Page 17 of Long Way Down

Behind them, Pastor Keith started whistling. A church song Melissa could never remember the name of.

~*~

Lana Preston was a pretty girl. Melissa had seen the photos at the apartment: leggy, athletic, with a natural, no-makeup, cornsilk-hair beauty that casting directors were always searching for in Hollywood.

Now, her eyes were no more than two glittering slits in a face swollen and bruised beyond recognition. Melissa hoped no one had shown her a mirror.

Her arms were bruised, too, where they lay on top of the covers, an IV taped to the crook of one elbow, other forearm swathed in bandages. The nurses had said she started screaming and thrashing when she woke, fighting like she was still beneath her attacker. They hadn’t sedated her, wanting her to be alert for their questions; a strong orderly had held her down while Ellen talked her through the panic, and she lay quietly, now, blinking the occasional tear off her lashes, movements clumsy and shaky as she reached to wipe at her nose.

Melissa offered a tissue that was received with a murmuredthanks; Lana’s lips were so swollen that her speech was slurred.

Melissa had the chair by the bed, and Contreras sat over under the window, scrunched down in his seat to disguise his height and the breadth of his shoulders. Rumpled like he’d dressed in a hurry, sitting like he was, he looked terribly unthreatening; his eyes were sharp, though, dark and focused.

They’d talked in the hall before they entered the room.You up for it?he’d asked.You did good with the roommate and, generally speaking, vics like confiding in a woman in these situations.

Yeah, I can do it. Melissa had nodded. She’d reminded herself that his intent gaze had only been eager for info, and encouraging; that he had no idea what had occurred in a patch of Mississippi swamp more than twenty years ago. It was hard to chase the ghosts away, though; the tease of air conditioning at the back of her neck felt like a mosquito landing. A stray hair tickling her temple could have been Spanish moss.

Focus.

“Lana.” She called on a voice she’d never used with Pongo before, one that didn’t come naturally but which she’d cultivated for use on the job, low and soft, nonthreatening. She let her accent bleed in at the edges, so her words had a gentleness to them. She thought, but wasn’t sure, that Contreras gave a single eyebrow jump, like maybe he was impressed. “My name’s Detective Dixon. This is my partner, Detective Contreras. Do you think you could tell us what happened to you last night?”

Lana didn’t answer right away. She looked up at the ceiling, tears welling shiny over her eyes, but it wasn’t a refusal. Melissa watched her take a few deep breaths, chest hitching beneath her gown. Gathering the words she’d need to take unfathomable horror and package it up into something useful. “Yeah.” She swallowed, throat jumping. “Yeah,” she repeated, stronger, and her gaze slid down to land on Melissa’s face.

“Your roommate, Hannah, said you usually get off work about four-thirty?”

“Yeah. It’s supposed to be five, but my manager usually lets me go early. If I get caught by the happy hour crowd, it’s hard to get away.” Her voice was more solid, now, talking about ordinary, safe subjects, specifics that were easy to nail down.

“You walked home?”

“Yeah. Sometimes I take the bus if the weather’s bad, but it’s faster to walk.”

“Did you stop anywhere along the way?”

“No. I knew we needed coffee, but Hannah said she’d–” Her eyes cracked open another fraction; it looked painful, as did the sudden spike of fear that gripped her. “Oh my God, Hannah. Is she okay? Is she–?”

“She’s fine,” Melissa assured. “We talked to her just a few hours ago.”

Lana swallowed painfully and nodded, blinking at fresh tears. “God, I…She’s gonna want to move out. She won’t wanna live with me after this.”

Melissa skated a fast look toward Contreras and saw that he’d produced his pad and a pen for notes, which left her free to focus on Lana. She frowned. “Why would you say that?”

Lana shook her head and blotted at her face with the tissue. “I’m a magnet for weirdos and freaks. She always says so.”

Melissa worked to keep her face smooth of everything save gentle concern.Therewas a tidbit Hannah had left out. “Someone’s been bothering you lately?”

Another headshake, and more tissue-mopping. Melissa offered a fresh one. “Nobody in particular, it’s just…my ex, Jason, he was super intense. And that guy I went on a blind date with last month – somebody my friend Claire set me up with. He was super into bugs. And Ramone at work. And that barista who keeps trying to give me his number.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears rolled shiny down her mottled cheeks.

They would need a list of names. Ramone and Jason, at least, shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

“Lana, tell me about what happened when you got home. Were the lights on? Was the door unlocked?”

Lana took a moment to gather herself with a few shaky breaths. Her voice wavered and she gazed up at the ceiling as she said, “Um. I unlocked the door. I think. The lights weren’t on, but it wasn’t really dark yet. There was – I could see in the hall.”

“Nothing seemed out of place?”

“No. I was in a hurry, but nothing seemed…it all seemed normal. Um.” Her voice got less steady, tear-filled eyes unfocused as she walked back through the worst of it. “I was reaching up, like this”– she lifted both arms, hands toward her head – “to take my hair down. I only had a few minutes to shower. I was going into the living room to get – I don’t know – something. And” – hands behind her head the way she held them now, it was easy to see how her field of vision had been impaired – “he grabbed me.”

“Where did he grab you? I know this is hard, Lana, but it helps to know everything we can.”

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