We'd started dating after my third concussion. She worked the 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift, so she would just scoot over after work and hang out until my hour was up. It was fun and casual for six months, but like the others before her, she realized seeing me for half an hour three days a week just wasn't enough. After four failed relationships, I realized the only thing worse than having Henry Bins, was falling in love with Henry Bins. Luckily, we'd been able to remain friends.

“Nope. Murder.”

She laughs and says, “Well, the good news is no concussion. The bad news is thirteen stitches.”

“That puts me over a hundred. Is my next set free?”

“I'll see what I can do,” she laughs, then as if I'd hit the refresh button, her smile fades and she says, “I have to alert the officers that you're awake.”

I nod.

She squeezes my calf and disappears behind the curtain.

Ray and Cal walk through.

I pull my arm up, clinking the cuffs, and say, “Does this mean I'm under arrest?”

Cal doesn't hesitate and Mirandizes me. When he's done, I say, “Let me get this straight, you obviously read up on Henry Bins, you watched me fall at exactly four and crack my skull open, and I'm sure you've checked with the nurses here and know that I'm no stranger to the emergency room.”

Ray nods.

“So you believe I have this condition and yet you also believe that in this slim window I get, this hour, that I killed Callie Freig.”

“Doesn't change the fact that the window of opportunity is still there, you easily could have killed her within that one hour,” says Ray. “Your prints are all over the place, including the car that her body is found on, not to mention that every single thing you've said, except for this stupid sleeping disorder, has been lies.”

My mind is racing.

“I need to make a call.”

“Lawyering up already,” snorts Cal.

“Actually, my dad probably thinks I'm dead, so I'd like to call him.”

Ray hands me her phone. I raise my eyebrows and both the detectives leave. My dad is frantic when he answers. It was our card night and finding that I wasn't there, he called my phone. When I hadn't answered, he'd started toward the hospital.

“Turn around and go back to my house.”

I tell him what to do once he gets there.

Before I hang up, I ask if he saw a cat prowling around outside my apartment.

He hadn't.

…

The nurse – not Sara, though she'd come to say goodbye when her shift ended – is changing the dressings on my head when my dad shows up.