Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

Moira wondered if there was marijuana in the coffee. This woman is so calm. I could be an IRS agent or a serial killer and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

“Is Moira your real name?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, it is. I’m sorry. Do you want to see my driver’s license?”

Savannah shook her head. “No. But tell me exactly why you are here?”

Moira took a deep breath and started to tell her about Katelyn’s death and how her editor had told her that Katelyn was in the terrible crash on the Hood Canal Bridge.

“You remember it? The one that killed the driver and four little girls?”

The look on Savannah’s face clearly indicated that she did. Actual words weren’t necessary. But the former language researcher answered anyway.

“Yes, I remember it very well.”

Just then, the air in the room thickened considerably. Moira Windsor knew whatever words she chose next would likely make or break the interview. In that moment, it was clear to both parties that what they were talking about was far bigger than merely an update on an accident and the lives of the survivors.

“I saw your posting on the Kitsap Kalamities site,” she said, waiting.

Savannah sipped her coffee. “Yes. I’m sure you did.”

“It was an interesting comment,” Moira said.

Savannah set down her cup and looked out the window toward the aviary. “I knew I shouldn’t have posted it. I even emailed the site owners and asked if they’d remove it.”

“They didn’t, you know.”

Savannah nodded. “Right. They didn’t. That’s really why you’re here.”

“What did it mean?”

“It meant that I’d had too much ouzo,” Savannah said, somewhat sheepishly. “Greek dinner party in Seattle and… I don’t know how I got home and, even worse, how I managed to type that comment. I’m not denying that I did it, because I did.”

Moira kept her eyes on Savannah. “I know you did,” she said.

Savannah turned her attention back to her coffee and took a sip.

“What did you mean by it?” Moira asked again.

Savannah took a breath and faced the reporter. Her face was grim.

She’s going to talk. Good. Tell all.

“I was a researcher years ago, for the linguistics lab at the University of Washington,” she said, now fidgeting with her fingertips deep within the back of her tangle of hair.

Moira flipped open her reporter’s notebook.

“I don’t think I want you to write about this,” Savannah said.

“About what?”

“About what I’m going to show you.”

For some reason, unclear to her just then, Moira’s heart started to race. She was not a woman given to much fear, but, right then, she felt some.

“Are we in agreement?”

“Yes,” Moira said, knowing that she was being completely deceitful.

Savannah had trusting eyes, and Moira felt sorry for her. She knew that Savannah was going to give her something she considered precious. She also knew that the woman wanted to. She wouldn’t have put that comment online, with or without too much ouzo, if she had wanted to hold it inside forever.

“You were saying?” Moira said, prodding.

“Yes, I was saying that I was doing a study on early talkers at the U. I was a field research assistant. My job was to tape children in their home environment.”

“Those children who, what, spoke at a very young age?”

Savannah nodded slowly. “Right. As early as six months.”

“I don’t think I started talking until after I was almost two,” Moira said, feeling a little stupid for the admission.

“Many kids don’t. But in order to better understand how the brain develops and what external forces shape speech, we were sent out to record children who exhibited the propensity for early speech.”

Moira wanted to write it all down, but this disclosure was all off the record. She prayed right then that she’d remember everything Savannah Osteen was telling her.

“So the Ryan twins, Hayley and Taylor, were in the study?” she asked.

“Yes, Hayley and Taylor.” Savannah paused, and it looked like she was going to cry, but somehow she appeared to shake it off and recompose herself. “They were beautiful little girls, really sweet. And smart too. Smart beyond their years, no doubt.”

“It sounds like they were gifted,” Moira said, thinking of her sister Maizey, who was in the gifted program for six years and really wasn’t—as far as she could tell—any smarter than she.

“More than gifted,” Savannah said, leaving the words to dangle in the air.

“You said something was scary about them. That you weren’t surprised they survived the crash.”

Something resembling a smile crossed Savannah’s lips, but it was more a nervous reaction than the result of a pleasant memory. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

Moira leaned closer. She was going in for the kill. “You did. Yes, you did.”

Savannah played with her bangles, moving them nervously up and down her wrists. She wasn’t going to rush, but she was going to talk. Finally, after a few beats, she spoke.

“It has been fourteen years,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’ve never shown this to anyone.”

Savannah got up from the table and indicated for Moira to follow her to her TV, hidden in a barn board cabinet in the living room. She retrieved an old Sony VCR player, layered in dust, from under the console.

“I keep this relic because it is the only way to play the tape,” she said. “It isn’t like I play it all the time, mind you. But I have watched it once or twice a year since I left the university.”

The VCR powered up and Savannah inserted a tape.

“I didn’t know they made tapes that big,” Moira said, reaching for her phone.

“Half-inch. The quality for major productions at the time. Calling someone?”

Moira shook her head no. “Silencing my phone,” she said.

Savannah pushed PLAY.

The video predated HD and it had indeed degraded over the years. Not as bad as those old-timey movies they showed late at night, but there were gaps, scratches and pops. The camera moved back and forth before finally landing on a pair of baby girls dressed in matching blue outfits. Their hair was