Page 161 of Fault Lines
I could hear voices in the background—maybe Jackson’s, low and tense, maybe the TV. I pressed the phone tighter to my ear.
“He’s gone,” I said, voice small. “He heard the call. From Nate. He just… left.”
Rachel swore, long and creative. “You have to stop him. He’s going to do something dumb.”
“I’m trying,” I said, but even I didn’t believe it.
There was a silence, then: “Do you want me to come over?”
I shook my head, forgetting she couldn’t see me. “No. I— I need to go. To Nate’s. Just in case.”
Rachel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” I lied. “Call me if you hear anything.”
I hung up before she could protest, grabbed my keys and jacket, and bolted into the storm.
The city at night had always unnerved me, but tonight the rain made it feel like a place I didn’t even recognize. Streetlights flickered and went out, water pooled in the gutters, and every block looked the same. I drove by muscle memory, eyes stinging, hands gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles ached.
Nate’s apartment building was in one of those half-renovated neighborhoods, the kind that never quite made up its mind between gentrification and collapse. The parking lot was a black mirror slicked with rain, reflecting the strobing blue of the cruiser parked near the entrance. Drops hammered the windshield in relentless percussion, the wipers struggling tokeep up. I sat in the driver’s seat, engine running, staring at the light show like maybe if I waited long enough, the police would get bored and leave.
I’d always thought of Nate’s building as the kind of place you could disappear—a faded brick fortress for the terminally unlucky or unremarkably strange. Now it looked like the scene of a viral crime, the kind that strangers retweeted with performative sadness. The cop car’s lights made everything look underwater and far away. If there was a god, I half-hoped he’d send down a lightning bolt and just end the whole story, here and now.
But the universe had other plans.
Two more squad cars were angled across the far end of the lot, doors open, radios crackling static and code. An officer stood under the awning, rain soaking through her cap and shoulders, talking into a walkie-talkie with the resigned boredom of someone who’d done this a thousand times. A second officer leaned into the vestibule, one hand on the butt of his gun, the other gesturing for someone to stay put.
Then I saw the ambulance. Parked behind the main entrance, rear doors swung open, an emergency tech crouched inside pulling supplies from a tackle box. The interior was flooded with white light, bright as a dentist’s lamp, casting sharp shadows on the wet asphalt. A black shoe poked over the bumper lip. I couldn’t see the rest of the body, but the implication was clear.
I felt the world tip sideways, the car’s interior suddenly too close and too small, like a submarine with a leak. My lungs wouldn’t inflate. I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, anchoring myself to the moment, and forced my breathing to slow. In, out. In, out. The wipers smeared a fresh set of blue reflections across the glass.
I replayed every step that had led to this: the calls, the voicemails, the night’s last words. “You’re going to regret this, Livi.” Had I sent Cam straight here? Had I set in motion exactly what I’d tried to avoid? The guilt was a cold stone in my gut, heavier than fear.
I opened the car door. Rain pelted my face, instantly flattening my hair and running into the collar of my jacket. The air reeked of chemical adrenaline and the faint, metallic tang of blood. My feet splashed through deepening puddles as I crossed the lot, each step pulling me closer to the vanishing point of my old life.
A small crowd had gathered under the awning—mostly tenants in pajamas or sweats, watching with the blank voyeurism of people who’d seen one too many emergencies but never expected to be part of one. Someone held a trembling dachshund in a pink sweater. Someone else smoked a cigarette, the cherry flaring with every nervous inhale.
I edged past them. The EMT by the ambulance looked up, her eyes flat and unreadable behind rain-smeared glasses. She blocked my view of whatever was inside, and for a moment I hated her for it.
“Is he—did someone—” The words wouldn’t line up. I gestured toward the open doors with a desperation I couldn’t hide.
She shook her head, not unkindly. “They’re still working on him,” she said. “You should wait inside.”
A second tech appeared, pushing a stretcher with a flailing, half-conscious form on it—Nate. His face was a mask of blood and snot and tears. He was fighting the restraints, cursing and sobbing, his voice hoarse and animal. I started forward, but the officer under the awning stepped in front of me, hand gentle but firm on my shoulder.
“Ma’am,” he said, “are you Olivia?”
I nodded.
He guided me into the vestibule, out of the rain. “You’re not under any obligation to talk right now, but we will have some questions. Your husband is already inside.”
I followed the noise into Nate’s apartment. The living room was a disaster: coffee table flipped, couch cushions torn, books scattered like shrapnel. There was blood on the wall, a spatter that started at shoulder height and dripped in slow, lazy arcs to the floor. Cam stood in the middle of it, hands behind his back, a cop reading him his rights.
Cam’s shirt was torn at the collar, and there was a shallow cut across his cheek, already scabbing. He looked calm, even bored, but the tips of his ears were red—always a tell.
He saw me, and for a split second, his whole face changed: relief, then guilt, then something close to shame. The cop finished the Miranda and shoved Cam toward the door.
I wanted to say something—anything—but the words stuck. I watched them disappear down the stairs, the cop’s hand on Cam’s shoulder, his own hands still cuffed behind him.
