City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(99)

“Eric is my boss. Just talk to me. What do you remember?”

“Nothing. Not a fire. Not this blood. Not why someone pumped me full of—”

“What do you remember? The last thing?”

It takes her a couple of minutes. I wait as patiently as I can.

“I … I went out … No, that was …”

“Let’s go back further. Dinner.”

She smiles in relief. “That’s easy. I had dinner with you, here.”

“And I left at eight …” I prod.

Just after I left, Diana decided to go out and had an encounter with Jen.

“I swear, she lies in wait just to give me crap,” Diana says. “Once, she actually complained that I brush my teeth too loudly. I really need to get another place or I’ll be taking a stall in the stables just to get away from her.”

She smiles, and all I can do is pray she’s innocent … or she’ll be sleeping someplace worse than a stable stall.

After escaping Jen, Diana hung out with a few others, playing cards. At eleven, she headed home.

“And … that’s it. That’s all I remember.” She tugs at her earring as she thinks. “No, wait—I heard something. I was walking along the road near the forest, and … That is the last thing I remember. Someone must have come up behind me and knocked me out.”

Beth appears at the door. I go out with her where Diana can’t overhear.

“Diana thinks she was knocked unconscious,” I say. “Were there any signs of that?”

She frames her response with care. “Knocking someone out isn’t as easy as it seems in movies. There would be evidence on the skull.”

“And there’s not. Also, Kenny saw her walking into the shed.”

She nods. “Which lends credence to another explanation for why she can’t remember anything. One … better supported by my examination.”

“Which is?”

She pops her head back into the room and says, “I’m going to speak to Casey outside.”

“No,” Diana says. “If this is about me, say it here.”

We walk back into the bedroom and Beth says, “Diana was heavily under the influence of rydex. The dosage—”

“What?” Diana swings her legs out of bed. “No, I’ve never—”

Dalton clears his throat. She looks over at him, and hate blazes from her eyes. “I explained that.” She turns to me. “I was at a party the night before last. I got drunk, and someone gave me dex. I was walking home afterward and your sheriff waylaid me.”

“I heard a woman stumbling around at three in the morning,” Dalton says. “I wouldn’t be a very good sheriff if I ignored that. I helped her home and—”

“You dragged me home,” she squawks. “Chewing me out the whole way. Telling me how I was making things tough for Casey—poor Casey—and you weren’t going to tell her about the dex because she ‘doesn’t need that shit,’ and this was my second strike, if you ever caught me using again, you’d …” She trails off and swallows.

“I said I’d give her a week on shit duty,” Dalton says.

“Was there rydex at the get-together last night?” I ask.

“No, there—” She catches my look and glances toward Dalton.

“Getting your friends in trouble is the least of your concerns right now, Diana,” he says. “Mick’s dead.”

“What?”

“Mick is dead. You were found ten feet from his body. In a burning woodshed. With a bloody knife in your hand and an empty gas can beside you.”

Diana reels back onto the bed, saying, “No, that can’t be—Casey, tell him—That’s not—” As she spins on me, the horror in her eyes hardens to anger. “Someone’s framing me. The killer knocked me out—”

“There’s no evidence of that,” Dalton says.

“According to who? A doctor who was sued for malpractice and is arrogant enough to admit it?”

“Diana!” I say.

“If you got knocked out, there’d be a lump,” Dalton says. “Show me that, and we’ll have a very different conversation.”

She rubs her hands over her head, scowling at him, and saying, “It must be here. And if it’s not, then it was knockout gas or … or I was roofied at the party.”

“Roofied?” Dalton says.

“Rohypnol,” Beth says. “It’s a sedative that can induce anterograde amnesia. But I don’t have it in the pharmacy, and there was no evidence of anything except rydex in her bloodstream.”

“Then it’s the drugs,” Diana says.

“Rydex doesn’t render you unconscious,” Beth says. “But it can cause blackouts and memory loss. Which doesn’t mean that you aren’t responsible for your actions. Only that you honestly don’t remember—”

Diana flies at her, catching us all off guard. I recover first, just as she grabs Beth, and I pull her off.

“Did you hear her?” Diana says. “Telling me I might have killed Mick and forgotten it. She’s a cold, sanctimonious bitch. I didn’t kill anyone. You know that, Casey.” Before I can open my mouth, she spins to me. “I did not kill—”