Page 51 of Everyone Is Lying to You

“She left them for me.” I explain about the book and how I gave it to Bex when we were in college, what it meant to the two of us. It was left out for me to find, I insist again. I tell her about the note.

“It seems like a stretch that you would stumble upon it.”

“But I did.” I know it seems like a stretch, but it also feels right. Bex knew I would come, and she knew I would gravitate toward that book and it was next to the bed. It’s absurd, but I feel close to Bex again. Like we can once again crawl into each other’s brains the way we did so easily when we were younger.

“Why did she leave that one, do you think? The older one? The recent picture, that I understand. She wanted us to know what he did to her less than two weeks ago, but the first one?”

Even remembering this now is so painful. “It was the last time we were supposed to see each other. I flew out to San Francisco for my birthday. We were going to spend the week together. But she ghosted me. I think she wanted me to know this was why.”

Olivia only nods and then gazes out the windshield as if lost in thought.

“You should write about it. She would want you to write about it. About all of this.”

“Would she?”

“Why else would she have left those for you to find?”

I shake my head. “It feels too personal.”

“She’s a victim, Lizzie. She needs a voice. She needs your voice. I won’t tell you what to write or how to do your job. Butshe clearly trusts you.” Olivia places a warm firm hand over mine and grips it tightly.

“She chose you. She wanted you here to help her escape Grayson. That was her plan. And she needs you now.”

Olivia is charismatic and convincing, that’s for sure. It’s the charisma of a politician or one of those megachurch preachers.

“Where do you think she is?” I ask. Something tells me that this woman knows, but she definitely won’t tell me. Still, I can try.

There’s that stare into the distance again. “I honestly have no idea. She isn’t answering my emails. Her phone is long gone, or she’s been very careful to turn it off. I keep leaving voicemails and no response.”

“Same. I keep leaving messages in the hopes that somehow she is listening to them. What about the kids?”

“They’re safe.” Olivia says this with a certainty I didn’t expect.

“What do you know?”

She flinches and my reporter’s instinct tells me that she’s definitely about to lie to me. “I don’t know any more than you know, but Rebecca would never let anything happen to those children. They’re the reason she does all of the things that she does. They’re her everything.”

I play along and allow her the feigned ignorance. Often pieces of the truth will come out through the lies. “That doesn’t mean they’re not in danger though. That she isn’t currently in danger. I mean, the man who was in the house with me…They were looking for something.”

“You know it was a man?”

I think about the heavy thuds on the stairs, the groans andmuttering I heard in the hallway and the bedroom, the intense energy in the space since they walked into the house.

“I think so. Or I thought so at the time. I can’t explain why.”

“Okay. I’ve got no idea who it could have been. So many people work that ranch. Too many people have access.”

“But to that part of the house?”

She shakes her head solemnly. “No. Not usually to there. But who knows who Gray gave access to over the years. Who knows what that man did and with who. He had his secrets. Lots of them. As you now know from seeing these pictures. That poor girl. I knew he was horrible. But I thought he was horrible with his words alone. He was always telling her she was worthless and stupid, that she was nothing but trash even though she was the one keeping the family afloat, making enough money that he could invest in a bunch of worthless start-ups and still pretend to be a cowboy. He needed that money, but he hated her for making it. She told me plenty of times that he threatened to leave her and take those kids, even though it was an empty threat. No one gets divorced out here. The church looks down on it and judges are wicked to women who ask for one. So many of these women get trapped in these marriages when they’re practically teenagers. Rebecca’s exit plan was to have so much money that she could tell them all to screw off.”

“But her plan didn’t work out.”

“That one didn’t work out. But focus on the present. We have to pivot. What do you say? About what I said. About writing the truth about Rebecca?”

“I need to think about it,” I respond carefully.

“You want to go somewhere to think? Right now?”

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