Talk To Me

Chapter thirty-six

March

"Well?" Mark asked as Oliver hung up his phone.

"It's more or less the same," he responded, slouching into the armchair. "The case is solved, and he said he will get a restraining order against me if I call again." Oliver sighed.

"Then stop calling him." Mark stretched out his hands.

The past two weeks took a toll on Oliver as the police department kept refusing his request to reopen his sister's case. According to the detectives' investigation, there was nothing more they could do as the cause of death for them seemed clear. There was no foreign DNR on Leah's body, which for Oliver seemed one more proof: someone cleaned her after her death.

"I can't." Oliver rested his elbows on his knees. "Don't you understand?"

"I do, but maybe she really just tried the drugs." Mark scratched the top of his head. "I mean, we did that. We tried a lot of stuff. Just because she is your sister doesn't mean she didn't try it too."

"There is other stuff involved that makes me think there is more to the story."

"Maybe she had a boyfriend or something, I know you hate to think that she was an adult." Mark scratched the top of his head. "Have you seen her yet?"

"No." Oliver bent down his head and shook it.

"So your gift is truly gone?"

"I hope not."

"What about Cassie, what did she say?"

"I talked to her yesterday. She said Leah changed her mind just before the trip." Oliver glanced at Mark. "That she stayed at the apartment and Cassie left for Portland airport."

"But she was so excited." Mark rested his elbows on his knees.

"I know, which is why it makes no sense for her not to go." Oliver rubbed the back of his neck. "And there is a one or two-day gap between Cassie's departure and when they found Leah."

"Did Cassie know anything about the drugs?"

"No. She said Leah never used them, at least not that Cassie was aware of the use."

The loud sound filled Oliver's living room. He took out his phone from the front pocket of his black jeans and glanced at it. The number was unknown, Oliver swiped the screen of the phone and pressed it against his ear.

"Oly." He recognized the voice immediately.

He ended the call and put his phone on silent mode. He tossed the mobile on the coffee table as the screen displayed the same number for the second time.

"What was that?" Mark asked, glancing at Oliver's phone screen.

"Sophia," he mumbled, repelling to the backrest of the armchair.

"Since when she called you?" Mark's eyebrows bounced up.

"She has been calling me for the last three days, different numbers each time."

"It's been fifteen years."

"Five," Oliver intervened. "I talked to her five years ago, after Nana died."

"She knew," Mark said. Oliver nodded in response. "But she wasn't at the funeral."

"No, she felt too busy and unavailable to come." Oliver's tone seemed scornful.

"So she knows about Leah?" Mark asked, and Oliver agreed with a nod. "And didn't come for that either."

"Yes." Oliver scratched his chin. "What can I say, she just doesn't care about us." Oliver concluded.