Page 9 of Delusion in Death

“She’s fun. Macie. Sometimes we go shopping on our day off.”

“But tonight you went for a drink at On the Rocks,” Eve prompted.

“Travis met us there, with his friend. It was kind of a blind date for me.”

“Can you give us Macie’s and Travis’s last names?”

“Oh. Oh. I didn’t think. You need to have their whole names to find them. Macie Snyder and Travis Greenspan. I have pictures on my ’link! I can show you pictures. I don’t know where my ’link is.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. So the four of you hung for a while, had a couple drinks.”

“A second round. Bren’s really cute. Bren!” Her eye widened, then closed, and a single thin tear leaked out of the corner. “I remember now. Brendon Wang. He works with Travis, and Travis and Macie were kind of setting us up. I can’t see him very well in my head now.” She gave Eve a weary, pitiful look. “I’m sorry. My head hurts. I feel sick.” She closed her eye again.

Eve leaned in. “CiCi, look at me. Look at me now. What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know. I’m hurt.”

“Who hurt you?”

“I don’t know! Did we go for dinner?” Her fingers tried to pluck at the sheets, twist them. “We were going for dinner. Macie wanted Nino’s, but…Did we go for dinner?”

“No. You were in the bar.”

“I don’t want to be in the bar. I want to be home.”

“What happened in the bar?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to.” Peabody again, soothing, soothing, even taking CiCi’s good hand in hers. “Tell us what you think happened, and that’ll help. We’re here to help you.”

“She’s a monster. There’s blood running out of her eyes, and her teeth are sharp.”

“Who’s a monster?”

“It looks like Macie, but she’s not a monster. It’s all mixed up.”

“What did the monster do?”

“She stabbed Travis in the face. She picked up Macie’s fork and stabbed him in the eye—oh God, oh God. And she screamed, and everything was crazy. I had glass in my hand, sharp, sharp, and I stabbed and stabbed, and she screamed and beat at me. It hurts! I have to hurt her, and the other one, all the other ones, but I’m on the floor and my arm! And everyone’s screaming and there’s blood everywhere. Then I woke up, and somebody was taking me somewhere. Here. An ambulance. I don’t know.”

Tears streamed out of her eyes. “I don’t know. I think I killed somebody, but it doesn’t make sense. Please find Macie. She’s really smart. She’ll know what happened.”

“Let’s try this. What were you doing right before you saw the monster?”

“There aren’t any monsters, not really. Right?”

Oh, Eve thought, more than you can count. More than you can name.

“Don’t worry. Just try to remember before. You and Macie and Travis and Bren. You had a table at the bar?”

“A table. Yeah. We got a table. It was close to the bar. I mean the bar in the bar.”

“Okay, that’s good. You all had drinks? It’s happy hour. What did you order to drink?”

“Ah, I had a house white. It’s pretty good. Macie got a Pink Passion. The guys got beers. And we got jumbo nachos to share. But I was afraid to eat them—much—because they’re messy. I didn’t want to spill because of the blind date.”

“That’s good. You were having fun, relaxing after work. You had a drink together. Then what?”

---