Behind Every Lie(40)

“Yeah, but … she was stabbed too.” He was quiet for a minute. “You know, the police have footage of you on the ferry back to Seattle. They have security video from one of Mom’s neighbors showing you running down the street. You were there that night.”

“I know. At least, I think I know. But someone was with me. I’ve been having these memories … there was a man there. I was able to sketch his face. I don’t know who he is, but maybe he poisoned Mom.”

“Did he stab her?”

I tried to clutch at the fragments I did remember—the knife, the man, the blood—but they disappeared, like evaporating drops of water.

“I can’t remember,” I said, frustrated.

“Can you remember anything else?”

He meant did I remember killing Mom, but I didn’t have an answer. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

Silence.

“Andrew?” I bit my lip. “Don’t you believe me?”

It sounded like he was crying. The tears that had been ever-present at the back of my throat were suddenly hot on my cheeks.

“What happened that night?” Andrew’s voice was rough.

“I swear,” I whispered, “I don’t know.”

He took a deep breath in, and then let it out, like he was deciding something. “That detective, Jackson, he isn’t going to stop until he finds out what happened to Mom.”

“Good,” I said. “I hope he finds out the truth.”

I heard someone call Andrew’s name and more shuffling as Andrew covered the phone and replied.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Send Detective Jackson that sketch. Maybe he can run it through some profiling software.”

“If I tell him about it, I’ll have to admit I was at Mom’s house.”

“He already knows you were there!”

“Fine.” I relented. “But I have more to tell you—”

“Can you catch me up later? I have to be in court in twenty minutes. And don’t be a jerk. Call Dad. He’s worried about you.”

“Yeah, but—” I started to reply, but he’d already hung up.

I stared at my phone, then opened Gmail to send Andrew the phone number to my new phone. There was one new e-mail: Andrew had sent through a link with information about Detective Kent Jackson. I opened it and learned that a few years back Jackson had been working on a high-profile case with the Boston PD when his wife was killed by a gang member he’d been investigating. Shortly after, the man suspected of murdering his wife was found shot in the head. Although no evidence was ever found linking Jackson to the murder, he’d quit the Boston PD and moved to Seattle.

I blew out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Shit. Andrew was right. This was not a guy who would let things go easily.

I closed the website and e-mailed a picture of my sketch to Jackson, then downloaded the Skype app so he wouldn’t be able to track my location and used it to dial the number on his business card.

“Detective Jackson? This is Eva Hansen.”

“Hello, Eva.” The sound of a door, then the creak of a chair came through the phone. “You received the toxicology report?”

“Yes, did you get the sketch I e-mailed you?”

“I’ll check it now.”

“I don’t understand. My mom didn’t have heart disease.”

“You’re right, she didn’t. We found no prescription bottles containing digoxin, and when I checked her medical records, there was no history of it.”

“So why was it in her blood?”

“We think your mom was poisoned. Likely over the course of a week, possibly longer. Somebody switched the leaves in her tea canister with dried foxglove. The official cause of death is digoxin toxicity compounded by a sudden loss of blood, which produced a massive heart attack.”

I put my hand on my head and sank back against the couch. I stared at the dark TV, gripping the phone so hard my fingers ached. The scab from the cut on my palm pulsed viciously.

I felt like Alice in Wonderland, stumbling and falling down a hole in the ground. I tried to map everything out like a jigsaw puzzle, but nothing made sense. None of the important pieces were there.

“Poisoned.” My voice sounded very far away. Stabbed and poisoned. Somebody had slowly and deliberately killed her.

Who would do that? She didn’t have any enemies. At least, that I knew of. She was loyal, steadfast. She always did the right thing in that stoic, practical English way. It had to be someone who had access to her house, to something as ordinary as her tea canister.

“You know,” Jackson’s voice elbowed into my thoughts, “women are seven times more likely than men to choose poison as their murder weapon. Daughters are most likely to die from being poisoned, but obviously Kat’s mother didn’t murder her. I mean, you said you’ve never even met her, right?”

“Yes. I mean, no, I never met her.” The thundering in my head made my voice sound hollow.

“The thing is, Eva, the fingerprints on the mug Kat drank from, the one that poisoned her? Those fingerprints are yours.”





twenty

eva




DREAD OOZED OVER ME like black ink across a white cloth.