“Lily, can you tell us if you’ll attend Brenda Collins’s trial?” That was a trick question, I thought, since the former cleaning lady had made a full confession to the police. She’d run out of money in Chicago, and with Trina Greene gone, she’d lost the strength to keep running. I thought it would be great to chuck it all in and start a new life, she’d told the police, but it was so hard, lying to everyone I met, keeping my story straight, worrying all the time about being found out. The District Attorney’s office was still working on the details, but a plea agreement had been struck. Brenda had been able to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. She told the police that Claudia had accidentally overdosed at her house, and that she had panicked and called her friend Trina. After Trina had driven them both to New York, they stayed in a crumbling hotel west of Times Square. Trina had been curious about Claudia’s apartment; she’d visited, then stayed a night, then two, and decided to stay a while. Brenda holed up in the hotel for a couple of weeks, then went on to Michigan, where she had a cousin. Her cousin’s husband had gotten tired of her staying there, so Brenda returned to New York and found Trina living high on the hog, as she put it. Trina’s always wanted to be a big-city girl, Brenda had said, she hated it in the sticks. Trina hadn’t hatched a plan to take over Claudia’s life, it had been a simple matter of getting away with a few things and wanting to see what she could do next. She knew Claudia’s sister paid the rent, and she thought it would be exciting to live in the city for a while. I mean, the sister lived in Spain—it wasn’t like she was going to show up at the door, you know?