need to check over the property line, in your yard?”
She was looking at her phone when she said it, and when I didn’t respond at first, her eyes cut sharply to mine.
“Sure,” I said.
She continued typing, then slid the phone into her bag.
“How long have you known Mr. Aimes?” Nina asked. I wasn’t sure if this was related to her phone conversation or just her personal curiosity. But I erred on the side of caution, assuming they had taken Rick’s statement back at his house already. I needed to be careful to match his story.
“I bought the house from him. Over a year ago. He keeps an eye out for me, and I try to do the same. I don’t think he has any family in town.”
“No,” she said, “he doesn’t.”
I looked her over, with her clean pressed slacks, the boots, the windbreaker. I didn’t know her role in this; Rick had introduced her as Nina, and she’d never clarified whether she was an officer, an investigator, a liaison. She didn’t look old enough to be in charge, but she had the air of authority. Such was the benefit of small towns. Same way I had my position in the hospital so young. “You’ve known him a while?”
She crossed one leg over the other before answering. “I grew up here. I knew his son.”
I had opened my mouth to ask another question when the doctor pulled back the curtain in one swift movement. She said hello absently, eyes to Nina, then to my bare leg, then down to the paperwork in front of her. “Good news is this doesn’t seem to be anything but a surface injury. Bad news, cuts like this over a joint still generally require stitches to heal correctly. And, unrelated, I’m a little concerned about your blood pressure.” She stood closer, sliding on a pair of gloves. “Let’s take a look.”
“Dr. Britton?” I asked. Even though of course it was her. Sydney, with her trademark sleek blond hair and sharp cheekbones, now dressed up in a white lab coat, glasses perched on top of her head. Hadn’t it been just yesterday when she’d been checking out of work, tired and in need of sleep, picking up wine and a microwave meal from the G&M? Yet here she was, fresh-eyed and sharp, with no recognition on her face.
She blinked twice, like she was trying to slide me into context. “Liv?”
“You two know each other?” Nina asked, suddenly standing.
“I work here,” I said, and the tiniest of lines formed in Nina’s forehead. “Not as a doctor . . .” I pointed to the ceiling. “Upstairs. Administration.”
Nina looked at me closely, as if she could see the potential for all the other things stored inside that I had not offered up. “Nina Rigby,” she said, directing her words to the doctor. “Detective with the police department.”
Detective. The word chilled. Turned this visit into something else. Was I still being questioned here? Was I a suspect? I was cooperating, and I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to make the wrong move, drag things out that should remain buried.
“Sydney Britton,” the doctor replied. She was looking carefully between the detective and me. Categorizing everything that was not right—from my dirty feet, slipped into flip-flops, to the worn pajama pants. I felt the night, wild and clinging to me.
“What happened to you?” Sydney asked, voice different—not as a doctor but as an acquaintance.
“I hurt my knee outside. I tripped.”
“Well,” Detective Rigby added, letting the word hang in the air. “She tripped over a body she discovered outside. Which probably explains the blood pressure.”
Sydney’s head jerked to the side, taking in what the detective was saying. She slowly turned back to me. “A body, huh? That must’ve given you quite the scare.” But her tone was flat, and I wondered if the detective could hear it, too. We’d all seen bodies here, in various states. Maybe, in her opinion, it was a disconnect I should have perfected by now. How desensitized she must be to trauma and death. Even to me, they were rows on a spreadsheet. Tallies in the day.
But not in the yard. Not around our homes. Not in the middle of the night, when we woke up with no idea how we’d gotten there. I was betting Sydney’s blood pressure would be through the roof, too, if a body were the first thing she saw upon waking.
Sydney took a steady breath, then placed her gloved hands around my kneecap.
Detective