Page 26 of Beyond Redemption

Then, Livvy came into view. She was pressed against the wall, knees drawn in with one hand, the other clamped over her mouth to hold the sound inside. Mascara streaked down her cheeks in uneven tracks, her eyes, wide and glassy, fixed on the door as if blinking might cost her something she couldn’t afford to lose. She didn’t move. None of them did. They waited in that dark, airless pocket, listening for footsteps, for shouting, for the sound that would mean the door was coming open and there would be nowhere left to go.

Someone whispered her name, and her hand fell away so she could mouth,No sound. Quiet.

The lens caught her eyes. Even through the grain, even through the noise, there was no mistaking it. The same face that had lived in my house for two and a half years. The girl with pale blonde hair, big green eyes, and a splash of freckles over her nose. The girl more people than just her parents would recognize.

Bodhi’s thumb trembled. “It’s you. Over a million views so far.”

Livvy leaned forward, eyes fixed on the screen. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry.

“Thomas?” Livvy said, unsure what to do.

I took the phone, hoping her face wasn’t as clear the second time I watched it, or the third. I let it play through, and another video queued up automatically. Different angle. Same basement. Same Livvy, this time more of her face, for a longer increment of time.

I locked the screen and slid his phone across the table back to him.

“Bodhi,” Liis said, already moving, “we need a minute. Could you take Stella to her room to play?”

“It’s too late,” Livvy said.

Everyone was silent. Bodhi’s eyes danced between Livvy, Liis, and me.

Livvy wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I’ve been so careful, but when I was down there, I wasn’t even paying attention. I… It’s too late. We can’t fix this.”

“She’s right,” Liis said. “We’ve been compromised.”

I nodded. “Then it’s settled. We move to mitigation and execute our exit strategy, because we know what’s next, especially after the governor’s press conference. They’ll come in hard and fast.”

“Wait wait wait,” Bodhi said, holding up his hands, palms out. “Exit strategy? You’re leaving?”

“So we… can we tell him?” Livvy asked.

“Tell who what?” Bodhi asked.

Livvy glanced back at him, eyes brimming with new tears. “The truth. About me.”

Bodhi’s brows pulled in.

“Livvy isn’t our nanny,” I said. “Well, she is, technically, but that’s not why she came here.”

By Bodhi’s expression, he was waiting for an admission that we were joking, or for the other shoe to drop.

Livvy took a breath that sounded like it scraped her ribs on the way in. “My name isn’t Livvy,” she said. “It’s Olive. Olive Ollivier. I’m not from Utah, I’m from Illinois, and two and a half years ago, I died.”

Bodhi stared at her. “W-what? What do you mean you died?”

Olive nodded.

Bodhi sat back like someone had pushed him. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” she said.

Liis leaned forward, sliding her hand across the table to point at Bodhi’s phone. “These videos are going to spread.”

Olive continued, guilt dripping from the edges of her voice, “And eventually my family—our family back home—is going to hear about the videos, and they’re going to recognize me.”

“Your family thinks you died?” Bodhi asked, unable to hide his disgust.

“It’s… complicated.” I leaned forward, clasping my hands. “You know Liis and I are agents with the Bureau. One of the cases we’ve been working for years is an investigation regarding the Carlisis, an organized crime family out of Las Vegas. My family is heavily involved with them. My little brother worked for the Carlisis. Because he already had an in via his wife, who’sfrom Vegas, he was actually working undercover for the FBI. He killed their kingpin, Benny Carlisi. Not long after, their family came after mine. Livvy… Olive… lived next door to my father in Illinois. She was adopted by a couple named Shane and Liza Ollivier, but she was born in Colorado to Falyn Fairchild, the daughter of Governor William Fairchild.”