Chương 7
"I need to know where you were last night," Detective Bell said.
Mara swallowed.
She hated that question because she knew exactly how it sounded.
She had spent years helping people prepare for difficult conversations as a family counselor, and she understood the danger of simple questions.
The answer mattered less than what people believed the answer meant.
"I was at Lena's apartment," she said.
The detective wrote something down.
"How long?"
"About an hour."
"Doing what?"
Mara looked at the photograph again.
Lena's phone.
The same phone she had watched Lena carry everywhere.
The same phone Lena once joked she would probably be buried with because she trusted it more than people.
"We argued."
The pen stopped moving.
"About what?"
Mara looked away.
She had promised Lena she would never tell anyone.
Even now, with her friend missing, some promises felt heavier than others.
"About something personal."
Bell leaned back slightly.
"Ms. Voss, your friend is missing."
"I know."
"And you are the last confirmed person who saw her."
"I know."
"And her phone was found in your vehicle."
"I know."
The detective was quiet.
The silence was not aggressive.
It was worse.
It left room for Mara's own thoughts to become louder.
She had learned that silence could be a weapon, but she also knew it was sometimes just a person waiting for the truth.
The problem was that the truth had too many pieces.
And some of them belonged to Lena.
"Did Lena tell you she was afraid of someone?" Bell asked.
Mara hesitated.
That hesitation lasted less than a second.
It was still enough.
"Who?" Bell asked.
"No one."
"That was not a no."
Mara rubbed her thumb against the edge of her sleeve.
A habit she had developed after her mother died, back when she was seventeen and still believed adults always knew what to do.
They rarely did.
They just became better at pretending.
"Lena was dealing with something," Mara said.
"What kind of something?"
"I don't know."
The detective watched her.
Mara hated that she could see the calculation happening.
Not suspicion alone.
Not yet.
Something worse.
A person trying to decide how much of her could be trusted.
"I really don't know," Mara repeated.
This time she believed it.
Because that was the part that frightened her most.
Lena had always been the person who knew everyone else's secrets.
She remembered birthdays, old arguments, childhood stories, and the names of people's pets.
But when Lena had problems of her own, she became impossible to reach.
She smiled more.
She answered faster.
She changed the subject before anyone could ask a second question.
Three days earlier, Mara had noticed the change.
She had ignored it.
That was the part she could not forgive herself for.
Detective Bell finally stood.
"We are going to need your car for processing."
"My car?"
"The phone was inside."
"I told you I didn't put it there."
"I heard you."
The sentence landed strangely.
Not as belief.
Not as disbelief.
Just acknowledgment.
After he left, Mara stood alone in the kitchen for almost ten minutes.
She did not cry.
She wanted to.
She even tried.
But fear had a way of taking up all the space where other emotions usually lived.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
For one second, she thought it might be Lena.
Instead, it was a message from her brother.
ARE YOU OKAY?
She stared at the words.
Then another message appeared.
THE NEWS IS SAYING YOUR NAME.
Mara turned on the television.
She immediately regretted it.
The local station had already picked up the story.
The image on the screen was not from a recent photograph.
It was from a charity event two years earlier.
Lena was smiling beside her.
Mara looked uncomfortable because she hated cameras.
The reporter described her as "a person of interest."
The phrase sounded professional.
Clean.
Almost harmless.
But Mara knew enough about people to understand what happened after a phrase like that entered a room.
Neighbors became quieter.
Coworkers stopped making eye contact.
Friends began rereading old conversations and searching for signs they had missed.
A person could become a stranger in public long before anyone knew the truth.
Her phone rang.
It was her supervisor.
She answered after the fourth ring.
"Hi, Daniel."
There was a pause.
Too long.
"How are you holding up?"
Mara looked at the television.
"I guess that depends on whether you are asking me or asking because someone told you to call."
Another pause.
Daniel sighed.
"I am asking because you work here."
"That is not an answer."
"No."
He sounded uncomfortable.
"Because I don't know what the right answer is."
That honesty surprised her.
Daniel was usually the kind of man who had a prepared sentence for every situation.
He wore expensive watches and apologized to people without ever sounding sorry.
"I need you to take some time away," he said.
"Am I suspended?"
"No."
"Then what am I?"
"Someone whose name is currently attached to something serious."
Mara closed her eyes.
The words were careful.
That made them hurt more.
"Do you believe I did something?"
Daniel did not answer quickly enough.
She almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the pause was its own answer.
"I don't know what to believe," he finally said.
After the call ended, Mara walked through her apartment without any destination.
She opened drawers.
Closed them.
Moved a stack of mail from one side of the counter to another.
She found herself standing in front of Lena's old gift sitting on a shelf.
A cheap wooden frame with a photograph from a hiking trip they took years ago.
Neither of them had wanted to go.
They went because Lena had promised it would be "good for their personalities."
Mara still remembered that sentence because she had laughed at it for five minutes.
May you like
Lena had always believed people could become better simply by putting themselves in uncomfortable situations.
Mara had always believed people needed a plan first.
