“Why did you think they would?” Ramirez asked.
“My guidance counselor told me I should surround myself with familiar things, but it hasn’t been working.”
“Interesting,” he murmured. “Did you go there alone?”
I locked up. “I went to the lake by myself.”
“And that’s when you had the car accident?” When I nodded, he scribbled something down. “And the other times? Were you alone?”
The need to lie, to protect Carson, seemed irrational, but I didn’t want to bring his name up. However, Cassie’s grandfather had been there. “My friend went with me to Cassie’s house and back to the cliff.”
“And who was that?”
I chewed on my nail. “Carson Ortiz.”
He nodded, and I couldn’t figure out what that meant. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”
I glanced at Lincoln, who looked as if he wanted to duct-tape my mouth shut. “No.”
“Okay.” Ramirez’s smile lacked warmth. “There are a couple of things I wanted to know and get your opinion on, and then once my officers get back, you’ll be free to go home, all right?”
Stomach full of nerves, I nodded.
“We got the autopsy report back from the state coroner’s office on Cassie.” He noted my shudder and continued. “The toxicology report showed that she was taking antidepressants and had phentermine in her system.”
“Phentermine?” I asked.
“Diet pills,” Lincoln explained, readjusting the button clasped over his potbelly. “Besides the fact that most teenagers don’t know that term, my client is suffering from dissociative amnesia, as you’re well aware of. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.”
“I understand that, but I was hoping that maybe some of this rings a bell for her,” Ramirez answered, and something about his tone said he wasn’t entirely convinced about my amnesia. I was right. “I’ve been doing some checking in on this…this disorder. It appears that people can actually fake it—”
My mouth dropped open. “I’m not faking it!”
Lincoln squeezed my arm in warning. “Detective Ramirez, we agreed to come down and answer these questions, but if you’re going to make insinuations regarding Samantha’s medical condition—a condition that can be verified by several doctors—then this interview is over.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that she was faking, but that the condition can be faked,” he said. I called bull on that, but whatever. “Asking those questions can’t hurt,” he went on. “Not when we’re dealing with a girl’s murder.”
I straightened. “So she was definitely murdered? It wasn’t an accident?”
A strange look shot across the detective’s face. He leaned forward, putting on elbow on the table, pen still in his hand. “No. It wasn’t an accident. The autopsy has proved otherwise.”
The room shifted to the left, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Each breath I took hurt. Murdered. No more swaying back and forth on what could’ve happened to her. She had been murdered. “I want to know what happened.” My voice came out tiny, hoarse.
The hand around my arm spasmed. “Samantha, I’m not sure you want to know.”
I opened my eyes, and both men were staring at me. There was a part of me that was squeamish, didn’t want to know, but I pushed it down, all the way down. “I need to know.”
There was a pause. “The autopsy showed that there wasn’t any water in the lungs. She didn’t drown.”
A little bit of relief snaked through me. Drowning was horrific. “Then what happened?”
“Results showed that Cassie most likely died due to blunt force trauma to the skull.” Ramirez started tapping his pen, his gaze analytical and trained on my face. “She was dead before she ended up in that lake.”
“But she could’ve fallen, right?” I glanced at Lincoln. He looked apoplectic, red cheeks and all.
Ramirez’s pen froze. “The crime scene investigation team has been out there. There is no way someone would have cleared the hill and hit the lake below without her jumping, being pushed hard…or thrown. And it is very unlikely that she fell down the hill and somehow rolled off the cliff above the waterfall.”
“That’s what I thought.” My voice rasped. Damn. Who knew being right could suck so bad?
“Samantha,” Lincoln interjected, “I must insist that you don’t speak.”
The detective was on that like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat. “What do you mean, that’s what you thought?”
Lincoln huffed. “Don’t answer that.”
I ignored him. “It’s just, when I went there, I thought it would be difficult to fall from there and hit the lake without…being pushed. And I must’ve fallen, because I’ve had this…memory of climbing up something.”
“I thought you didn’t remember anything?” The detective’s voice was sharp.
I gritted my teeth, realizing how that looked. “It’s not a clear memory, more like fragments and just a feeling. I don’t even know if it’s real.”
He watched me for a few moments. “This memory of climbing? Do you think it involves the cliff?”
“I think so.” I lowered my eyes. “I don’t really remember anything else.” That made sense, that is. I lifted my lashes, meeting his acute stare. “I really wish I did. There is no one else who wants to know what happened that night more than me.”
“Besides her mother,” he corrected, sitting back. His dark gaze went to the lawyer. “Obviously, both of you girls were on the cliff. We’ve established that. One of you lived. One of you died. The question remains, was there a third person, Miss Franco?”
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I don’t know.”
When I got home, my room was a mess. Knowing that strangers had combed through my undies creeped me out. I felt violated. Nothing had been spared in the investigation. Not even my bed. What did they think I’d hide in there? My laptop was also gone. Forensics. According to Ramirez I’d have it back in a week.
I really hoped I didn’t have a p**n addiction I’d forgotten about.
It took me the better part of the evening to clean my room. Mostly because my mother’s constant hovering slowed things down. Pale and stricken, she left me alone only to return with a cold-cut sandwich for me. The act surprised me and it also scared me. I could see that she didn’t seem concerned about how all this would make her look to her uppity friends.
Worried, but this time it was for me.
That didn’t make me feel any better, because I knew I had a reason to be worried. My interrogation—er, questioning—went downhill quickly after Ramirez asked who the third person was. He kept asking the same questions in different ways, trying to trip me up. It became clear that he believed I was faking or I wasn’t telling him everything.
