Page 20 of What Goes Around

I stared ahead, saying nothing.

She guided a straw to my lips. “You should try to rest now. Let your body catch up.”

I closed my eye.

Not because I was tired.

Because there was nothing left to hold onto.

The next morning, a knock came at my door.

The nurse peeked in first.

“Detective Monroe is here to speak with you,” she said. “Just a few questions, if you’re up to it.”

I nodded, even though my throat still felt like sandpaper.

A man stepped in. “Miss Richards,” he said. “I’m Detective Monroe.”

A brief pause.

“I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”

He pulled up a chair and sat at an angle, not too close, like he was trying not to crowd me.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” he said, flipping open a small notebook. “But we’d like to go over what you remember about the night of the attack.”

I swallowed, the motion painful, and forced myself to speak.

I told him about the messages. The one that said it was about Payton. The unknown number asking me to come outside.

I told him about the alley. The metallic sound. The flash before everything burned.

He listened without interrupting, pen moving steadily across the page.

“Do you still have the messages?” he asked.

“My phone…” I trailed off. “I dropped it. I don’t know.”

“We recovered it,” he said. “It’s in evidence now. I’ll have the tech team analyze it once we have your permission and passcode. So far, we’ve traced what we can.” He glanced down at his notes. “CCTV from the main street picked up someone heading toward the alley, but the alley itself has no working cameras. It’s a dead zone. Witnesses saw a hooded figure running away. No clear face. The bottle was recovered. The lab is testing it for DNA and fingerprints.”

My pulse sped up. “So they just… got away?”

For a second, something softened in his expression.

“I can promise you, I’ll do everything I can to solve this case,” he said. “We’ll keep you updated, Miss Richards. And if you remember anything, no matter how small, call me.”

He placed his card on the nightstand.

Then he stood and left, the sound of his shoes fading down the hall.

The room felt too quiet after he was gone.

The nurse came in a moment later to check my IV, but I barely noticed.

Chapter 8: What Was Mine

The next six weeks crawled by in a blur of white ceilings, painkillers, and the sharp sting of every bandage change.