And so forth.
His phone is taken, but it rings incessantly in the pile of phones over on Sofia’s kitchen counter. His father shows up, demands to be seen at Sofia’s front door, but he’s turned away.
Connor seems relieved at that, but I don’t know. We could use a powerful man like Mr. Arlington right now.
Because the questions are becoming hard to answer.
“What is your history with the deceased?”
“We were friends,” Hayes says. “Long-time friends.”
“When was the last time you saw them?”
“At my office,” Connor answers. “Just a few hours earlier.”
“Why was Camille DuPont there?”
“I don’t know,” Connor admits.
But the ones they ask me are the really suspicious ones. At least my answers are. I can tell by the way the two detectives shoot sidelong glances at each other as I speak.
They separate Sofia and me, just like they did Connor and Hayes. But instead of letting us answer questions in the living room, they take us to separate parts of the apartment.
Sofia is taken upstairs and I’m taken to the guest room where there’s evidence of the sex Connor and I had. My underwear, haphazardly strewn about on the floor. His shirt and belt.
“How long have you and Mr. Arlington been dating?’
I don’t know how to answer that. I tell them, “I don’t really know if we’re dating. We just… reconnected after ten years.” But that just gets me more intimate questions like, “Did you have sex with him?” And “Did Miss DuPont ever have sex with him?”
See what I mean? How do I answer that?
Uh, yeah. We’ve all fucked each other before. Sometime all in the same bed. At the same time.
No, I can’t say that, can I?
“How did you meet the deceased?” This detective is a woman. I guess I figured she’d be more… sensitive? As a fellow female?
That’s not the case.
“We went to school together.”
“So you were friends all during school?”
“No. Mostly just senior year. I really don’t run in the same circle as they do.”
“And how did that come about?”
“What?”
“How did you become friends with them? Were you in the same club? The same dorm? If you didn’t meet any of them until senior year, then what prompted that meeting?”
“Is this really important?”
“We need to know why the six of you were yelling across a street, twelve stories up, in the middle of the night. Because the end result of that argument is two dead people, Miss Bonnaire.”
“Obviously, I know that. I was there. I saw the whole thing.”
“Was there a disagreement?”
“Not between us,” I say. “I already told you that. Camille and Bennett were arguing across the street in her apartment.”
“And you and Mr. Arlington were in the office, reading a book at three AM?”
“Correct!” I say, getting frustrated.
“Why were you up?”
“Wh-what?”
“Why did you wake up in the middle of the night and go read a book in the library? Mr. Arlington said you fell asleep and when he woke up, you were gone.”
“I was writing,” I say. “I’m a writer.”
“So you were working on a book.”
Shit. I see where this is going. “Not exactly.”
“Then exactly what were you doing?”
“Just writing down my thoughts.”
“About?”
“About Connor. And me. And… it’s just a diary,” I say.
“Where is this diary?”
“In the office,” I say. “On the couch, I think.”
The detective turns to her partner and says, “Can you get that for me?”
He nods and turns away.
“You can’t read my diary.”
“I’m afraid it’s evidence. We’re going to catalogue it, Miss Bonnaire.”
“It’s private,” I snap.
“Nothing’s private in a…” But she stops. I swear to God, she was gonna say murder investigation. “In a double suicide that has no logical explanation.”
“I don’t know why they were fighting. I was trying to tell her to call me. She called me—”
“I thought you said she texted you?”
“She did. That’s what I meant. I didn’t see it until after they started yelling when Connor told me that’s what woke him up.”
“So he”—she makes air quotes with her fingers—“‘forgot’ to tell you she sent a text stating…” She looks down at her notepad. “‘I need to talk to you. Now.’”
“You have my phone,” I say. “You can see that I didn’t call her. I didn’t talk to her until I started yelling! Why are you asking me all this?”
“Because, Miss Bonnaire, Camille DuPont called her lawyer earlier this evening and left him a message too.”
“She did?” I say.
“Yes. And that message mentioned your name.”
“My name?”
“And Connor Arlington’s. And Sofia Astor’s. And Hayes Fitzgerald’s.”
“All of us? Why would she be talking to her lawyer about us? Especially when Bennett is a lawyer.”
“Was,” she corrects me.
I want to throat-punch this woman.
“He wanted to talk with his lawyer as well. So I understand the six of you had a dinner the night before last?”
“Yes, that’s right. At Hayes’ house on Long Island.”
“And there was an incident whereby”—she glances down at her notepad again—“Emily Medici—” She stops to laugh here. “Wow. You really do have an interesting circle of friends. Anyway, the reports I’ve seen say that Emily Medici escaped.”