In the Blood by Lisa Unger Page B

feeling well.”
    “I thought some air might do me good.”
    “Witnesses say that she left a few minutes after you did.”
    Witnesses say, witnesses say, witnesses say. If I had a dime for every time I’d heard that phrase. People, it seemed, were alwayswatching, taking measure, issuing judgments. They couldn’t wait to start running their mouths off. But did you know that eyewitness testimony is often totally unreliable? The human memory only records events through the filter of its own frame of reference. We try to fit the information we receive into schemas, units of knowledge that we possess about the world that correspond with frequently encountered situations, individuals, ideas, and situations. In other words, we often see things as we expect to see them, or want to see them, and not always as they are.
    When I didn’t say anything: “So you didn’t see Rebecca again that night?”
    “No,” I said. “I didn’t. I walked around, maybe longer than I thought. And then I came back to my room.”
    “It seems like she might have caught up with you on the path.”
    “But she didn’t,” I said. Don’t get defensive. Don’t let them rattle you.
    “Okay,” he said. He gave a quick nod, as though everything had been settled. He made to stand up, then seemed to change his mind.
    “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said. “What is your relationship to Rebecca? Or—you call her Beck, right?”
    “We’re friends, roommates. Good friends,” I said.
    “More than that?” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper.
    I started to quiver inside, a kind of shocked and angry shaking that started in my core and radiated out. It took my voice away. I looked toward the other room. Had anyone heard him?
    “No,” I breathed. I wanted to scream at him. Who said that? Who would say something like that? Ainsley?
    He could see that he’d upset me, held up both his palms in a gesture of surrender. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have to ask all of these questions, Miss Granger. It’s my job to look at all the angles.”
    I didn’t say anything else, just looked down at the table between us. He slid his card under my gaze. “Call if you think of anything you want to discuss, no matter how small.”
    “Okay,” I managed. When I looked up at him, I wore a polite smile. “I will.”
    He stood, and I felt a wave of relief that the conversation was over.
    Then he stopped. “I was going through the files of the case a couple of years back—Elizabeth Barnett?”
    “She fell down the stairs,” I said. “It was an accident.”
    “Right,” he said. “It was ruled an accident. There was no evidence of foul play and she had been drinking heavily.”
    I nodded, felt myself choke up a little at the memory of those horrible days, the searching, the waiting. Why did this keep happening?
    “You were with Elizabeth the night she disappeared, weren’t you? You and Rebecca?”
    “We were at a party together,” I said. What was he implying? “There were lots of people there. Half the school.”
    “But the three of you went to the party together, isn’t that right?”
    “Yes,” I said. “We did.”
    We’d all gone together, but Elizabeth had been meeting her boyfriend there. It had taken us a long time to get ready. We’d been drinking before we left, trying on different outfits. They’d been giving me a hard time because I went into the bathroom to change, didn’t want to parade around in my underwear like they did. But it was good-natured enough. We were mainly focused on Elizabeth, how she thought it was going to be her first time with Gregg. She’d shopped for the occasion, and showed us her black-and-pink lace panties and matching bra. Her body was perfect; it looked likemolded plastic. I found myself staring at the swell of her hips, her lush and pretty breasts, the lovely hollow of her belly button.
    “God, who looks like that?” said Beck. “You’re perfect.”
    Elizabeth just giggled and pulled on