Hourglass → Ace; Nancy Drew [1]

ii. the death of hillary irvine

THE DEATH OF HILLARY IRVINE
CHAPTER TWO

The living room was filled with only the soft sound of the movie playing on the large TV. It was silent apart from that, as Olivia sat on the sofa watching the hair-raising thriller on her own. Although her eyes were stitched to the television with her hand in her freshly made bowl of popcorn, her mind was elsewhere. Something that once had her undivided attention every Friday night as she watched intently, was now at the back of her mind as she tried to process the horror movies going on in her own head. Now, instead of eagerly anticipating a jump scare, all Olivia could see in the malicious ghosts in the film was her own sketch– the ghost that had plagued her dreams almost every night for the past week.

When a blood-curdling scream erupted from the TV, Olivia was drawn back into reality with wide eyes. Her hand scrambled across the leather seats until it found the long, black remote. She picked it up and hurriedly turned the TV off before letting out a sigh. Staring at her hands in silence, she replayed Nancy's words in her head— that Olivia might very well be involved with a sea spirit, assuming it even existed.

Her heart struck her ribcage heavily when a banging sound suddenly echoed through the bottom floor of her house. She used her hands to push herself up from the black leather couch, the feeling of cold marble tiles against her feet sending shivers down her spine. Reaching for her phone, she kept her eyes on the hallway leading to the front door with thousands of thoughts racing through her brain as to who would be knocking on her door so late at night; her dad had his own set of keys.

Shaking her head, she tried to mentally convince herself she was just overthinking. But between the nightmares and the horror movie she had just been watching, and the fact that she was home alone with her dad still at work, she felt beyond unsettled. The thought that someone was knocking at her door at nine in the evening left her feet cold and her hands clammy, especially considering that she and her dad never had visitors. She wiped her palms against the sides of her sweatpants and made her way toward the front door.

"Hello?" she said through the intercom on the wall.

"Hey, it's Nancy." The girl's words came unclear through the speaker, but Olivia recognized her voice. Her shoulders loosened as relief washed over her, but she frowned questioningly as she opened the door.

"How did you find me?" Olivia folded her arms over her chest shortly before she dropped them to her sides in realization. "Right, you're Nancy Drew." Mental images flashed through her head of the few articles she had read over the years about Horseshoe Bay's hero.

"Here." The redhead didn't waste a moment before sticking her hands forward with a brown folder. Her jacket sleeves rolled up when her hands stretched forward, revealing faint red constraint marks on her wrists.

Olivia frowned. "What happened?" she speculated, her attention darting between Nancy's wrists and the folder in her hands before hesitantly accepting it.