The headache kept growing. Quincy shut her eyes and winced. “What things?”

“To be blunt,” Freemont said, “we can’t understand why you lived when all the others died.”

That’s when Quincy finally heard it—the accusation hiding in his voice, peeking out suspiciously between his words.

“Can you tell us why?” he asked.

Just then, something inside of Quincy snapped. An angry shudder vibrated in her chest, followed by a surge of agitation. The balloon in her skull burst, tossing out words she never intended to say. Ones she regretted as soon as they took flight off her tongue.

“Maybe,” she said, her voice like steel, “I’m just tougher than they were.”

CHAPTER 21

Detective Hernandez is one of those women you can’t help but admire even as you envy them. Everything about her is precisely put together, from the maroon blouse beneath a black blazer to the impeccably tailored slacks and boots with just a hint of a heel. Her hair is the color of dark chocolate, pulled back to display the perfect bone structure of her face. When she shakes my hand, it’s both firm and friendly. She makes a point of pretending not to notice my battered knuckles.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” she says. “I promise this will only take a few minutes.”

I breathe. I try to keep calm. Just the way Sam instructed after she picked me up off the floor.

“I’m happy to help,” I say.

Hernandez smiles. It doesn’t appear strained. “Fantastic.”

We’re in the Central Park Precinct. The same place from which Jeff and I fetched Sam days earlier, although now it feels like years. The detective leads me up the same set of steps I climbed that long-ago, not-long-at-all night. I’m then guided to her desk, which is free of clutter, save for a framed photograph of her, two kids and a barrel-chested man I can only assume is her husband.

There’s also a purse.

Placed on the center of the desk, it’s the same purse Sam and I left in the park. Its presence isn’t a surprise. We suspected it was the reason for the call and spent the walk to the precinct constructing an excuse as to why it—and we—were in the park last night. Yet my body freezes at the sight of it.

Hernandez notices.

“Do you recognize it?” she asks.

I have to clear my throat before answering, dislodging the words stuck there like an accidentally swallowed chicken bone.

“Yes. We lost it in the park last night.”

I want to retract the words as soon as I say them, pulling them back into my mouth like a serpent’s tongue.

“We?” Hernandez says. “You and Tina Stone?”

I take a deep breath. Of course she knows about Sam and her new name. The detective is as smart as she looks. That realization makes me feel weak. Exhausted, really. When she sits behind her desk, I drop into a chair next to it.

“Her real name is Samantha Boyd,” I say meekly, nervous about correcting the detective. “She changed it to Tina Stone.”

“After what happened to her at The Nightlight Inn?”

I take another deep breath. Detective Hernandez has certainly done her homework.

“Yes,” I reply. “She went through a lot. We both have, but I’m sure you know all about that.”

“It’s a terrible thing that happened. To both of you. Crazy world, right?”

“It is.”

Hernandez smiles again—this time in sympathy—before opening the purse and pulling out several battered paperbacks.

“We found the purse early this morning,” she says, stacking books on the desk between us. “We traced it to Miss Stone after finding her name in one of these books. It came up in a quick scan of our records. Seems she was taken into custody a few nights ago. Assault and resisting arrest, I think it was.”

“That was a misunderstanding.” I clear my throat again. “I believe the charges were dropped.”

“And so they were,” Hernandez says as she inspects one of the books. Its cover bears a robot in the shape of a woman roaming a purple starscape. “You picked her up that night, correct?”

“I did. Me and my boyfriend, Jefferson Richards. He’s with the public defender’s office.”

His name clangs a bell in the detective’s memory. She gives me another smile, this one painfully strained. “He’s got quite a case on his hands, doesn’t he?”

I swallow, relieved I didn’t call Jeff and ask him to come to the station with me. I wanted to, of course, but Sam talked me out of it. She said bringing a lawyer, even one who was my boyfriend, would instantly arouse suspicion. Turns out it also would have brought him into contact with a detective none too pleased about him defending a man accused of killing a fellow cop.

“I don’t know much about it,” I say.

Hernandez nods before skipping back to the original subject. “Since we don’t have a contact number for Miss Stone, I thought it wise to have a chat with you and see if you know of her whereabouts. Is she staying with you, perhaps?”

I could lie, but there’d be no point to it. I get the sense the detective already knows the answer.

“She is,” I say.

“And where is she now?”

“Waiting outside, actually.”