Chapter 21
Olivia
It snowed on and on in the days after Winnie’s funeral.
Not the heavy kind that traps you indoors, but the soft flakes that float down like they’ve got nowhere else to be.
Wren and I were walking down Main Street, hands tucked into our pockets, when she suddenly stopped, turned to me, and grabbed my arm.
“Dance with me,” she said, her voice excited and playful.
“Here?” I looked around. “In the street?”
“Yes,” she nodded, already pulling me toward her. “I’ve never danced in the snow before.”
So we did—under the string of holiday lights and decorations that adorned the lampposts and building facades.
The sprinkle of snow clung to her hair, melted on my cheeks, and for a few perfect minutes, there was no pain, no past, no heaviness.
Just the sound of our boots crunching on the pavement, and Wren’s laugh as our cold noses brushed each other’s as we swayed beneath the falling sky.
Then came the holidays.
Wren and I had spent Christmas at Aunt Nell’s, surrounded by succulents and Riot’s enthusiastic response to Wren’s knowledge of all things Harley Davidson.
The turkey was juicy, the potatoes golden, the gravy to die for, and the sugar cookies warm—we were still in a food coma by the time New Year’s rolled around.
Henry had insisted on a little celebration at the library.
He strung up paper stars and tinsel in the reading corner and put out mulled apple cider and snickerdoodles.
The group came—all of us. Even Emmy. No one really said it, but I think we all needed to feel like we had made it to the end of something.
That we weren’t alone when the clock hit midnight.
And then, somewhere in that gray stretch of January—the kind of unmemorable week that feels just like the last, I got the call.
By some miracle, Riley Novak, the EMT who responded to the scene of Wren and Lucy’s accident, hadn’t forgotten about me.
He mentioned he’d be heading to a nearby campground for a winter fly-fishing trip—something about the tailwaters keeping the river from freezing—and agreed to meet me there Wednesday morning.
I walked into the café he’d chosen, scanning the room until I spotted him, a burly man with silvering hair and a weathered face, fiddling with a napkin.
“Riley?” I ventured.
He looked up. “Olivia,” he echoed, nodding as he stood to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you. I was surprised by your voicemail, though. Didn’t think anyone still cared about that case.”
“I care,” I replied. “Do you mind if I record this?”
“Go ahead,” he said, gesturing for me to sit down.
I set my phone on the table between us and hit record. “So, you were working as a paramedic in July 2024?”
“Yep, I’ve been a New York paramedic for fifteen years now,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Impressive,” I replied.
He chuckled. “Got first responders all through my family—cops, firefighters. Me? I wanted paramedic work because I don’t like guns or dalmatians.”
The dad joke caught me off guard, and I gave a polite laugh.
“It had been a long day,” he began. “My partner, Maria, and I had barely taken a break. We managed to pull into a McDonald’s for a quick bite when we got radioed about a minor fender bender on the highway.
We sped off with fry grease still on our hands.
The patient there just needed a bandage for a sprained wrist.”
He paused, shaking his head slightly, as though he was trying to shake off a bad memory. “We were heading back when the accident with Brooklyn and Lucy happened. It was sheer luck we were there at that moment.”
I leaned in. “What did you see?”
His expression darkened. “The Jeep was stopped at the intersection. Then another car, speeding, slammed into it. The impact was brutal—sent the Jeep into an electrical pole. The other car didn’t stop; it veered onto the sidewalk, mowed down a kid, a young boy. It was bad.”
“Okay,” I said, inhaling just about all the air around us. “And Maria, she witnessed it too?”
“No,” he replied. “She was hunched over, trying to see if they’d added pickles to her burger. She saw the aftermath, not the impact itself.”
“What happened next?”
“We jumped into action, of course. Radioed backup. Maria went to assist the boy, and I approached Lucy and Brooklyn’s vehicle.
It was severely mangled. Lucy was already deceased, and Brooklyn was barely conscious.
We had to wait for the fire department to bring the Jaws of Life to remove her from the wreckage. ”
I felt a wave of nausea and ran my hands through my hair, trying to steady myself.
“Our training kicked in, and you do what you have to do, but oh boy, that accident site still gives me the shivers.”
“Do you know who the other driver was?” I asked. “The one who actually caused the accident?”
Riley shook his head. “No. I never got close to him. The other paramedics on scene tended to him.”
