Authors: Gregg Olsen
Betrayal
AN EMPTY COFFIN NOVEL
Betrayal
Â
BY
GREGG OLSEN
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trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
© 2012 by Gregg Olsen
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4027-9010-2
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
2Â Â 4Â Â 6Â Â 8Â Â 10Â Â 9Â Â 7Â Â 5Â Â 3Â Â 1
For Jamie Morris, the girl who opened the creaky door of an abandoned house in the dark, dark woods.
CONTENTS
LIKE SOME OF THIS STORY, the following is absolutely true: trust doesn't come in shades of gray. It's absolute and filled with power. When trust is broken, it's often not the act of betrayal that's most surprising. The real shocker is who in your innermost circle betrayed youâa best friend? A boyfriend? A sister? A parent?
Betrayal can appear small, like a little white lie, the whisper of a long-held secret in the hall at school, or the posting of a private confession on Facebook. Or it can be colossal and far darker, like a pretty young lacrosse player savagely murdered by her ex-boyfriend, or the mother with haunted eyes who drowned her babies in the bathroom tub. The truth is that big or small, betrayal cuts quite like no other evil. And when it comes for you, it finds its way quietly in the night like the slip of a knife at the base of the spine. As life fades to black, you ask over and over:
What did I do to deserve this?
âGregg Olsen
OLIVIA GRANT WASN'T EXACTLY SURE what she'd expected America to be like, but Port Gamble, Washington, most certainly wasn't it. As the sixteen-year-old foreign-exchange student had boarded the late summer flight from London Heathrow to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and plunked herself down next to a smelly man and his chubby little boy, she daydreamed of palm trees and movie stars. The travel magazine in the seat pocket in front of her all but confirmed the glamour awaiting the redheaded teen in just a few short hours: the cover featured a big splashy photo of beautiful people living in sunny, USA splendor. She was almost giddy, but she held it inside. British reserve, of course.
Olivia immersed herself in American TV the entire way over the polar ice cap to Seattle and wondered if the little boy to her left was going to be a kid contestant on
The Biggest Loser.
His father definitely was destined for some kind of makeover show. He not only smelled vaguely badâ
garlic
âbut his mustache hung over his lip like an inverted vacuum cleaner attachment. The stylist who cut his hair had apparently used a saucepan for the template. When he looked over, she simply smiled. Olivia Grant was always very, very polite.
As it had turned out, Port Gamble wasn't sunny Southern California. Not by a long shot. Instead, even in late August when she'd arrived, it was about as soggy and dismal as Dorchester was in the middle of winter. Gray. Wet. Windy. The people who lived there were average teachers, cooks, millworkers, nurses.
So
not
movie stars with golden hair and perfectly straight teeth.
OLIVIA PONDERED THIS WHILE SITTING in the living room of her first American party. Olivia conceded that her first American beer wasn't what she thought it would be either. Brianna Connors, her new best friend, had promised that her dad's favorite craft brew was no big deal, even at 11 percent alcohol content. Tonight at Brianna's Halloween party, Oliviaâin full costumeâhad sucked down the amber liquid like water and at first felt great. Then all of a sudden, somewhere between fending off some geeky, eye-linered, pirate boy's cringe-worthy come-on (“Hey hot wench, you lookin' for a first mate?”), arguing with her host roommate Beth Lee, and trying to cozy up to Jason Deveraux, the hottest guy at Kingston High, a wave of nausea hit her like a mini-tsunami. With the party still in eardrum-splitting full swing, Olivia went upstairs and sought refuge in Brianna's acre-sized bed.
Olivia curled up for an hour, maybe two. If she'd been able to recount it later, it would have been hard to say exactly how long. Time came and went in the way that it does in a dream. Vapors. Mist. She wondered if she'd been drugged. She had only had one beer, two at most. She ran the scenario in her head. It was true that she had felt a little sick that morning. Maybe it was nerves? Maybe it was the onset of the bug that had been going around school? She hadn't really eaten a thing since breakfast. Could it be just the combination of really bad American beer and no food?
Where was Brianna?
Olivia thought, feeling sicker by the minute as the room started to spin.
Was the party still going on?
She could hear loud music and some teen slasher DVD blasting from the TV downstairs. The bass from the two competing subwoofers pumped up through the gleaming, dark, walnut floorboards.
Slowly, slowly, and with great effort, Olivia sat up, pulled off the scratchy, sparkly costume, exposing her thin white Calvin Klein slip underneath, and looked at herself in the mirror across the room. Even in the dark and through her late-night drunken haze, she could see her red hair, her flawless pale skin, and her green eyes. Boasting was so tacky, but even then, sick as she was, she thought she looked pretty good. It was ridiculous that she had worn not one, but two silly costumes during the party. Yet it was her first Halloween in America, a country that apparently reveled in the weird, macabre, and cheesy. She wondered why every boy's costume was that of a superhero and every girl was dressed up as a naughty or sexy something.
America, land of the puritan posers.
Slipping Brianna's bedazzled “Lights out!” eye mask on, Olivia wrapped herself in the slippery, satiny duvetâthe same one on which she and Brianna had spilled nail polish the previous week when they were ragging on their absent mothers. She felt the circular dry spot that had stiffened the fabric. She picked at the spot with her long, slender fingers. It felt slick and smooth.
It wasn't the last thing she would feel that night.
WHERE OLIVIA'S SLIP ENDED and the sheets of Brianna's bed began was impossible to pinpoint in the dark. Olivia tossed, turned, wriggled and, finally, started to get comfortable. As she drifted off to sleep, Olivia sensed movement in the far reaches of Brianna's expansive bedroom.
“Hello?” Olivia called out.
No response. Just the sound of a girl screaming on the TV downstairs.
Again, the air moved.
“Who's there?” she asked. Olivia unsuccessfully tried to lift her arms and head from the mummy-like yardage of sheets and the white fabric of her slip that had encircled her limbs and torso like a malevolent wisteria vine. She got one arm free and pulled off the eye mask. Olivia looked over. Silver glinted in the darkness as a shadowy figure moved toward her.
“Who are you?” she asked, still unable to see a face. Olivia was annoyed, but not unnerved. It was, after all, a party. Whoever it was might be looking for a place to crash just like she had when the beer hit her. Or maybe it was a Halloween prank? The living room and family room downstairs were full of kids looking to be the center of attention. Fighting to make an impression. Tweeted about. Facebooked.