Page 70 of She Didn't See It Coming
Emma PorterIt’s still open. But it’s in another jurisdiction. I’ll see what more I can find out.
Lizzie feels frustrated that she’s been upstaged by Deep Diver. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t feel that high she felt yesterday, when she had so much to report, when everyone was hanging on her every word. She misses it. But she has something shecansay.
I was at the condo today, hanging around, trying to eavesdrop on the journalists outside the building. And guess what I saw? Bryden’s sister, Lizzie, and Bryden’s little girl—I forget her name—they came out of the building and went across the street to the park. I saw a woman go up and sit beside her on a park bench and talk to her. And now, looking at this picture from Deep Diver, I realize who it was. It was Alice Gardner. Why would Alice Gardner be talking to Bryden’s sister?
•••
Donna waitsfor her daughter to come out of her room. She waits for hours. What is she doing in there? She wants to ask her about Clara. Finally, she approaches her bedroom door, taps on it, and calls out, “Lizzie? Are you busy? Can you come out for a minute?”
Lizzie ignores her.
She tries again. “Lizzie?” Maybe she has her headphones on, listening to music, Donna thinks. She can’t wait any longer. She tries to open the door. But it’s stuck. She rattles it in the frame. It won’t budge. “Lizzie? Are you all right?”
She knows there’s no lock on this door, but something is preventing it from opening. She is seized with alarm. Has Lizzie done something to herself? An overdose? She yells for Jim.
Jim comes quickly, grasps the situation, and begins to pound on the door, yelling, “Lizzie! Lizzie, open the door!”
Abruptly, the door opens six inches and Lizzie’s face appears, pale from within the darkened room. Donna sees a chair behind her daughter as if she has just pulled it away from the door. Donna knows that chair is usually on the other side of the room. Her heart is pounding in distress. “What’s going on? Are you all right?” Donna demands breathlessly.
“I’m fine,” Lizzie replies, annoyed. “What do you want?”
“We want to talk to you. Why didn’t you answer the door? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I had my headphones on. I just needed some privacy.”
“You’ve been in there—with the chair propped up against the door—for hours. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” Now she’s being sullen, as if she’s a teenager again, not a thirty-two-year-old adult. “I just want to be alone.” And she closes the door in their faces. They can hear her shoving the chair up under the doorknob again.
Donna turns to her husband, who looks as alarmed as she is. “What’s wrong with her?” Donna asks. She whispers, “Do you think she’s taking drugs?”
They reluctantly move away from the bedroom door and make their way to the kitchen. Jim answers, “I don’t know. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” Donna says. “I noticed yesterday that her eyes seemed glazed. She seems excitable, moody, different. She’s a nurse, she has access to drugs.”
“You don’t have to be a nurse to get drugs,” Jim says worriedly. “They’re everywhere.”
“Maybe she needs help. She’s not handling Bryden’s death well. None of us are.”
“Is there a way to handle it well?” he asks brokenly. “How does anyone handle something like this?”
46
Jayne is in the incident room late in the afternoon when a call comes in—an officer, acting on a tip, thinks he’s found Bryden’s missing clothes. Jayne and Kilgour quickly climb into a car.
They arrive at a low-rise apartment building on Larch Street and drive around back, as instructed. Jayne sees two uniformed officers standing over a pile of trash that is spilling out of a small dumpster. They’re both wearing gloves as if they’ve been picking through it. Kilgour parks the car and one of the officers approaches them as they get out.
“Might be what we’re looking for,” he says, and signals them to follow him.
Jayne looks down at a clear plastic bag containing what looks like a gray sweatshirt and a pair of black yoga pants, and her heart quickens. “How did you find them?”
“The janitor here called it in.”
“Great. Give him my thanks, will you? I’ll get the forensics team over here. They could be hers. With any luck, that’s the plastic bag used to kill her.”
•••
Angela brings Clara back homeand Paige stays with Sam and Clara in the condo until early evening. They order in a pizza—the delivery man trying to get a glimpse inside the infamous apartment, but Sam doesn’t let him.
