Spilled Blood Read Online Free PDF

night. That’s what she called them. Echoes. I think that made her feel better, you know? She liked the idea of ghosts and hauntings and stuff like that.”
    “Okay.”
    “Tanya hung out with us, too,” Olivia went on. “Mostly, it was me and Kimberly, because we lived so close to each other, but Tanya was over at the church a lot in those days. Her dad was filing the lawsuit, and Kimberly’s dad was one of the plaintiffs. Tanya hooked up with the two of us.”
    Chris waited.
    “When Kimberly died—” Olivia stopped. She wiped her eyes again. “I go back there sometimes. Like maybe I’ll hear the echoes, you know?”
    Chris covered her hand with his own. “I get it.”
    “It’s stupid.”
    “No, it’s not.” He understood her state of mind that night, but he was afraid that a jury might think a girl in that fragile state of mind would take revenge when it was offered to her. “How about we go back to Friday night, okay? What did you do?”
    “Not much,” she said. “We dug inside a couple of the old buildings. We walked along the railroad tracks.”
    “Did you see anyone else?”
    “No, it was just the two of us.”
    “The police found beer bottles. Were you drinking?”
    “Yeah, Tanya snuck some Miller Lite out of her Dad’s house.”
    “How much?”’
    “A six-pack.”
    “Did you finish it?”
    “Yeah. I had four. Tanya had two. I was pretty buzzed. I don’t do it a lot, but I was really upset.”
    “I understand.”
    “Ashlynn showed up around midnight. We hid when we heard another car, because if it’s Barron boys, you don’t want to be around, you know?” A hardness came over her face. “But it was her. That blonde bitch.”
    Chris stopped writing and put down his pen. “Olivia, listen to me. Ashlynn is dead. She was a teenager like you, with people who loved her. She had her whole life ahead of her, and someone stole it away. It diminishes you to talk about her that way.”
    Olivia looked upset with herself. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
    “What was it about Ashlynn? Why did you hate her?”
    She pulled a messy strand of her chestnut hair through her lips. “Mondamin,” she said. “What else? St. Croix is dying, and no one will do anything.”
    “Mondamin is run by her father. Why did you blame Ashlynn for that?”
    “She was there.”
    “Is that all it was?”
    “Look, Dad, I’m not proud of it. I was drunk. I was stupid. I just wanted to scare her.”
    He waited for her to say more, but she looked down and fiddled with the buttons on her shirt. He could feel her withdrawing. There was a disconnect between what she said and what he could see in her face. For the first time, he felt as if she were hiding something from him.
    Lying.
    “They tell me you had a gun,” he said, changing the subject.
    She nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    “One of the boys in St. Croix gave it to me. I’ve had it for months.”
    “Why?”
    Olivia gave him an exasperated look. “You don’t know what it’s like around here, Dad. I mean, yeah, the kids in St. Croix did some stupid things, but the Barron boys ratcheted up the violence. They started to treat the feud like it’s a gang war. I wanted protection.”
    “Have you ever fired the gun?” he asked.
    “A couple of times out in a field.”
    “Did you fire it on Friday?”
    She bit her lip and nodded unhappily. “Yeah.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. I was showing off. I fired into the tree.”
    “The police say you put a bullet in the gun in order to play Russian roulette with Ashlynn. You were terrorizing her.”
    “I guess so. It all happened so fast. I was yelling at Ashlynn, and I fired, and yeah, I started messing around like in Russian roulette. Tanya freaked and ran.”
    “What did you do next? After you and Ashlynn were alone?”
    “ Nothing . I swear.”
    “Did you point the gun at her head?”
    “Yeah, I did, but—”
    “Did you pull the trigger?”
    “ No .”
    “Did you play the game,