Page 18 of The Girl Who Was Taken

Livia put her hands on top of her head, breathing heavily. “Thanks, Randy. I’m done anyway.”

“Get it all out?”

Livia grabbed her water bottle. “Probably never get itallout.”

“Wanna tell me about it.”

She sipped from the bottle. “What would that do to my membership fees?”

Randy threw her a towel and waited.

“You have regrets in life, Randy?”

“Too many to list.”

“Name your biggest.”

“Let’s see . . . I’ve got an eighth-grade education ’cause I thought selling drugs on a Baltimore corner was a career path. I’ve got this”—he pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal a shiny gray scar across his dark black skin—“because somebody shot me. And I gotta wake up each day knowing I’m alive ’cause I killed the guy who wanted me dead.”

Livia stared at him a moment, then slowly nodded her head. “Okay, you trump me.”

Randy laughed. “Impossible. Not with regret.”

“No?”

Randy shook his head. “Nope. Regret, it’s got no size. Mine can’t be bigger than yours. My daddy always said: ‘You either got it, or you don’t.’” He pointed at the bag. “And you’re not gonna get rid of it by punching a bag.”

“Probably true.”

“So what is it? What’s your regret?”

Livia looked at the bag, then back to Randy. “Not answering my phone.”

* * *

That night Livia Cutty woke in her childhood bedroom under the same ceiling fan that kept her cool during the hot summers of her youth. After her trip to the gym, she decided to get out of Raleigh. With Casey Delevan’s picture in her purse she headed to her parents’ house in Emerson Bay. Her original plan was to ask them about Nicole in the months before she disappeared. To ask if her parents knew anything about the guy Nicole was dating. Livia had planned to showthem Casey Delevan’s picture and tell them his body had been pulled from the bay and slapped on her autopsy table. That he was likely dead for more than a year, and if the timing added up he had been killed about the same time Nicole went missing. Livia’s original plan had been to confess her suspicions that the man in the picture was somehow connected to Nicole’s disappearance. She needed her parents’ help to figure out what Nicole was up to in the months before her death because, alone, Livia knew little about Nicole from that summer. The sad truth was that her sister had fallen into the shadowed corners of Livia’s life in the years before she was taken. Nicole’s rebellious attitude had driven Livia away. She blamed her absence from Nicole’s life on her residency and the looming decision to pursue a fellowship or move straight into the workforce. She claimed to have no time for her sister, even when Nicole had asked that summer to stay with Livia for a week.

“I just need to get out of Emerson Bay for a while,” Nicole said.

“And come here? Nic, there’s nothing to do here,” Livia said.

“I don’t care. I’m okay doing nothing. As long as I’m not here.”

“I spend twelve hours a day at the hospital.”

“I don’t care. We can hang out when you get home at night.”

“Nicole, I get home at eleven o’clock. Sometimes later. Then I get up early and start it all over again. It’s what you do in residency. I’m not going to be able to entertain you, or take you out.”

“I don’t care, Liv. I just want to get away from everyone here.”

“I know high school is hard, but you’re done with that now. You’ll be off to school in the fall and you’ll make new friends. Trust me. Coming here will depress you.”

Silence.

“Nic?”

“What?”

---