Chapter 34 Maeve
MAEVE
“Do you think I should have gone with the pink?”
I looked up from my spot on the floor as Olivia stared at the patches of pale green we’d painted on the walls as a test. “I like the green. It’s mature and peaceful. But if you want to change your mind you have about three minutes to do it.”
I was opening the can of paint my mom had bought at the hardware store and getting ready to pour it into the paint trays we’d laid out over the tarp on Olivia’s floors.
“I guess you’re right,” Olivia said with a sigh. “I just don’t want to make a mistake.”
“It’s just paint. And mistakes are part of being human, Liv. They’re not the end of the world.”
She nodded. “I guess.”
I realized with surprise that she was growing up.
Since June’s murder, I’d been so preoccupied with Ethan Todd I felt like I’d hardly looked up.
In my mind Olivia was still thirteen, still in middle school, with braces and gangly limbs that seemed too long for her body, like a just-born colt still trying to figure out what to do with its legs.
But she was growing into a young woman, her black hair shiny and long, her face less round than it had been when June had been alive. It made me sad that June wasn’t here to see her grow up, that we couldn’t talk about how crazy it was that little Liv would be driving soon.
I am here, M. I’m here all the time.
It’s not the same.
I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be good.
“You want me to cut in here while you start rolling over there?” I asked Olivia. “Or do you think we should both cut in and then roll all at once?”
“Are you speaking English right now?” she asked. “Because I don’t know what any of that means.”
I laughed. I’d painted the apartment with Bailey when we moved in, and we’d both watched YouTube videos to make sure we did a good job.
“We need to use the little brush and the edger to get the corners of the room and along the ceiling and baseboards.” Wow, I sounded like a grown-up, another thing to add to my list of Crazy Things That Had Happened Since June Died. “Then we fill in the big parts of the wall with the roller.”
She nodded as she stared at the wall, her expression serious. “That makes sense. Maybe you should cut in since you know what that means and everything.”
“You got it.”
My dad appeared in Olivia’s doorway holding a tray with two glasses of clear sparkling liquid garnished with rosemary and cranberries and a plate of homemade blondies, because snacks were never ordinary with my dad around.
“Thought you might want something to keep you going,” he said, taking in the empty room.
“Dad, paint will get in the drinks and stuff,” Olivia said.
“I’ll leave it out here.” He set the tray on the floor outside the room. “You can take a break whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Olivia was at the age where everything our parents did seemed annoying and intrusive, but I knew better: we were lucky to have them.
I thought about Bram and Cassie, who’d been denied such a basic element of human safety.
They’d done a good job of taking care of each other, but I wished they hadn’t had to, and I was suddenly eager to introduce them — both of them — to my family.
They could borrow my dad until Olivia stopped being annoyed by him.
Or forever if they wanted.
“Good luck,” he said, retreating into the hall.
“Be nice to him,” I said when he was gone. “He’s just trying to take care of us.”
She sighed. “I know.”
We went to work, Olivia rolling the color onto one side of the room while I cut into the other side with the brush and edger.
Music played from her portable speaker and we worked in companionable silence, speaking only occasionally when we had a question or when we wanted to show each other something.
The color was super pretty on the walls: a pale sage that made me think of the forest around Blackwell Falls. It would be peaceful for Olivia, and we’d already talked about thrifting items for the mature, peaceful vibe she was working toward.
I thought about Ethan Todd while I worked. He hadn’t taken the bait on our bots yet, but the posts had blown up, exploding into threads with hundreds and even thousands of comments, the war between feminists and misogynists on full display as Ethan’s name trended for the third day in a row.
I was starting to get nervous, starting to wonder if he had more restraint than we’d given him credit for, because there was no way he wasn’t aware of the online war raging over his name.
It had even been picked up by other podcasters and video content creators, and when I’d left the house that morning, #whereisethantodd had been trending.
I hated that in our game of strategy, it was now Ethan’s move.
There was nothing we could do until we figured out where he was hiding, and in the meantime I’d taken to digging deeper into the disappearances of the women surrounding Blackwell Falls over the past few years, looking for something — anything — I might have missed that would give us another lead into the sex trafficking operation and Todd’s whereabouts.
Because that was one thing I was sure of: the two were connected.
I didn’t know how Ethan Todd was linked to the missing girls, but I knew he was part of the tangled web that had snared them, and there was more than one way to tear down a tangled web.
If finding and taking out Ethan Todd meant finding out more about the sex trafficking operation, it only stood to reason that finding out more about the sex trafficking operation might mean finding out more about Ethan Todd and where he might be hiding.
I’d pored over old articles about the missing girls, had reread every press release from the Blackwell Falls Police Department, had watched every press conference given by Detective Rodriguez, the detective who seemed to be in charge of the other cases connected to the sex trafficking operation.
I’d even considered contacting her, telling her what had happened with Ethan Todd, how he’d kidnapped me and taken me to Romania, how he’d threatened to disappear me into his illegal operation.
But that seemed like a bad idea. I’d have to explain how I’d escaped, which would shine a light on the Butchers.
