eighty-three

By the time Danny returned to the station with Zoe in tow, fatigue had laid a soft but implacable grip over him. After handing her off to the Sergeant-in-Charge, he escaped to the closest takeaway and shoveled Kung Pao chicken down his throat, taking a few minutes to gather himself before returning to find O’Neil on a smoke break. They entered the station, no need for words, and proceeded to the custody suite where Zoe waited. They peeked into the room.

“Is she sleeping?” Danny said.

“Out cold.”

Zoe rested with head cradled on her arms. Even hunched over a table, she managed to appear graceful. Her lips twitched in a slight smile, and her eyeballs moved under her eyelids.

Danny didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled. “Does she not understand what’s about to happen?”

“She must, but you’d never know it.”

Just like you’d never know many oddities lurked beneath the surface of her. Danny tapped the window of the suite. Zoe raised her head and her hand in a wave. She looked as sleep-dazed as a child, but not distressed. The Sergeant-in-Charge appeared and shooed them away so he could see to settling Zoe in an interview room.

O’Neil cleared his throat. “Sir.”

“Sir?” Danny said. “What gives?”

“I need to confirm a final time that you’re not bothered by my seeing Merrit.”

“We discussed this. What you do is your business.”

“Agreed, but that’s not the same as it being fine by you.”

“Yes, O’Neil, it’s not a problem.” He scrubbed at his face, realizing that it could become awkward. “Do me a favor and not talk about the ins and outs of it, Merrit being a family friend.”

O’Neil raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

“I’ll see her socially because of Marcus. I’m also back on visiting terms with Liam, so there’s that.”

“Ah.” O’Neil nodded. “Right.”

Right, indeed. There’d be no avoiding Merrit now, but Danny found he didn’t care. He’d take his newfound ambivalence over active avoidance; it used up less of his scarce energy.

They received the go-ahead from the Sergeant-in-Charge with a warning that Superintendent Clarkson would be keeping tabs on them through the video feed. “Of course he will,” O’Neil muttered.

Zoe greeted them with an inquisitive smile. “This isn’t anything like the interview room in England. I was only a child, of course, but I remember it being stark and scary. This is almost cozy by comparison.”

She sat in the middle of the room in front of a fisheye lens that fed into the room next door. Danny and O’Neil parked themselves at small desks facing her, out of camera range. While Danny introduced the interview, Zoe lifted her hair up and brushed it with her fingers. With a couple of twisting movements she piled it up on her head in a perfect messy knot.

She was a confident young woman. Yet Danny had witnessed her childlike and upset in reaction to Nathan’s lock-up, and he’d seen her ruthless and unfeeling in her attempt to coerce Danny into helping her release Nathan.

“Do you understand why you’re here, Zoe?” he said.

“I do, but I didn’t do anything. I like to help people. That’s why I’m here, I think.”

“‘Here,’ as in your purpose in life?”

“Yes. My dad knows that. He would have come around. I know we’ll be okay in the end. Dad will get better—he’s a strong man—and then maybe we can move back to England.”

“We’re not here to talk about your father,” Danny said. “You understand that, correct? We cautioned you regarding the death of Annie Belden.”

“Yes, but that was a mistake.”

“How so?”

“She didn’t understand either, about the healing. I tried to talk to her—”

“About what?”

“About leaving my dad alone. I’d only just found him. Annie acted like she was part of our lives. She had no call to distract him when we were trying to rebuild our relationship to what it was before.”

“Before?”

“Before—” She straightened and settled both feet on the floor. “Before my mom’s death, before I discovered my healing ability. I sometimes wish I’d never discovered it.”

She truly believed her personal folklore about herself. Danny was torn between fascination and dismay. “Tell me about Annie,” he said.

“I tried to help her. I wanted to cure her of her diabetes. I knew I could do it.”

“How did you know she was diabetic?”

“In the bathroom in the pub. At Elder Joe’s wake a few weeks ago. I didn’t know her yet, of course. She was testing her sugar levels when I entered.”

“Did you administer the insulin that killed Annie Belden?”

She unwound her scarf from her neck and arranged it like a shawl over her shoulders. “It’s cold in here.”

“When you say you’re going to help somebody, what does that mean to you?”

She cocked her head, bemused. “Heal them, of course.”

“Let’s return to the night that Annie Belden died. Did you offer her a deal?”

“A deal?”

Danny felt his tone tighten as he said, “Like you offered for my wife. Heal her in return for my help. With Annie, I imagine you offered to heal her in exchange for leaving Nathan alone.”

“She was unconscious when I arrived,” Zoe said. “I didn’t get a chance.”

At the other desk, O’Neil shifted. “Unconscious?”

“Yes, on the couch. I tried to help her. I promise I did.”

O’Neil pulled a piece of paper out of a folder. He handed it across to Danny and Danny handed it to Zoe. She read Annie’s last journal entry and let the sheet of paper drop to the floor beside her.

“Annie was awake and well when you arrived at her house,” Danny said.

“She collapsed right after I arrived.”

“Why visit her in the middle of the night?”

Tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks. “Everything will be okay. I know it will. I want to go back to the way it was before, that’s all. We all have goals in life, right? I’ll return to nursing school, and Dad can go back to sculpture. His vases are fine, but he could do so much more.”

Danny called a halt to the interview and stepped out of the room with O’Neil. Zoe lived within a Nathan loop. Everything cycled back to him, and Danny suspected it would for a long time to come.

“The journal’s fantastic as evidence,” O’Neil said, “but is it enough to convict her? Zoe’s appearance alone will sway a jury to believe her that Annie collapsed after she arrived.”

Sid sat somewhere in the building, haggling for his life with the help of his solicitor. Danny knew a few things about Sid’s whereabouts the night Annie died. He’d met Zoe at a pub earlier in the evening. Later, he’d stolen Annie’s journal and mobile phone.

“This is where Sid comes in, I think.”