“But now, I know the obsession that he must’ve felt for her. At least, that’s how he felt toward me. And if things hadn’t gone my way back in California…” I let my voice drop off, unwilling to finish the thought.

“What is it?” she asks.

“I might have ended up just like Nina,” I finally say after a few deep breaths.

Meredith doesn’t know what happened so I tell her.

This isn’t my first time relaying it and my words feel almost on autopilot. After going over the story with the cops and the detectives and then with Nicholas and Sydney, you would think that they would be less painful to say.

Unfortunately, they’re not.

That night still haunts me with flashbacks showing up at almost any time throwing me into a cold sweat.

“But how can we prove that it’s actually him?” I ask. “Especially if the DA doesn’t want to believe any of this?”

Meredith taps her hand on the table. “There is one thing we can do.”

I wait for her to explain.

“If we can somehow get Owen’s DNA and confirm that it’s a match to the evidence they have at the crime lab then it would be something big to take to Keenan. Then he’ll have to believe it.”

“But doesn’t the state have to authorize that?” I ask.

“I have a friend there who might be able to help,” she says. “But the most important thing would be to get a sample Owen’s DNA. Do you think you can do that?”

When Meredith lays out the plan of how I can get some of Owen’s DNA, it sounds so simple.

All I would need is a discarded cup that he drank from or a few strands of hair. But the problem is that Owen is all the way back in California and locked up in jail.

As if that weren’t complicated enough, there’s also the interpersonal situation between us.

He had attacked me and I had promised myself that I would never talk to him again outside of a court proceeding.

“So, you’re actually going to do this?” Sydney asks, walking into my room a few days later. I shrug, folding a pair of jeans into the suitcase spread out on my bed.

I have filled her in about the details and she even met Meredith who came over earlier and went over everything that I should do when I get there.

“I know that Meredith wants to help and I’m glad that someone at the DA’s office is at least willing to listen, even if she’s just a paralegal, but, Olive, this is insane.”

“I know,” I mumble.

“What if you can’t get access to him? I mean, what if you have to talk to him through plexiglass?”