Or maybe it was hair. I pressed my tongue upward and felt the grainy thread there, tickling the roof of my mouth. It took another few moments for me to realize that I was lying on the floor. I was still in Emma’s apartment, but there was no one around me. And I was lying…

Behind the couch?

I clenched the carpet as the room spun around me again, and I wanted to cry because I should have been able to get up.

I needed help.

But I couldn’t speak, the cries somehow lost in my throat.

I heard talking, and I tried to lift my head to see who it was.

I could see two figures in the kitchen. They were moving—first just feet, then their legs, and then their entire bodies.

A man and a woman.

They were talking quietly, and I couldn’t make out any of their words. I had the distinct feeling that they didn’t know I was there.

I strained upward to see them, but it sent a sharp pain down the side of my body, and I let myself drop as sleep, or something very much like it, took over.

Chapter 18

Claire

The Night in Question

The sun was coming up by the time Claire walked out of Andrew Brighton’s apartment.

She knew she should call it a night. She was pushing her luck trying to sneak in interviews so late at night. But she’d meant it when she’d told Greg that she didn’t want to let the dust settle. People tended to stretch the truth when they had time to think about what they were going to say.

She needed gut reactions.

She needed the truth.

Claire walked down to the first floor. She would wrap up the night with one more interview. She’d go home and get some sleep, then start all over again. Later that day, they’d have more information from Dr. Ortiz about the exact time and cause of death, and they’d know what the stain on Beverly and Andrew’s carpet was. Claire would also stop by to interview the store owner, Joshua Burlap.

Then she would dig a little harder into the artist, Chris.

If there was one piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit, it was the artist.

No contact information.

No last name.

No traces of her besides the fuzzy accounts of three party guests, who all seemed to have something to hide.

Claire walked over to the first-floor apartment and knocked on the door. It had been open when she arrived, but someone had shut it in the past hour.

It took a few moments, but then the door was flung open, and a man in his late twenties with shaggy, shoulder-length brown hair stood in the doorway.

“Seriously?” he asked, something close to a pout on his face. “Do we have to do this now?”