Elixir by Ruth Vincent Page A

asked.
    “No,” I said. It didn’t seem right to lie about that part. “She wasn’t with us. She must have fallen from the fire escape.”
    I had chosen this version of events, so I had to stick to it. But it didn’t like it. My cheeks were starting to get hot, my body betraying that I was lying. I wondered if it was visible.
    “So, you saw Eva fall from the fire escape?”
    “No,” I said, “I never saw where she fell from. I just saw her falling and I saw her hit the ground.”
    The detective frowned, and made another notation.
    “But she must have fallen from the fire escape of the building, or the balcony below it,” said Foster. “Where else could she have fallen from?”
    Crap, what should I say? I hated lying. I wished I could just tell him what I saw. But I could never tell the detective the truth—that Eva had been flying. He’d have me locked up in a mental ward.
    “Um . . . yeah, of course, she must have fallen from the fire escape.”
    “You’re certain?” said Foster.
    “Yes,” I muttered miserably.
    There was a beat of silence between us. The fluorescent light flickered and buzzed over our heads. I felt like the detective was carefully constructing a trap for me, slowly backing me into it, and I knew at any moment it would spring shut. But I wasn’t sure exactly where he was going with this, so I didn’t know how to respond.
    “Well, there’s one problem with all of this, Miss Jones,” said Detective Foster.
    I froze, waiting for him to go on, my stomach clenched.
    “My team examined the exterior of Obadiah’s establishment, including the fire escape. As you know, it snowed heavily last night. If your friend Eva Morales had leaned too far over the railing of the fire escape, causing her to fall, her body would have left a mark in the snow on the railing.”
    My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t come up with an explanation. I could feel the panic rising in my chest.
    “If your friend had slipped on the ice and slid underneath the railing,” he continued, “there would be marks in the snow of the fire-escape floor, indicating a slide. But of course there are none of those either.”
    Crap, what could I say? My mind was spinning. Of course there were no such marks in the snow on the fire escape, because Eva had never touched it. But how was I going to get Foster to believe me? How would anyone ever believe me that her body just fell from the sky?
    I stared at my hands, clenched white in nervousness on the Formica tabletop.
    “I don’t know where she fell from,” I said at last. I could feel my face turning red, because my body, unlike my mind, was unable to lie. “I never saw her fall,” I said. “Maybe it wasn’t the fire escape. I don’t know . . .”
    “Do you know what the medical examiners said, Miss Jones?” said Foster, interrupting me.
    I shook my head, feeling sick.
    “They confirmed that Eva Morales’ injuries reflected a fall from at least fifty feet.”
    I nodded. I was so sick at heart that I could barely process what he was saying.
    “The height of the lower fire escape is only twenty-five feet,” said the cop, his voice raised now. “Fifty feet is the height of the rooftop.”
    “But she wasn’t on the roof with us, I swear,” I protested. “Maybe she was on the rooftop across the street?” I said, my brain wildly trying to think of something. “She could have fallen off the roof of the opposite building?”
    It was a poor defense and I knew it. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.
    “We already investigated that. The building across the street is empty and the door is locked with a chain. Eva Morales would have had no way of accessing that roof.”
    Foster paused and leaned back in his chair and examined me. The fluorescent light flickered on his face.
    “If someone falls off the roof of a four-story building, Miss Jones, their body will land directly below where they fell. In this case, that would have been