“It doesn’t matter what I think. In a situation like this, appearance matters as much as reality. Fact is, we had a staff member and a child off radar for at least fifteen minutes. You were in charge of checks, Greg. What the hell were you doing?”

“I checked! Cecille vouched for Lucy; we agreed on twenty-minute intervals for her, so I waited another twenty to check again. As for Danielle, she was with the police. Or so I thought.”

Now all eyes were on me. I didn’t say anything, just rolled the string ball between my fingers.

“Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl…”

“You said you went to fetch a glass of water,” Karen repeated directly to me. “Did you see Lucy tonight? Visit her at all?”

“I saw Lucy. She was dancing in moonbeams. She was happy.”

“When?”

“Before I got water.”

“Danielle, start talking. The hospital will be launching an investigation. The state will be launching an investigation. You need to tell us what happened.”

“I saw Lucy. I got a glass of water. I met with Greg about Jimmy and Benny. Reloaded the copy machine. Met with the detectives. That’s everything I did. All that I did.”

“That doesn’t take twenty minutes,” Sergeant Warren stated.

“But it did.” I finally looked at her. “You were right before. It’d be better if we had security cameras.”

Sergeant Warren asked me to come with her for questioning. I refused. Karen informed me I was on paid leave, effective immediately, and I was not to come to work until the hospital granted permission. I refused.

Not that it mattered. Everyone was asking me questions, but no one was listening to my answers.

“She didn’t kill herself.” I spoke up, my voice louder, edgier. “Lucy wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t.”

Greg and Karen shut up. Sergeant Warren regarded me with fresh interest. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I saw her. She was happy. She was a cat. As long as she was a cat, she was okay.”

“Maybe someone burst her bubble. Or the delusion slipped away. You said she was volatile, dangerously unpredictable.”

“She’d never shown any signs of suicide before.”

“That’s not true,” Karen protested. “She’d already demonstrated a need for self-mutilation, as well as debasement.” She turned to Sergeant Warren. “First day she was here, Lucy cut her arm and used the blood to draw patterns on the wall. The child did terrible things, because terrible things had been done to her. I don’t think we can say with any degree of certainty what she was, or was not, capable of.”