Chapter 2 Olivia
I’m ascending again. Pushing upward. Breaking through the surface into brightness.
But I’m not where I thought I was. I’m lying in a bed, light dazzling me.
I turn my face away from the glare.
A wide window reveals an urban view, which I immediately recognize as downtown Wilmington and Eagle Island, divided by Cape Fear River. If I could see closer, I could probably pick out Jake’s office building from here.
A machine to my side beeps a steady rhythm, and an orange plastic chair sits empty by my bed.
On the other side of me, a green curtain is closed, and somebody is talking — a low, male voice. Jake? No, even lower than Jake’s.
The curtain swishes to one side, and a stocky nurse in green scrubs emerges. He glances at me and raises his eyebrows.
“You’re awake.” His smile is wide, bright against his dark skin. “Welcome back.” He sits on the chair beside the bed. His badge reads Marcus Deneil, Nurse Practitioner. “You’re quite the mystery. You came in yesterday without any ID. And you’ve been asleep ever since,” he adds. “What’s your name?”
What? That’s weird.
“Olivia Grainger,” I reply, frowning. “Call me Liv. Where’s Jake?”
The nurse’s eyebrows lift. “Jake?”
“My fiancé. He must’ve brought me here. We were at a quarry lake together and . . . I don’t know. I fell, I guess.”
Marcus shakes his head. “A hiker named Kirk found you yesterday afternoon at the quarry. In fact, his dog led him to you, otherwise you might never have been found. The hiker didn’t even know the quarry was there.
You didn’t have any clothes, or any items nearby that could ID you. There was nobody else around, he said.”
“But — no.” I shake my head. “I was with my fiancé. Jake Johnson. He must’ve been nearby. We were picnicking. He was packing up when I fell.”
The nurse pats my left hand. “It’s okay. Jake was probably somewhere looking for you when you were found. Now that we know who you are, we can call your fiancé for you, let him know you’re here. Do you have his number?”
My left hand feels odd, empty. I flutter my fingers. My engagement ring is gone. “Uh, yeah, his number’s on my phone. I don’t know it by heart. Do you have my cell?”
Marcus shakes his head. “You had nothing on you, not even clothes. I guess it’s still at the quarry. Or your fiancé has it all. But that’s okay. We can track him down. Where does he work?”
“He’s in-house counsel at Refuge Advocacy International — he works from their downtown office. He is supposed to be back at work today. You can find their number online—”
I stop.
This can’t be right. They’re saying I fell yesterday afternoon. So where is Jake? Did something happen to him?
“But I wouldn’t think Jake’s gone to the office, if he thinks I’m missing and doesn’t know I’m here.
But maybe call them anyways, I guess, and tell them what happened?
” Crap, Mom and Dad will be wondering what’s happened to me, too.
“And if you could contact my parents — they’ll be panicking.
Tilly and Burt Grainger. Mom’s cell number .
. . oh, it’s on the Ten Thousand Roses charity website — she does a lot of fundraising for them. ”
Marcus makes notes on a little pad from his top pocket and gives me another smile.
“Great. Jake Johnson, at Refuge Advocacy, you said? Okay, got it. We’ll have you connected with your family in no time.
I’ll send Dr. Connor in to check you over, but you seem to be doing well physically.
Back soon.” He rises and disappears around the curtain beside me.
This is bizarre.
Why wasn’t Jake at the lake when the hiker found me? Did he not see me fall? Was he searching for me in the forest? Is it possible Jake and the hiker missed each other? It makes no sense.
A doctor appears in the doorway — Dr. Connor, I presume. She gives me a once-over, examining my limbs and torso, carefully, under my hospital gown, then stares at me, one eyebrow raised.
“What?” I ask.
“You fell off a quarry cliff?”
I nod.
“It’s amazing. You don’t have a scratch or a bruise on you, except for the soles of your feet.”
“What’s amazing is I missed the rocks at the bottom.” I still can’t believe that. “I slipped. You’d usually have to take a running jump to clear them. My fiancé loves to terrify me by doing that,” I add.
The doctor gives me a sympathetic half-smile. The same kind of smile I’d give a child telling me about their imaginary friend. My hackles rise. Jake is real.
Dr. Connor turns away. “Hopefully when your family arrives, we can find out more about what happened. Once they’re here and we’ve figured out your identity and your insurance details, you’ll be cleared to go.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
As she leaves, she crosses paths with Marcus the nurse. They exchange glances, Marcus giving the doctor a tiny shake of his head.
What’s that about?
Marcus sits beside me. There’s a deep crease between his brows.
“Okay. So, I called Refuge Advocacy International to get your fiancé’s cell number, and there seems to be some misunderstanding. They said they have no record of a Jake Johnson, or Jacob Johnson, ever working there. So, I was unable to get hold of him.”
I scoff. “Well, he definitely works there. I visit him at the office all the time. We went to their Memorial Day barbecue last week. You must’ve got some clueless new receptionist who doesn’t know all the staff.”
Marcus sucks in a breath. “I was transferred to the CEO, David Ackerman. He said he’d never heard of Jake Johnson . . . Nor Olivia Grainger.”
What?
I shake my head. “Jake and I both know David very well. They’ve worked together for three years.”
