gone too, and her mom works nights. We’d drink there for a couple hours, then go out. Meet up with Starr and everyone. There are a few bars around that know us, or we’d get on the train, head down to Coney Island. Go dancing.”
“And that’s where you went on New Year’s Eve? To Coney Island?” Detective Holloway’s face is still smooth for a woman of forty. But mascara clumps in the corners of her eyes and a stale film is beginning to coat her tongue and teeth. They’ve been at it since three, and she’s eager to finish this. Place the girl under arrest.
“Yeah, but not out dancing. I never made it farther than Starr’s place. She’s older, like twenty-two? Starr kind of took Kaylee and me under her wing last year, until she moved down to Orlando.”
“When was that?”
“Soon after New Year’s. Starr got a job at one of the parks.”
“Okay. But that night, it was you, Kaylee, and Starr at her apartment in Coney Island.”
“And a couple other people. Kaylee’s sort-of boyfriend, Ian. And this guy Mike we know from around.”
“Around?”
“Like, around Brooklyn. Not from school.” Anna tugs at a thread on her cutoffs until it snaps free from the denim.
“I see. And what time did you leave Starr’s apartment?”
For a moment, Anna is quiet. She leans forward, elbows pressed into bare knees, hair falling back across her eyes. She looks younger than her seventeen years, made small by the camera’s greedy eye and the imperial presence of adults in uniform.
“It must have been nine or nine thirty.”
“Must have been, or it was?” The detective’s voice is sharp.
Anna’s voice, in turn, is a low mumble, the words snagged in her hair. “I don’t really remember. But if I got a ride out to Herron Mills, and got there by midnight, I must have left around then. Or even earlier if I took the train.”
The detective lets out a low breath. “Fine. Then what do you remember?” She sits back in her seat but keeps her hand on the arm of Anna’s chair.
“We were on the balcony at Windermere. The long one that wraps around the front of the house, on the third floor.”
“Who’s we, Anna?”
“Me and Kaylee. And Zoe.”
“Just the three of you?”
“Just the three of us.”
“And where were the Talbots?”
“In the city, at their friend Doreen’s, I think. Not home.”
Detective Holloway stares at Anna for a moment. The girl holds her gaze. “Fine, continue.”
“We were drinking whiskey. Glenlivet, the good stuff. Better than Kaylee and I could ever buy back home.” Something bitter, so slight you might miss it, slips in, then out of her words. “Caden always kept a bottle stashed in this unused stall in the Windermere stable. I guess that’s where we got it.”
“You guess or you remember?”
“I guess. I just remember we were passing the bottle around, up on the balcony.”
“And who was drinking beer?” the detective asks.
“What?” Anna’s chin jerks up, hair parting once again. For a quick moment, she meets the older woman’s eyes. Then her gaze drops to the pale glint of her knees.
“Before, you told me you were drinking whiskey and beer.”
“I did?” On the recording, you can see Anna press her lips between her teeth. She runs her tongue over the cracked, flaking skin. “I guess so,” she says after a moment. “I’d been drinking for hours—it’s not very clear. I guess there was also beer.”
“Tell me about how Zoe fell,” Detective Holloway says. She lifts her hand from the arm of the chair and places it lightly on Anna’s shoulder. Anna doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t react. Her eyes are unfocused, but when she speaks, her voice is clearer than it’s been all night.
“The railing’s kind of low. Only up to your thigh? We were messing around, the three of us. I remember Kaylee pinching me, like she was trying to keep me awake. I guess I was pretty out of it. And I remember Zoe laughing. She had one of those infectious laughs, like silver. It made you feel all warm inside.”
“And how did she fall, Anna?” Detective Holloway squeezes the girl’s shoulder, not quite gently.
“Oh.” Anna looks up for a moment, not at the detective, but straight into the camera. It’s like she’s remembering, for the first time, where she is. What she came here to say. “Kaylee went inside. I think she was getting us a snack. Zoe and I stayed on the balcony. I remember twirling, our arms crossed in an X