“She mentioned it. I told her she was looking good and she said, like, that’s what a three-thousand-dollar dress could do.” She sucked down smoke anxiously, as if irritated by the memory.

“Where would she get three thousand dollars?”

“I know! I asked her that and she said it was a gift from a friend. Tariq, I figured. Who else does she know with that kind of cash?” Melissa shrugged. “Fucking show-off.”

“How was she otherwise? I mean, what kind of mood was she in?”

“Fine. Sort of…” Melissa squinted, trying to pluck the right adjective out of her brain. “Relaxed, I guess. She just seemed relaxed, like everything was good in the world.”

“Was she high?”

Melissa dragged on her cigarette and shook her head. “I don’t mean stoned-relaxed. She wasn’t smoking, wasn’t drinking. I asked her what was up and she said she was ‘in a different place,’ whatever that means.” She stared at the floor and squinted up at me. “It was like she was a different person.”

“Are you sure it was her?” I asked, my heart picking up speed.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve known her since we were eighteen.”

“There was a woman who was staying at Claudia’s apartment. She kind of looked like Claudia. People thought they were cousins. I’m wondering if it could have been her instead.”

“No way,” Melissa insisted. “I wasn’t that out of it. And even though Claudia was all dressed up, you could see those weird dragons tattoos crawling on her shoulders. Ugh.” She shuddered. “I hate those things. It’s like something you see on a bad trip.”

“Did Claudia say anything about someone moving in with her, or about going away?”

“Not exactly. She said something about how she wasn’t spending much time in the city anymore.”

“Where was she staying?”

Melissa looked at me blankly. “I didn’t ask. She was nagging me about some rehab center. She’d been there, and she was pushing me to go. She was going on about turning her life around, you know, all the crap people spew when they see the light, just before they go back into the tunnel.”

“What was the name of the place?”