“Don’t let this slide off, honey. You need to stay warm.” Firm brown hands pulled a silvery blanket around my seated form, the fabric reminding me of . . .
“Diana.” It came out a rasp. “Is Diana all right?”
The voice that answered didn’t come from the plump woman who’d put the blanket around me. It was harder, firmer. My brain supplied a name: Constable Sefina Neri. “Mrs. Liu is a little bruised but otherwise fine. Physically at least.”
I looked to the left, in the direction of her voice. She was haloed in the lights from the police vehicles behind her, her body clad in a heavy high-visibility jacket and her hair pulled back in an untidy knot.
“Did we wake you?” Neri asked.
“What?” I couldn’t quite put the pieces together, images and thoughts floating away like drifts of snow. “Diana? Hurt?”
Her look was piercing. “No.” She enunciated the word very carefully. “Beau and Mia Liu, and Ariki Henare, all woke and came to her aid. Diana has no major injuries.”
“Pink roses,” I muttered.
“I can’t tell if you’re in shock, or zoned out.” A glance over my head. “Is he high or did he take a blow to the head?”
“No knock that I’ve been able to see.” The gentler, warmer, older voice. “But he’s not mentally present. You know your business, Sefi, but I don’t think you should be talking to him now if you want anything admissible.”
I saw people beyond the rim of painful light. Isaac, that was Isaac. Why was Mellie wearing a bright green blanket? “Where’s Phil?”
“Phil?” Neri’s tone was confused. “You mean Isaac Brennan’s father? He’s in an elder-care facility. Do you believe he knows something about this?”
Her words holding no meaning for me, I stared at the ghost tent. “Sarah’s down here,” I got out past the thickness of my tongue. “He buried her there. Ghost Sarah in her ghost house. Ghost gifts.”
“Shit. Take him in.” Neri was already turning away. “I’ll tell Regan he’s not fit to be interviewed.”
I went to ask her something, tell her something, but my tongue was too fat and my head full of blackness.
62
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I lifted heavy lids, my lips so dry and cracked that they felt alien.
“Here.” A sliver of ice cold against my mouth, droplets of water seeping in. I sucked desperately at one piece, then the next, until at last, I could swallow, could focus, could see again.
Lily’s dark eyes looked down at me, her hair framing her face in strands of black silk.
“What?”
Somehow, she understood. “Ambulance brought you to the hospital two days ago,” she told me, the comforting scents of sugar and coffee in her every movement. “How much do you remember?”
Shovels, fighting, a woman made of fluid silver. “Calvin,” I croaked.
“Yup. No one saw that coming—except you, apparently.” She brushed my hair off my forehead. “He’s in police custody.”
The curtains parted before I could ask her anything else, and I saw Neri and Regan. Lily scowled. “He’s barely awake. Go away.”
“No.” I coughed. “I want to speak to them.”
“Fifteen minutes,” Lily said to the cops with steely authority. “I’ll tell the nurses so they know to come kick you out.”
“Did you find Sarah?” I asked as she left, the curtain swinging behind her.
“Yes.” Detective Regan sat down in the chair Lily had vacated, while Neri moved around a second chair so I could see them both.
“We need to take your statement,” Regan continued, purple shadows under his eyes and his skin even paler than usual. “After that, you can ask us more questions and we’ll tell you what we know.”
I had no reason to hold back now. I told them all I knew. All I remembered.
“My head isn’t right,” I admitted again afterward. “My memories are patchy and there’s a film or fog over everything. My neurosurgeon was right to worry.”
The two cops exchanged a look before Regan gave a small nod. Neri shifted her attention to me. “There are indications someone tampered with your food. Labs are still working on exactly what was added, but it’s nothing you should’ve been consuming alongside your prescribed painkillers and other medications.”
Nausea battled with relief. “Who? Shanti? No, it can’t have been her.”
“It was in the fudge. Possibly also in some of the other sweets.”
Staring at them, I waited for the punchline. But neither of them laughed. “Diana makes the fudge.”
“Yes, and since it’s your favorite, Mrs. Liu’s been making extra just for you. According to her, Calvin not only volunteered