Chapter 66: 38-Catharsis-1

They told me that Nick had been found at the site of the crime and was about to be handed into police custody. The rational part of me, the one which I'd ignored for so long, believed for some reason that he was innocent, that he wasn't capable of sinking so low because the fact was Nick never had the guts, he was all talk and that I was sure of. "He isn't making much sense right now but maybe you could get something out of him." Liam had gotten his usual confidence back after the meltdown and he was like a man possessed. In the confines of Zach's basement a lot of questioning had been done; from where I sat on the stairs, I had heard a lot of shouting but all of it had been from the guards or Liam. Nick was an absolute mess, barely speaking, like he was in shock or something. Now I was being told that I should speak to him and that since he knew me he would respond better to me. Bruce had intervened at that point, saying that that could put me in danger but I had assured them that I knew the guy well; he was capable of a lot of things but never physically harming another person. I took the seat across Nick's with a table in the middle but the setting felt too much out of a CSI Miami episode so I shifted my chair and placed it next to his. He had his head buried in his hands, not even looking up, like he'd never even noticed another person's presence in the room. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Nick?" I said softly and felt his muscles flex beneath my hand. His eyes were bloodshot as he met my gaze. I could tell that they'd witnessed something horrific, something which had snatched the light away from them. "Oh thank god." He surprised me by giving me an awkward one-armed hug and I patted his back in return. He didn't leave me for a while, and through the thin material of his t-shirt I could feel his heart beating wildly. "What happened Nick?" My voice was muffled as my head was against his shoulder. "I don't know...I just... We were talking and then Olivia walks in. She was acting crazy you know? Shouting, throwing stuff and then she got out a gun..." My breathing faltered as he began to graphically describe how Olivia had shot Zach and managed to run before the security had rushed in. A heavy sort of weight settled inside me and tore me up when he said that Zach only kept one or at most two guards with him and had sent most of them with me to New Hampshire. How could I have been so stupid so as to miss that? What world had I been living in? "Olivia - what happened with her? I mean at the press conference you guys looked happy..." I trailed off; it wasn't making sense, nothing was now that I knew that it was indeed my sister who'd shot Zach. Yes, I knew she wasn't in the right state of mind but in her own twisted and demented way she cared about Zach or at least she was aware of the fact that she could use him for her own gain, so why did she just destroy any chance she might have left with him? "Don't be stupid, Ari!" he reprimanded me like I was a dense child. "The only reason Zach put up with her was because he wanted to find out who the person behind your accident was. That was why he brought me in. I've been spying on Olivia for weeks now and two days ago she told me everything. It was all her, Ari; the abortion, Randy, the accident, she was behind everything. When I told Zach, you should've seen him...he would've killed her if Liam hadn't stopped him." Somehow I felt like I already knew this, like some part of me was aware of Olivia's hand in this and Zach's innocence but hearing those words from someone else's mouth made it all so much worse. What I'd said to him...that day at his house and the hospital, remembering them made me want to run into his arms and hold onto him, beg him to forgive me, to love me again but then did I deserve it anymore? I knew I didn't. "Did she find out? Did she know that you didn't like her?" "It just wasn't that. Things were becoming harder for her, Zach made sure to make her suffer all the time. He told the press that he'd left her, a divorce, and everybody took his side because Olivia was spotted with me a lot of the time. It was everywhere, you know? People thought she'd cheated on him; the day after the conference we had reporters all over the house. Then he had her removed from the project, it was getting to her. These last two days she'd always be drunk...I knew she was going to have a meltdown any minute and tell me everything." "You came to tell Zach when you found out and she followed you didn't she?" I guessed and he nodded as he squeezed his temples. I sat back in my seat, processing what I'd just heard, now nursing a pounding headache of my own. What had I done to deserve someone as special as Zach? How could I have been so blind? He loved me, he loved me enough to risk his life for me and here I was, a useless pathetic girl who'd been played like a fool. "Do you know where she is?" He shook his head in response to my question. "She ran off, took off before we could get to her. Zach needed to be taken to the hospital and when we'd taken care of him she had left."