“Did you give a witness statement?”
“Yeah,” he said with a short nod, his expression hardening. “But it never made it into the official reports.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He hesitated, lowering his voice. “The report I gave didn’t match what the police were saying happened. When I followed up later, it was like my statement had disappeared. They were pushing a completely different version of events.”
“Different how?” I pressed.
“They pinned the whole thing on Lucy, said she was drunk and caused the crash. But from what I saw, her car was stopped at the intersection when it was hit. I didn’t see any evidence of reckless driving on her part.
” He folded his arms. “And, to corroborate, I tracked down Mrs. Lewis—the mother of the boy who was injured. Her version of events seemed awfully in line with mine.”
“And you didn’t push back on that?”
Riley’s jaw tightened. “I’m a paramedic,” he replied. “I’m not a detective, and I don’t have any say in what the police put in their reports. But I knew something was off when they didn’t call me back for a follow-up. It felt like they didn’t want my version of events on record.”
“Do you have proof?”
“You would need the original coroner’s report,” he said. “Not the sanitized version they gave the families. The truth is in there.”
I reached out and turned off my phone’s recording.
“Not sure how you’ll get your hands on it, though, since they’re sealed,” he added, giving me a sideways glance. “Unless you know a guy.”
I smiled. Oh, I knew a guy, all right.
“I need a favor,” I said, sliding into a booth at Sam’s three hours later.
“You always need favors,” Trevor replied, taking a bite out of the burger in front of him. Ketchup and mustard were dripping onto his plate.
Trevor Mackerel (yes, like the fish): private investigator, three-time hot dog eating competition winner at Sam’s Diner, and father of Hayley Mackerel, my high school girlfriend.
“This one’s big,” I said.
“They’re always big with you,” he said, tipping what must have been half the sugar pot into his coffee. “What’s the job?”
“I need access to an original coroner’s report,” I said.
Trevor stopped mid-chew, his burger hovering in front of his face. “A coroner’s report? For what?”
“A story,” I replied, keeping my tone causal.
“You can’t get it on public record?”
“No. It was sealed. I need the original report from the NYPD coroner. The one they didn’t want anyone to see.”
His brows lifted slightly. “And you think you’re gonna blow the lid off some kind of cover-up?”
I nodded. “It’s big, Trevor. Really big. The kind that changes lives. I think the police altered the report to cover up something, or to cover for someone.”
Trevor set his burger down, wiping his hands with a napkin as he studied me. “Liv, you’re poking the hornet’s nest with this one. If there’s a cover-up at that level, it means powerful people don’t want the truth getting out. You sure you wanna go there?”
“That’s exactly why I need to go there,” I said. “Can you get it or not?”
He leaned back against the booth, his expression unreadable for a moment before a grin spread across his face. “ ’Course I can. Might take a day or two, though. These things don’t exactly come gift-wrapped.”
“Take your time,” I said, though my chest burned with urgency.
Trevor stirred his overly sweet coffee, a sly smile playing on his lips. “Hey, by the way, you ever thought about getting back together with Hayley?”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, Trev. I’m sort of attached these days.”
He sighed dramatically. “I don’t particularly enjoy her current partner,” he muttered.
“You didn’t particularly enjoy me either,” I said, stealing a fry from his plate.
He grinned again. “Touché.” He tipped his coffee mug toward me. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got it.”
Three days later, Trevor came through with the report.
He handed it to me as I filled up gas at the station.
“We’re square,” he whispered, sliding the envelope under my arm and disappearing as quickly as he’d arrived.
I scrambled to force the nozzle back in place, fumbling into my car and ripping open the envelope.
Inside was Lucy’s original death certificate.
I scanned it, plucking the relevant lines from the document and burning them into my memory.
IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF DEATH: (A) Blunt Force Trauma
DUE TO: Vehicle collision
MANNER OF DEATH: Reckless driving
PLACE OF INJURY: Intersection of Broadway and Houston Street, New York
DESCRIBE HOW INJURY OCCURRED: The deceased was injured when another vehicle, traveling at excessive speed, struck their car while it was stopped at an intersection. The impact forced the deceased’s vehicle into an electrical pole, resulting in fatal injuries.
TOXICOLOGY REPORT: Toxicology results were negative for alcohol, drugs or any other intoxicants.