple-chocolate-chunk cookies in the world. She loved her baby and was determined to be a better mother than their own mom had been.
Losing Kristina had been shattering. Watching the media reduce her to a two-dimensional caricature was almost worse.
After returning to Gran’s house two months later, the case was off-limits as a topic of conversation. Gran hardly spoke at all, in fact. So Liv would stay up late with Oliver, reviewing everything they knew in urgent whispers, neither of them able to sleep.
“Sam always wanted Gabriela for himself,” Liv would say. “He must have run off with her. He must be raising her somewhere.”
“Maybe,” Oliver had said. “Or maybe the police haven’t found either of them because...”
“Because what?” Liv had demanded.
Even as teenagers, Oliver knew better than to rupture Liv’s fragile hope. He sighed and said, “Nothing.”
Liv picked up the pace on her run, hot tears stinging her eyes. Faster and harder, as if she could outrun the memories. The hard finality of losing Kristina. The hazy uncertainty of losing Gabriela. The weeks and months that passed with no leads.
Gabriela might not be alive, Liv had admitted to herself years ago. But the hope persisted, dormant embers of a fire that her time in Durango had stoked to flame. Liv burned with the need to find her niece, to bring Kristina’s killer to justice.
A long, gradually increasing hill stretched ahead, and Liv pressed her feet into the asphalt and propelled herself up, relishing the burn in her legs and lungs. Better than blankness, this relentless, full-body agony allowed no room for other feelings. The sun rose in front of her, a burning yellow yolk. Sweat dripped down her face and chest.
The sound of footsteps made her lose focus. She glanced over her shoulder and saw another runner, a man in shorts and a green T-shirt, thirty or forty feet behind. Not in the mood to be beaten, she increased her speed. She expected him to drop away, but another quick glance revealed he was gaining on her.
In a burst of competitive frustration, Liv dug her feet into the pavement, shoes scrabbling on loose rock, legs and lungs screaming with exertion. And still he gained, coming alongside her, his breathing as loud as her own.
Just before she crumpled on her overcooked-noodle legs, they reached the top of the hill. Liv refused to give the other runner the satisfaction of seeing her collapse; she stepped to the edge of the trail and bent double, head between her knees. Her stomach twisted and roiled, but worse than that was the frustration of not beating him.
