66
A MACHINE BEEPED TO THE left of noah’s hospital bed as another on his right hissed. I could see them, hear them, as I was escorted past his open door. Two police officers flanked it, and when they noticed me trying to peer in, one of them moved to close it. Detective Howard—that was the female officer’s name—led me to a makeshift interrogation room. Number 1213, I noticed.
“The doctor says your boyfriend is recovering remarkably well. Astonishingly well,” she added. “That chest wound of his—it looked pretty bad, like his aorta might’ve been punctured, even. The paramedics thought he was dead. . . . They don’t usually make mistakes like that.”
She stared, waiting for me to speak, but what could I say? That I wanted him alive, so he lived?
What a crazy thing to think.
“Your friend—Jamal, right?—told me what happened to you. He gave us your parents’ number, and we’ve called your mother and left a voice mail. Hopefully she’ll be here soon.”
Not likely.
“But I’d like to hear what happened from you, in your own words, before she gets here, if you can tell me.”
I could, but I wouldn’t. I was a lawyer’s daughter, after all. I tilted my head forward, veiling my face with my hair. I was a psychologist’s daughter too. I knew what I needed to do.
“You were all in some kind of, what, treatment center together?”
You could say that. I looked at the table and blinked as if I hadn’t heard her.
“This must be very difficult for you,” she said gently, trying a different tactic.
I bit my lip, hard, so I wouldn’t laugh. She thought I was trying not to cry, and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“If it was self-defense, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Little did she know.
“Just a few more questions, and then the doctors will come in to talk to you, okay?”
No response.
“Someone reported a homicide at that abandoned warehouse. Any idea who that might’ve been?”
I had my suspicions; David Shaw topped the list. He thought I was dead, of course, and someone would have to answer for killing me, wouldn’t they? He was going to blame it on Jude, I bet.
“And the hospital admitted a boy not much older than you, not far from the warehouse, only a half hour before we got there. Any idea who that might’ve been?”
Daniel.
My heart seized on the idea, but I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t say anything. I looked out the window instead. We were on the twelfth floor, and New York City stretched out below us. It looked like a doll world from up here, with pieces I could move or play with or break.
The door squeaked on its hinges, and a doctor gestured from the doorway to Detective Howard. “Psych’s on the way,” he said in a low voice. “Someone’s here to see her, though.”
A person stood behind him, but I couldn’t see who it was.
“Are you the mother?” the detective asked.
But the woman who stepped into the room was not my mother. She was young, in her twenties, and wore tortoiseshell glasses on her pale, round, freckled face. She was outfitted in skinny jeans and Chucks, and for the life of me, I had no idea who she was.
She extended her hand to the detective. “I’m Rochelle Hoffman. I’m the lawyer.”