“Lela,” said Nancy, who had faithfully stalked me since my release from the RITS, just over a year ago, “Detective DiNapoli needs to ask you a few questions.” She twisted the rings on her thick fingers.

“Sure,” I said softly, trying to make enough—but not too much—eye contact. Open but not defiant. “What do you need, Detective? Is this about what happened at the school today?”

“No, Ms. Santos.” DiNapoli walked over to a briefcase he had set next to the table, pulled something from it, and set it in front of me. It was a plastic bag containing my dusty, chipped, sadly unmelted phone. “We found this on Saturday afternoon.”

Everything in my world narrowed to a point, focused on that phone. Raphael had my old number connected to my new phone, but it obviously hadn’t happened fast enough. I forced my expression into a surprised smile. “You found my phone! Did you get the guy who took it?”

Diane, still standing by the door, looked back and forth between me and the cop. “Took it? What are you talking about, baby? I just saw you talking on the phone in your car.”

I pulled my new phone out of my pocket. “Yeah. Mine got stolen on Saturday, so I got a new one yesterday.” I prayed Raphael might be able to pull a receipt out of that magical pocket of his, should the need arise.

Diane’s eyebrows shot up. “At what point were you gonna tell me about that?”

I shrugged, hoping none of them could hear my heart pounding against my ribs. “I didn’t want you to get mad. Or worried. It happened when I went to do that soup kitchen thing.” I looked up at the detective and then over at Nancy, who was leaning on Diane’s recliner, scratching a spot on her hip. “I was taking out the garbage midshift, and I was right out by the Dumpster. A guy jumped me. He took my phone.”

“You were mugged?” Nancy asked. She looked shocked. Probably because she’d always thought of me as a perp rather than a victim.

“Yeah, Nancy. It wasn’t fun.” I looked up at Diane, willing her to believe my lie. “I knew you would freak. I got Tegan to take me to get a new phone.”

“Why didn’t you report the crime?” Detective DiNapoli asked.

I let my eyes dart up to his, which were red-lined and wet-looking. “I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t even finish my shift at the soup kitchen. A friend drove me back to her house, and I took some Tylenol.”

DiNapoli leaned forward. “You were injured?”

Crap. Yeah, I had been, but I’d also been healed. “Nothing serious. I got knocked against the Dumpster. He took off as soon as he had my phone.”

“Could you identify your attacker?”