“Listen to me, Sara. I’ll tell the judge they’re scapegoating you because the police don’t have any real evidence. Nada. Zilch. A couple of drunk losers saw you in the area, or so they say. She’ll give you bail; she’s a nice lady.”

He says after I get bail, he’ll take me to Red Lobster for dinner. “Cheer up,” he says. “Smile,” he says. “Stop looking so freaked out.” He says, “You’re a pretty girl when you smile, as I’m sure lots of people have told you before.”

“Yeah, just get me a pen,” I tell him, and I pull my hair over my eyes so he won’t see the tears.

Edmundo gives me a new notebook.

It’s funny because, as soon as I have the notebook, I do, for the first time, want to write it all down. Just to understand. Just to figure out, for myself, what happened in that alley. There’s only a few details missing, and those details matter to me. A man, stabbed in the heart, don’t think I don’t care.

They need to know. It’s only fair.

You probably think I’m guilty. A heart full of hate. You’re like the rest of them. You think I wanted him to die. But it wasn’t like that at all. Really, it wasn’t like that at all.

I start to write: I first saw Justine at Ming’s.

But that’s not relevant, I know.

So I erase those words. I erase I first saw Justine at Ming’s.

The pencil is comforting, just holding it in my hand.

I consider, my thoughts, my frail fucked-up memory.

I write: On the evening of the 5th, I entered the premises on Bramley Crescent on my own recognizance. I proceeded toward a state of severe intoxication.

Then I erase that too.

Maybe it was midnight when she came out of the bedroom, thin and delicate and slipping a black lace dress over her pale, naked body. The wrinkled dress might have been made for a widow, but Justine looked more like a drunk ballerina than a woman heading for a funeral.

She turned suddenly, and came right up to me. I tried not to stare at her, but it was impossible. A strand of hacked black hair covered her blue eye; her mascara smeared, her small face so ivory and delicate and haunted, slightly.

How do you like my dress? she said, in a way that was completely innocent, but seemed slightly taunting, like I was being asked to play truth or dare.

It’s nice, I stuttered.

Nice? It’s lascivious. It’s posh. I like it, she said, and she touched the black cloth, rubbing her hand from her thigh to her hips.

Then her tiny hand darted out and touched the stiff white cloth of my uniform.

I like yours, she said. Are you a nurse?

Kind of, I said. I’m in training, I guess.

As if she’d lost interest, she bent down, strapping on a pair of black stilettos with high, thin heels and crooked little leather bows. Taller now, she looked me right in the eye.