And Ethan Todd had powerful friends. For all I knew they had someone on the inside at the police department. If the wrong person got wind that I was talking to Detective Rodriguez, it might just send Todd into deeper hiding.
Better to be patient, disciplined, and stick with our plan, trust that NYNancy would ultimately drive Todd out of the shadows and into the light.
Olivia had finished two of the four walls when we decided to take a break. I’d cut in on the other two walls so it was a good time to swap positions.
I picked up the tray my dad had left in the hall and Olivia and I sprawled out on the floor around it, guzzling the vanilla seltzer my dad had garnished with the rosemary and cranberries.
“It looks good,” I said, taking in our work.
“Agreed.” She broke off a piece of the blondie in her hand and popped it in her mouth. “I’m glad I went with the green. You were right about the pink.”
“It’s a nice pink! You just said you were looking for something more mature.”
“It was the right call. Thanks for helping me with it.”
“No worries,” I said. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
I’d told my family I’d quit my job at Lushberry, that I was taking some time off to figure out what was next in my life. It was a white lie, a comforting lie, better than telling them I’d been kidnapped, taken to Romania, and almost sex trafficked by the man who’d inspired Chris to kill June.
“It’s nice to have you around again,” she said. “I missed you while you were gone.”
I looked at her with surprise. “I was never gone. I’m only a few blocks away!”
I’d told my family I was seeing someone, that we were trialing living together. Another comforting white lie, this one for me. My parents were nervous about it, wanted to meet “him.”
But I wasn’t ready to explain my situation with the Butchers, didn’t even know how to do it, starting with the fact that “him” was actually “them.” I’d asked them to trust me and was relieved that they had, but I knew it wouldn’t last long.
After what had happened to June, they had every right to want details about my living situation.
“Yeah, but you were like… kind of gone too,” Olivia said, looking down at the half-eaten blondie in her hand.
“What do you mean, Liv?”
“Just… you didn’t come around as often, and even when you did, you were… different.”
“Aren’t we all different after what happened to June?” I asked softly.
She took a deep breath. “Yeah, but you were like… really different. Not just, like, sad, but… angry.”
I had to force myself to swallow the bite of blondie that had turned to glue in my mouth. “Aren’t you angry? Or weren’t you in the beginning?”
She shook her head. “I was just sad. And I’m still just sad. Sad and…”
“And...?”
“Lonely, I guess.”
“Lonely how?” I asked.
She put the rest of the blondie back on the tray.
“Nobody knows how to talk about June. Not just at school and with my friends and stuff, but even here, at home. Sometimes I just want to talk about her, you know? Like not about how she died or about what Chris did to her but just about her. About the way she was and all the things I miss about her.”
My eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Liv. I want to talk about her too.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “I miss her so fucking much, Every minute of every day. I even…” I hesitated, wondering if it would freak Olivia out that I talked to June.
“What? You can tell me.”
“I hear her voice. Like, not just an echo of it, like she might be calling me from the next room, but I hear her voice so clearly talking about all the things that are happening in my life, like she’s right there and we’re having a whole conversation.”
“Really?” Olivia’s expression brightened. “Does she answer you?”
“She actually does. And I answer back. And it’s so real it hurts when she goes quiet again. I miss her attitude and the way she made me laugh. I miss how she was always stopping to pet people’s dogs and cats.”
“And birds!’ Olivia said. “Remember that guy on the cruise with the parrot?”
I laughed. “He wanted to come home with us, with June.”
Olivia started to laugh. “The guy had to lock him in his cage when we left the boat.”
“I can’t believe you can remember that! You were so little.”
“I remember everything about June. Or I try to.” She swallowed. “I don’t want to ever forget her.”
I leaned over to hug her. “You won’t. I won’t let you. We’ll just have to talk about her more, and not just us. Mom and Dad and Simon too.”
Olivia sniffled. “It hurts them to talk about her.”
“I know, but it will hurt them more not to talk about her.” I realized now that I’d been that way too. I’d hidden behind my anger toward Chris, toward Ethan Todd, using it as a shield against the pain behind it.
But the pain was part of what had happened. Part of June’s story.
Of ours.
June wouldn’t want us to block out the sad part, but she wouldn’t want us to dwell on it either.
The Butchers had taught me that. Somehow with them, there was room for it all: my rage toward Ethan Todd and my pain at losing June, but also the passion of falling in love with them and the comforts of home and my love for Ray.
There was room to miss June and laugh at Remy’s latest catastrophe, room for sorrow and room for the passion of being naked with all three of my men.
I was learning that if I just let it all happen, I could make space for it all, even when it sounded impossible.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I said. “But I’m here now, and I promise I won’t leave you again.”
The promise sat heavy between us, because if there was one thing we’d both learned it was that no one could really promise to stay. Sometimes people left even when they didn’t want to.
But she knew what I meant.
She held up her pinky and I linked mine around it.
“Time to swap?” I said, looking at the walls.
“Time to swap.” She got to her feet. “I think June would really like the green.”
I blinked away my tears. “I think so too."