“Here’s where I’m worried, Liv.” His tone is gentle.
“I found your mom’s number on the charity website like you said, and called her.
I explained her daughter, Liv Grainger, was here at New Hanover Regional, and .
. . well. She pretty much screamed and broke down.
Next thing I’m speaking to Mr. Grainger, and he’s asking me who I am and what’s going on.
When I tried to explain his daughter was here, unhurt, but needing to be picked up, he started shouting at me, things that made no sense. ”
A wash of bile builds at the back of my throat. I try to sit up, but my body is weak with fatigue. Marcus sees my struggle and levers my bed into an angled position.
“What was Dad saying?” I have to force out the words.
“Things like, ‘what kind of scam is this?’ and ‘how dare you try to exploit our grief’ — that kind of thing. Called me a liar. I repeated that you were here and asking for them.” Marcus takes my hand, his expression kind.
“He said, ‘It’s not possible. Our daughter Olivia died sixteen years ago, when she was twelve.’ Then he hung up.
So, I checked the city birth and death registry database and, well, I found an Olivia Grainger who died in the mid-2000s, aged twelve. ”
I suck in a breath, swallowing hard. Leaning my head back, I try to make some kind of sense of this.
“You must’ve got the wrong Olivia Grainger? Obviously.”
In my periphery, I see Marcus shake his head. “There’s only been one born in the nineties to a Burt and Tilly Grainger. Do you have any siblings?”
“My sister, Charlotte. She’s twenty-two. She manages a branch of Zara downtown. You could call her.”
“I can try that later, but I think for now we need to figure out what’s going on here,” he replies. “I only mention siblings to check you’re talking about the same family. And yes, there’s a sister named Charlotte. She’s been an only child since her older sister Liv died aged twelve.”
My head is reeling so much I can barely see. I turn away from the nurse and retch, a thread of sickly saliva spilling from my mouth. My stomach is nothing but acid. Marcus scurries to my other side, placing a metal bowl under my chin. He crouches by my bed, holding my hand.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here.
You don’t seem to be lying, but obviously you can’t be a person who died sixteen years ago.
You have no ID to back up your story, and the people you say are your parents tell me you’re dead, which the city data confirms. I have to ask you. Is Olivia Grainger really your name?”
“Yes!” A tear slips down the side of my cheek. “I’m not lying, I swear. Why would I lie about who I am?”
“It happens. Con artists, scammers, identity thieves. Although this would be a really weird scam, to pretend to be someone who died as a child, and notify the family they’re taking on that identity—”
“I’m not a scammer.” The tears fall harder.
“I swear I’m Liv Grainger. I’m twenty-eight.
I’m close with my family — I have dinner with my parents and sister at their house at Landfall every Sunday.
Usually also with my fiancé, Jake. We have a house near Bradley Creek — we bought it last year after we got engaged and fixed it up.
We’re getting married August 20th. I . .
. I run my own interior design business, Living Inc.
, and Jake works at Refuge Advocacy. We were together yesterday at the quarry.
He’ll be so worried about—” A sob catches the rest of my words.
Marcus passes me a tissue. I blow my nose as he stares at me.
“Okay,” he replies finally. “I’ll track down your Jake Johnson and see what he has to say. I’ll also call Charlotte Grainger at Zara, maybe she can shed some light on this. The downtown branch?”
I nod, wiping mucus from my nostrils. “Thank you.”
He gives me a kind smile and rises. “I’ll be back. Hang in there.”
My head throbs painfully, my thoughts racing too fast for me to catch up with them. Nothing makes any sense.
Why the hell would Mom and Dad claim I died as a child?
Have they gone nuts? I’ve never even broken a limb, much less had a major accident or serious illness.
Why would Jake’s boss deny knowing us? Why isn’t Jake here at the hospital with me right now, or calling all the hospitals to track me down? Where did he go when I fell?
I’m almost in a trance by the time Marcus returns, the swirl of nonsensical information descending into a nightmarish blur.
“Liv?”
I open my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them. I start upright. Marcus sits on the orange chair, taking my hand, his face grim.
“I got through to your sister at the store. As I suspected, I got the same reaction I got from your father. First accusing me of being a spam caller, and then, once I’d explained more, telling me that you must be a scammer or identity thief of some kind, since her sister Livvie died when Charlotte was six.
But I did manage to get Jake Johnson’s cell number from her.
Charlotte does know him, although she says he’s not your fiancé. ”
I let out a fresh sob, mixed with a strangled cry.
Marcus continues, “Charlotte said she knows him through a friend, and he works at a private law firm downtown. I called Jake, and explained what you’ve been telling me.
He was as perplexed as the rest of them, telling me that he did know you as a child, the two of you were best friends throughout childhood until you died aged twelve.
He’s sure you can’t possibly be who you say you are, as he was there when you died.
And he said he was sorry he couldn’t help me identify you further. That was it — he hung up after that.”
I hear Marcus’s last words as if through fog or underwater. Unclear, their edges blurred, the sound distorted.
I’m slipping again, falling. Back into the deep. Back into the darkness of the lake, the water enveloping me. Wrapping its comforting, cold arms around me.
Back to the place where time stops.