“Killed?” Lara whispers, every drop of color draining from her face. “In my…in the building?”
“Not just the building. Your actual studio.” My eyes search her face, looking for a flicker of—what? I’m not even sure—before I add, “And somebody called in a tip about a blond woman injecting him.”
Lara passes a trembling hand over her mouth. “Please tell me you’re making some kind of sick joke.”
If I were capable of being mad at her, that would’ve done it. “No,” I say tersely. “I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
“I didn’t mean…I’m just…I can’t.” Lara presses a palm to her cheek, then reaches beneath the table for her bag. She hauls it into her lap and starts scrambling through it, tossing it onto the bench beside us after she extracts her phone. She unlocks it, scrolls for a few minutes, and gets even paler. “Oh my God, this is…I can’t believe this. You’re right, Brian is…oh my God, Cal. You were there? What happened?”
I try to explain the situation as succinctly as I can, but I end up having to repeat myself a few times before she grasps it fully. She’s completely still the entire time except for her eyes, which keep flicking between me and her screen. Then she drops the phone onto the table, and buries her face in her hands.
I watch her for a few minutes, searching for a sign that her reaction isn’t genuine. None of this looks good for Lara. I know that, but I also can’t think of a single reason why she’d hurt Boney. “So…,” I finally say tentatively. “You were in a ceramics class the whole time? Because that tip about the blond woman—”
Lara’s hands drop from her face, her expression hardening. “Had nothing to do with me. I was at the adult education center on Mass Ave until”—she glances at her watch—“about ten minutes ago.”
Before I can respond, there’s a loud crashing noise to our left. We both jump, and I turn to see a waiter rushing toward a busing station near the front of the room, shooing customers away. Lara twists in her chair, looking almost relieved at the distraction. “People always pile those too high,” she says.
“Yeah,” I agree, even though I don’t give a crap about a few broken dishes. “Lara, what about your friend? The one who lets you use the studio? Would he…do you think he could’ve had anything to do with this?”
“He…no. He’s been out of town, and…” Her eyes suddenly widen. “Cal. Wait. You said you were there with friends, right?” I nod. “Who were they?”
“Ivy Sterling-Shepard and Mateo Wojcik.”
“What?” For a second, she looks confused instead of distraught. “The ones from your old web comic? I thought you said you don’t talk to them anymore.”
We don’t have time for the Greatest Day Ever parking lot reunion story. “Sometimes I do,” I say vaguely. “They felt like skipping, too, so…we did.”
“Huh.” She’s quiet for a moment, absorbing that, then says, “Do they…you didn’t tell them about me, did you?”
“No,” I say, and her face blooms with relief.
“Oh, thank God. Thank you for that, Cal.” She grabs both my hands in hers and squeezes tightly before releasing them. “I know I have no right to ask this of you, but—can you please keep this to yourself? I have to talk to my friend about what happened. It’s very delicate, since we’re not supposed to be using the building. And the fact that you and I spent time there recently is…awkward, under the circumstances.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, feeling a weird mixture of relief and disappointment. Part of me was hoping she’d come up with a solution to this mess that doesn’t involve me continuing to lie to everyone I know, while the rest of me knows there isn’t one. “It’s just…I don’t know if we did the right thing by leaving, you know? And it was my idea, because…” Because I wanted to protect you. It’s not the only reason—I was also panicked and confused and afraid of somehow getting arrested—but it was a big one.
Lara reaches out to squeeze my hands again. “It doesn’t sound like you could have done anything to help Brian. And honestly, I think you and your friends being there would only have been a distraction for the police. They need to focus on whatever evidence is in the room, not on people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Like Boney, I think. My eyes start stinging then, and I blink so rapidly that Lara says, “Oh Cal, it’s going to be all right. Here, let me get you a tissue.” I’m still blinking, my vision cloudy, when her voice suddenly changes. “What the hell? Where’s my bag?”
I wipe my eyes and try to focus on the table next to us. “Wasn’t it there?” I ask, my gaze sweeping across the empty bench where I saw it last. “Did it fall or something?” I lean for a closer look under the table, but the floor is empty, too.