Lincoln broke out the lawyer guns. He wanted evidence. Detective Ramirez laid it out plainly. I was the last person to be with her. My “memory loss” was my only defense, the only thing “getting in the way of justice.” Any evidence the police had was circumstantial, but people had been convicted on far less. Lincoln told me and my dad afterward that it would never get to that point. I wanted to believe him, but my paranoia was hitting epic levels.
One of you lived. One of you died.
Pacing the length of my bedroom well into the late hours, I was a nervous, sweaty mess by the time I slid between the covers, pulling them over my head like a child. There, in the safety and isolation of my blanket cocoon, I reasoned things out.
Cassie had been murdered. Skull crushed before she was sent over the cliff. Or maybe on the way down. Either way, she’d been pushed. There was little to no evidence supporting that she’d jumped. It was obvious the police didn’t believe it was a suicide. No water in the lungs. One of two things happened: I’d hit her with something and then pushed her and then somehow fallen off the cliff myself, or there had been another person there who was responsible for everything. Hit Cassie with something, pushed her off the cliff, and then did the same to me—or at least tried. Or she could’ve hit her head on the way down.
One of you lived. One of you died.
I somehow felt closer to Cassie than I ever had before. We were still joined by the secret of that night, a memory I couldn’t reach.
At some point I dozed off, and I dreamed of the cliff, of Cassie and a third person who kept staying out of my direct line of sight, hiding his or her identity from me. I woke up, my skin sticky with cold sweat and the covers twisted around my hips. Tears clung to my lashes.
Minutes passed, and I kept my eyes squeezed shut. I tried counting to one hundred, but I only made it to twenty before tiny bumps spread across my skin. A shiver of awareness alerted me to something unnatural in the room.
My breath slowly leaked out of my lips as my muscles locked up. Someone was in the room with me. Every cell in my body knew this. Too afraid to open my eyes, I remained perfectly still.
An icy breath moved over my brow, down my cheek.
I swallowed, and my eyes popped open against my will and a scream came tearing out of my throat. I wasn’t alone.
Chapter twenty
Swathed in darkness, he leaned over me. All I could see was his chest, but I could feel his breath. I couldn’t move, couldn’t stop screaming as he pulled away. Get up! Hit him! Get away! My brain kept spewing out commands, but my body wouldn’t obey.
He was still there, a cold hand moving along my neck, over my pounding pulse. “Samantha,” he said roughly, voice somewhat familiar. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
Then the lights turned on, blinding me in their startling intensity, and I could move. I jackknifed up, my mouth open, bloodcurdling sounds still coming from me. Arms were suddenly around me, and my shrieks pitched even higher.
“Shh, Sam, it’s okay. Everything is okay. Shh, it’s all right.”
I struggled to recognize the voice and the arms around me. All I kept seeing was the man above me; I felt his cold breath and chilly fingers above my pulse. I couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how soothing the words being whispered in my ear were.
More voices finally broke through—my dad—Mom. It was Scott holding me, trying to snap me out of it.
“What’s going on?” Dad demanded, a black pistol in his hand.
Mom sat beside Scott, placing a hand on my back. “Samantha, baby, talk to us.”
It took several tries to form a coherent sentence. “He was in my bedroom, standing over me! I woke up, and he was there.”
“Who?” Scott asked, pulling back so that his eyes met mine. “Who, Sam?”
Dad rushed to the bedroom windows, fiddling with the locks while I focused on my brother’s face.
“I don’t know, but it was him. It was him.”
Scott’s brows knitted as he glanced over my shoulder. “Was it Del?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom snapped, patting my back. “He wouldn’t come in here and scare her like that.”
I twisted out of Scott’s arms. “I couldn’t see his face, but he must’ve gone out the windows or something.”
His face pale, my dad lowered the pistol. “Oh, Samantha…”
“What?” My voice pitched. “He was in here! He was standing over my bed, touching me.”
Mom stood, pulling the knot on her silk robe tighter. Her eyes met my father’s. “There’s no more waiting, Steven. She needs to see a doctor.”
I sat back, fingers digging into my comforter. What were they talking about? Who cared about a damn doctor? There had been a man in my bedroom.
“She’s fine. She just had a nightmare.” Scott rushed to my defense. “There’s no reason to bring out the straitjacket.”
“What?” I shrieked. Straitjacket? My pulse sped up.
“Scott,” Mom said, sighing, “go to your room.”
He ignored her.
Dad sat down on the other side, catching my hand in his free one. “Baby, the windows and the balcony door are locked from the inside. The alarm is set. It didn’t go off.”
“No. No! There was someone in my room.” I pulled my hand free, scooting back from him. “You have to believe me. I was awake. He was standing over me.”
He shook his head. A sad, tired look pierced his eyes. “There wasn’t anyone in your room. You were dreaming or—”
“Or I’m seeing things? Like the guy in the backseat?” I yelled. Terror dissipated, replaced by rage. “Is that what you think?”
Mom wiped at her face. It was the first time I’d seen her cry, but the tears only infuriated me. “You’ve had a stressful night, sweetie. We’re not judging you, but you need—”
“I don’t need help!” Okay, maybe I did, but I scrambled under Scott’s arm. He grabbed for me, but I was quick when I wanted to be. Maybe some of the things I had been seeing weren’t real, but this…this had been real.
“I think you should sit down,” Dad suggested as he rose. “We can talk about things in the morning.”
Ignoring him, I grabbed my bag out from under my desk and dumped it onto my bed. Among the books, school papers, and pens, four yellow notes fell onto the bed. All of them except the one I’d found in the car.
“What are you doing?” Scott asked, eyes bugging out as he saw the notes.
I had the most horrible thought then. What if Scott was leaving those notes? I looked at him, really looked at him. He hated Cassie, but…but no way. I dismissed the notion.