Identity

She ran behind the EMTs, then stood with her hands crossed over her mouth.

One, a woman with dark red hair and soft blue eyes, looked at her. “Ma’am, how long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know. I just got home. I was late, the rain, and the Chinese takeout, and I got home and saw the broken glass, and then Nina. Can you wake her up?”

“I’ll call it,” the other EMT murmured, and the female walked to Morgan.

“Let’s sit down.”

“Are you taking her to the hospital?” Something hard and heavy pressed on her chest. She couldn’t get her breath. Something high and sharp rang in her ears. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

“I’m sorry, very sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. Your friend’s dead.”

“No. No.”

“I’m sorry. You’re in shock. Let’s sit down.”

“No. No,” Morgan repeated, even as the EMT guided her toward the sofa. “I—I dropped the takeout. I dropped it on the floor.”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

She eased Morgan onto the sofa, tucked the throw around her as she started to shake.

Then looked over as two uniformed officers came in the open door.

“DB down that hall with my partner. Nine-one-one caller’s in shock. DB’s cold, gone a couple hours at least. Can you tell me your name?”

“Morgan. Morgan Albright. She’s Nina, Nina Ramos.” Tears began to spill. “Please, can’t you help her?”

“I’m going to get you some water. Sit right here and talk to this officer.”

“Ms. Albright.” The cop sat beside her. Morgan tried to focus on his face, but it blurred in and out.

“I’m Officer Randall. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. It was raining. I didn’t want to ride home in the rain, so I waited, and I wanted Chinese, so I got takeout. Nina didn’t answer when I texted, but she has a cold, so maybe taking a nap, I thought. Maybe. And my car was gone, and hers is in the shop, so maybe she took it to get something. That’s okay. She’s knows it’s okay.”

“Your car? What kind of car?”

“Um. Thank you.” Everything seemed distant now, far away. Like the wrong end of a telescope.

She took the water, used both trembling hands to lift it. “A Prius.”

“What color, what year? Do you know the tag number?”

“It’s blue. Dark blue. 2019. I—I can’t remember the number. I can’t think of it.”

“That’s all right. You came home and found Nina?”

“I came home, and I looked in her room. She’d come home from work because she had the box of tissues on the bed. She has a cold. And I was going to make her tea. I put the kettle on. I forgot I need to turn it off.”

“I did,” the EMT told her. “It’s fine.”

“I saw the broken glass. I saw it, and I got scared and I called nine-one-one. Then I saw her. I saw her arm, and the blood.”

“Where were you before you came home?”

“At work. At Greenwald’s Builders. It started to rain.”

“Right about five o’clock. Didn’t last long.”

“No. I looked at the radar so I waited it out, and I called in the order for dinner.”

“How’d you get home?”

“On my bike. I usually ride my bike to my day job if the weather’s okay. And if Nina doesn’t have a date and I have time, we usually have something to eat before I go back to work.”

“At Greenwald’s?”

“No, no. The Next Round.”

“You’re the bartender,” Randall said. “I thought I recognized you from somewhere. I’ve been in a few times. Ms. Albright, is there someone we can call for you, somewhere you can stay tonight?”

“I live here.”

“Maybe there’s someplace else you can stay tonight?”

“I don’t…” It hit her, hard, so hard, and everything came into vicious focus. “She’s dead. Nina’s dead. Somebody broke in and did that to her. We don’t even have anything that’s worth anything. We don’t have anything.”

“Why don’t we look around just to see if you notice anything missing. How about in Nina’s room?”

She got up, walked through the terrible clarity into Nina’s room.

“I don’t see her laptop. Her parents gave her a MacBook for Christmas. Not this one, the one before. It was pink. The cover. And her phone—iPhone. But it could be in her pocket.”

She took a deep breath. “Someone’s been in her dresser. She’s messy, but she doesn’t leave the drawers open like that.”

“Can you look in without touching anything?”

“The boxes are on the floor. The clear organizers for her jewelry. She didn’t have anything important, but she kept her jewelry in those boxes, and they’re on the floor. She’d have had a little cash—I don’t know how much—but a little in with her underwear. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred dollars.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll look in your room.”

She crossed the hall, took a long breath.

“I’m not messy. Somebody went through my things. I had, oh God, I had small diamond studs and an antique gold locket that was my great-grandmother’s. Everything else was just costume. I had five twenties rolled in those socks on the floor.”

She closed her eyes, felt herself want to sway. Stiffened against it.

“My laptop, back in my office. The room where—the other room. It was on the floor. It was on the floor and broken and there was blood. It didn’t really register before. They hit her with it. It was broken and bloody on the floor. They hit her and they killed her. And I wasn’t home to help her.”

She swiped at tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “The key fob wasn’t in the bowl by the front door. They saw it, and just drove away in my car after they did this to her.”

She drew another breath. “License number 5GFK82.”

“That’s very helpful.”

“You have to find who did this. She’d have given them anything they wanted. They didn’t have to do this. She works at Let It Bloom Garden Center. Somebody would have brought her home because her car’s in the shop. So somebody knows when she got home. Her mama—”

That broke her, so she dropped down to the floor and let all the tears come.

They wanted to give her a mild sedative, but she wouldn’t take it. Feeling was all she had, and she wouldn’t let go of it. They urged her to stay somewhere else while they did whatever they had to do.

She wouldn’t.

She sat outside, alone. Forced herself to call the bar, which set off more tears, and more offers to stay elsewhere.

Bill showed up—she supposed her night boss called her day boss. He said nothing, just sat beside her, put his arms around her.

“You’re going to come home with me now,” he said after she’d stopped the last bout of weeping.

“I can’t. I can’t. I feel like I’d never be able to come back if I left now. I feel like I couldn’t ever live here if I left tonight. It’s my home. I need my home.”

“I’m going to fix that broken glass and put a dead bolt on the door. I’m not leaving until they say I can do that. And I’m going to have Ava bring over my car. You’re going to borrow my car. I got the truck. I’m not leaving you here without a car. That’s firm.”