“This is what we know,” Detective Ferrigno said. He started ticking his thumb and fingertips together. “We know that you and Rebecca had a fight big enough to draw attention to yourselves in the library and that you stormed out.”
He waited, maybe looking for a reaction. Then he went on.
“We know that a few minutes later she followed you. Another student saw you walk the trail that led into the woods.”
Again he paused, but I kept my gaze leveled at the wall.
“It was late and dark, and you claimed not to have been feeling well, and still you headed off onto one of the running trails.”
Still, I wasn’t going to say anything. He was too experienced to be agitated with my silence. So he just kept going.
“Rebecca went after you. She called to you, and you didn’t acknowledge her. She, too, was witnessed heading onto that same trail.”
He waited a moment, presumably to allow me to make a comment. But I had nothing to say.
“Two hours later, you emerged from the woods alone. No one ever saw Rebecca come out.”
I picked a piece of lint off my sleeve, an action that seemed to annoy him. It was a cavalier act of body language. It said, I don’t care about you or what’s happening here. Now I saw a flash of temper on his face.
“You have lied to me a couple of times now,” he said. “And that doesn’t look very good.”
I cleared my throat, but still I said nothing. He had all the information, right? What did I have to contribute? Nothing.
“My question is, what transpired between the two of you in those woods. What was going on in there for two hours?”
I folded my arms across the table and laid my head down. He cocked his to the side, then he leaned back in his chair. I watched it tilt precariously and thought how embarrassed he’d be if he fell. Outside, I heard the sound of voices, one of them raised.
“You know what I don’t like? What’s bothering me?” He was talking to me but looking toward the door. He knew time was running out; soon my lawyer would be here and he’d have to leave. I blinked my eyes to show him I was listening.
“Two girls go missing from the same small university in two years. And both of them are connected to you.”
I thought about Luke’s snide remark. It’s a statistical anomaly, he’d said. True. When you add my mother into the equation, things start to look really strange, don’t they? I’m a misery magnet. Anyone connected to me had better watch out.
“The investigator on that case thought that you were hiding something. Elizabeth’s boyfriend claimed, still claims, that they never fought that night. Someone saw you arguing with her that night, though.”
That sent a little jolt through me.
“No,” I said, before I could stop myself. “She was upset. I was trying to comfort her, to calm her down.”
“Ah,” he said. “She speaks. What was she upset about?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She was really drunk. And so was I. I went to get her a glass of water, to try to help her sober up a little. But when I got back to where we were, she was gone.”
“Hmm,” he said.
“Her death was ruled an accident,” I said.
“There was no evidence of any foul play,” he conceded. “But the investigator on the case? He was never quite satisfied with the ruling.”
Jones Cooper had done his investigating back then, that was for sure. I had been over and over the fuzzy details of my last encounter with Elizabeth. I did remember now saying that I’d gone to get her a glass of water. It’s okay, I told her. Just stay here. I’ll get you a glass of water. You need to sober up. The drunk leading the drunk.
But I didn’t remember if I ever actually gave her the water. I shouldn’t have left her. I should have dragged her with me. She had been shaking, tears of blue mascara on her face. Why did I leave her? I told Jones Cooper all of this a hundred times. I sensed he never believed me. He sensed that I was hiding something, and he was right. But it had nothing to do with Elizabeth. I told Detective Ferrigno all of it again.
“What does any of this have to do with Beck?” I said. My voice broke, betraying the depth of my emotion. And he looked surprised by it, drew himself back a little with a frown. In general, I knew myself to have a disconcertingly flat affect. It couldn’t be helped. It had to do with my meds, without which, I assure you, I could be quite the opposite.
There was a loud knock on the door then, and Sky Lawrence walked in, bringing with him the scent of expensive cologne and an aura of authority. He was stooped and ancient, with a shiny bald head and a suit that looked too big, as though he’d taken something that had suddenly shrunk him in his clothes. He was not aging well. He’d always seemed old, but I didn’t remember him ever looking like a golem. Still, he drew all the energy in the room to him when he entered.
There was some banter between him and the detective, something about leveling charges or releasing me. And after a few minutes, I was exiting the room with Sky. We walked down a long hallway together until we entered a waiting room where I saw two people I didn’t expect to see: Langdon and my aunt Bridgette.
My aunt rose to greet me, took me gingerly in her arms. I knew she expected me to pull away, but I found myself clinging to her and her to me. Maybe Beck had melted something in me that night, something that had frozen solid. But the thaw was more pain than pleasure.
They took me back to my dorm, which immediately revealed itself as a bad idea. There were so many people milling about that it looked like a county fair. A gaggle of reporters hovered around the front entrance, being kept at bay by some of the university security guards. I wanted to hide my head and run as we exited the vehicle, take cover from the storm of questions and judgments. But I forced myself to walk at a normal pace from the car to the dorm, flanked by Langdon, my aunt, and Sky. Apparently, the news was out that I had been brought in for questioning.
Are you a person of interest in the case? What were you two fighting about? Where is Beck? Were you lovers? It was a hailstorm of idiotic and sensational questions, but I kept my face blank and didn’t speak-or breathe-until we were inside. The lobby lounge area went silent as I entered, which was almost worse than the shouting outside. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as we moved toward the elevator. We all rode it in silence, my aunt holding tight to my arm, up to my floor. I could smell her perfume; it was warm and flowery, a bed of poppies where I wanted to lay my head down and sleep forever.
But when we entered the dorm room, we found Frank and Lynne waiting for us. They sat at our small bistro table, drinking tea, looking shrunken and fatigued.
“Mr. and Mrs. Miller, this might not be the best time,” said Langdon on seeing them.
“And when would be a better time?” asked Lynne. Her voice was shrill and quaking. “Our daughter is missing and Lana was the last person to see her. They went into the woods together and only Lana walked out. She knows something about Rebecca. What is it, Lana? Where is she?”
“I don’t know where she is,” I answered.
“They found her scarf during the search today,” said Frank. He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “That pink chiffon scarf she always wore. There was blood on it.”
My aunt moved in to comfort her, led her over to the couch with an arm around her shoulder.
“We know she cares about you,” said Frank. He was leaning over the table toward me, one arm extended out in a kind of reaching gesture. “If you know something, now really is the time to tell us. We’re coming unglued here.”
“Lana isn’t going to be answering any questions tonight,” said Sky. He looked so odd in this context. He didn’t belong in this part of my life, and he seemed like one of those Colorforms figures from when I was a kid. He was flat and plastic, affixed to a scene that wasn’t real in the first place.