Not broken.
Quiet.
The kind of quiet that comes before a blade drops.
I called Detective Voss.
“I want to give an interview,” I said.
Her eyes flicked toward the television.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“That’s honest.”
“I don’t need to be sure. I need to be useful.”
The interview happened in the hospital chapel because I refused to be filmed in bed.
They brought a wheelchair. Dr. Reed argued. I won. He helped me sit upright and made me promise to stop if I felt dizzy. The chapel smelled faintly of candle wax and antiseptic. Late afternoon light poured through blue stained glass and laid soft color across the floor.
The journalist was named Elise Warren. She had received one of my timed files and had been careful with it, which was why I chose her.
She did not ask me to cry.
That was why I answered her.
