The Elizas: A Novel(4)

“He said he was a guest.”

“So what about video surveillance? Didn’t that pick up what happened?”

“There normally are security cameras in the pool area, but the power was down because of the storm.”

I snort. “And I bet it snapped right back on after I got out of the pool, huh?”

“This isn’t a conspiracy, Eliza,” my mother says, almost inaudibly, her voice tinged with that sad, scared bitterness again.

“How about people at the bar? I was talking to someone there, I think, before I went to the pool. Can you interview them? Maybe they saw something. Or I could interview them, actually. Do you happen to know where my phone is? I could call the bar and straighten this out.”

My mother looks aghast. “You were at a bar, too?”

I clear my throat. I’d promised I wouldn’t go to bars after the tumor surgery. Just like I promised I wouldn’t drink, period. I look at Lance. “I-I just went for some atmosphere. I wasn’t drinking.”

Lance coughs awkwardly. “The lab did a toxicity report on you. Your blood alcohol level was sky-high.”

I can feel my family’s gaze upon me. It sucks to be caught in a lie, especially such a foolish one. But sometimes lying’s my natural response. The lies come out of my mouth involuntarily.

Lance flips a page. “Anyway. The police who responded to the 911 call spoke to two men who rescued you, and they said they’d never seen you before, and they didn’t know where you’d come from. Can you describe who you were talking to at the bar, Eliza? Did you get a name?”

I swallow hard. I have no idea.

“Was it a man? A woman? Anything?”

Still nothing. I’m not even sure I was talking to someone.

“Can you tell me which bar you were at? I could look into it.”

According to the big binder in my room at the Tranquility, the resort has six bars. D’Oro’s, the casual one off the lobby; The Stuffed Pig, for business dinners; Trax, with the DJ; Meritage, a wine bar; Shipstead, the nautical-themed martini bar; and Harry’s, a tiki bar. So I have a one-in-six chance of getting it right. Stingers, buzzes a little insect in my head. I drank a stinger last night. How had that come about? That’s not a drink I usually order.

“Ah. Here it is. You were most likely at the Shipstead. That’s the only bar whose door leads to the pool area.” Lance looks up from his notes and squints at me. “It’s possible, though, that you don’t remember the night properly. There’s the issue of your toxicity report, for one thing. And I happened to get a look in your bag, too—I found . . . well, I suppose you know what I found.”

“What?” my mother gasps.

Lance is still looking at me. “Are you sure that’s not why you fell in the pool? Maybe you were too wasted to realize what you were doing?”

I try to swallow, but my throat is so dry. I can picture the label of the bottle he found. It reads Xanax, 1 mg, twice daily. “I don’t suppose you noticed all the other things in my purse, did you?” I finally say. “All the vitamins? Metabolic maintenance, immuno drops, Metformin, CoQ10?” I give Bill and my mother a self-righteous glance. “It’s everything the doctors ordered me to take to keep the tumor from coming back. I’m trying.”

“We know you are, chicken.” Bill pats my arm. “We know.”

“Are you on any other prescription medications?” Lance asks.

This is unbelievable. “I’m sorry, but do cops usually ask these sorts of questions?”

“Actually, I’m a forensic psychologist. But I have ties to Palm Springs PD, and I report everything we’re speaking about to them.”

I scoot away from him in the bed. “We’re done, then. Conversation over.” I’ve had enough of talking to shrinks.

“Eliza.” My mother crosses her arms over her chest. “Honey, please. He’s just trying to help.”

“Too bad,” I say, like a toddler. And stop calling me honey, I want to add. It’s just too incongruous . . . and heartbreaking.

“I promise I can help put the pieces together for you,” Lance says. “But for this process to work, you have to be a willing participant. So how about you tell me if you took any other meds last night before you fell into the pool?”

I chew the inside of my cheek. I hate the turn this has taken.

“You know, even just mixing Xanax and alcohol can give you blackouts, memory gaps, and—”

“That might be true, but I didn’t take all those last night,” I cut him off. “You’re not listening to me. This isn’t a memory gap. This really happened.”

Lance looks at me easily, but I detect a slight smirk on his face. As he shifts in the seat, he’s lined up squarely with a poster of a curly-horned mountain goat in the hall. His head tilts just so, and it looks like he’s the one with the horns.

“Let’s talk about the drinking,” Lance circles back. “So why drink so much? Were you upset about something?”

I stare down at the sheets. “No.”

“You sure?”

I look him square in the eye. Focus, I tell myself. Breathe. “Of course I’m sure.”

“And what prompted this visit to Palm Springs, anyway?”

Why the hell does that matter? “I don’t know. It’s . . . pretty there. I like the dry heat. I like art deco. And I like hotels.”