Now Chase knew Conrad and Olivia had some sort of past. But Olivia hadn’t addressed it even on the ride home when they talked about her progress in learning how to adult. Olivia also hadn’t mentioned anything about the night before, about how Chase had found her and Neve crying on the floor of their bedroom.

Chase had decided to wait and bring it up at a later time, but the week had passed with no opportunity. Olivia had fallen back into her usual demeanor, not quite distant but definitely more professional, as if she were trying to resurrect her old self.

Still, the week had been decent, even as Chase missed the cabin, the community, and, of course, the guy she’d found in Cotter’s Creek. She and Olivia had done some exit interview stuff, expanding the adulting lessons to include her normal world in LA, which meant acclimating to the beach house kitchen, applying to reinstate her driver’s license, going to court-ordered community service at a senior-living community where she called out bingo, and completing the Square One self-evaluation. She had a few final counseling sessions with Olivia, wrote a self-actualization plan, and worked on her audition, which would be in about four hours.

The beach was fairly empty since it was a weekday toward the middle of October. The weather was California perfect, but instead of looking bolstered by the fair day, Olivia wore whatever troubled her on her face.

She turned to Chase. “When you were raped, and you said your father didn’t care . . . that he—”

“Gave me to Peter Fucking Rinduso?”

Olivia flinched. “Yeah. Peter Fucking Rinduso.”

Chase wasn’t sure where this was going. They’d talked about her rape several times, and finally Chase had been able to cry, lay down her feelings, and internalize Olivia’s words about the situation not being Chase’s fault. Finally, Chase had felt the anger those memories dredged up and used that force as she cleaned the kitchen. That freaking kitchen sparkled after she scrubbed the baseboards with the fiery rage of a thousand suns. “We already talked about this. I mean, what more is there to say? I was betrayed. And shamed. And made to feel worthless. My father treated me as if I were nothing, and then to make it worse, he introduced me to vodka.”

Olivia had turned back to stare at the horizon, her face portraying sympathy, but then she got a more pointed look. “You asked about why Neve and I were crying that night. About the sketchbook. Did you look at it?”

Chase shrugged. “Yeah, I flipped through. It was pictures of flowers and little girl stuff, but I only looked at a few pages. Zeke arrived and I had to hurry.”