Genuine Lies

couldn’t keep. Paul, you were the child I was given and was allowed to love. Don’t disappoint me.”
    She tossed her head back, sent them one last, vivid smile. “And it wouldn’t hurt if you named the first girl after me.”
    The tape flickered off, turned to snow. Julia took another long drink of brandy before she managed to speak. “She was dying. All this time, she was dying.”
    In one abrupt move, he switched off the tape. Eve had been right. He was angry, furious. “She had no right to keepit from me.” Fists clenched, he sprang to his feet to pace the room. “I might have been able to help. There are specialists, holistic medicine. Even faith healers.” He stopped, dragging a hand through his hair as he realized what he was saying. Eve was dead, and it hadn’t been a brain tumor that had killed her. “It hardly matters, does it? She made that tape for us to watch after she’d died quietly in some hospital bed. Instead …” He looked toward the window, but saw the Eve sprawled on the rug.
    “It matters,” Julia said quietly. “All of it matters.” She set her glass aside and rose to face him. “I’d like to talk to her doctor.”
    “What’s the point?”
    “I have a book to write.”
    He took a step toward her, then stopped himself. His fury was much too ripe and ready to risk touching her. “You can think of that now?”
    She saw the bitterness, heard it. There was no way she could explain that writing it, making it important, was the only way she knew to pay Eve back for the debt of her birth. “Yes. I have to think of it.”
    “Well.” He pulled out a cigarette, lighted it slowly. “If they can crank it out within the year, you can cash in on her murder and have yourself the hit of the decade.”
    Her eyes went blank. “Yes,” she said. “I certainly hope so.”
    Whatever he might have said, whatever venom rose up in his throat, was swallowed at the sound of the brisk knock on the door. The moment he turned from her to answer, Julia’s face crumbled. She pressed the heel of her hand between her brows and fought to hold on until she could find a moment alone.
    “Frank.”
    “Sorry, Paul, I know it’s a rough day.” Frank stood on the threshold. Because his business was official, he didn’t step inside, but waited to be asked. “Travers told me that you and Miss Summers were up here.”
    “We’re in the middle of something. Can it wait till later?”
    “I’m afraid not.” He glanced over Paul’s shoulder, then lowered his voice. “I’m bending some rules here, Paul. I’m going to make it as easy as I can, but it’s not good.”
    “You’ve got a lead?”
    Frank stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, you could say that. I need to talk to her, and I’d rather go through it only once.”
    There was a tension at the back of his neck, a sharp and disturbing sensation that made him want to shut the door and refuse. When he hesitated, Frank shook his head. “You’ll only make it worse.”
    Julia had regained her composure. She turned, her face calm, and nodded at Frank. “Lieutenant Needlemeyer.”
    “Miss Summers. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to ask you some more questions.”
    Her stomach muscles twisted at the thought, but she nodded again. “All right.”
    “It’s going to have to be downtown.”
    “Downtown?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He took a card from his pocket. “I’m going to have to read your rights, but before I do, I want to advise you to call a lawyer. A good one.”

It was like being trapped in a maze in some vicious amusement park. Each time she thought she had found her way out, she would stumble around a corner and smash against another blank, black wall.
    Julia stared at the long mirror in the interrogation room. She was reflected there in her black funeral suit, her face too pale against the crisp linen as she sat at the single table on a hard wooden chair. She could see the smoke that was stinging her nostrils curling up toward the ceiling in a soft blue haze. The trio of coffee cups whose brew smelled as bitter as it tasted. And the two men in shirt-sleeves, with badges hooked to their pockets.
    Testing, she moved her fingers, steepling them, interlinking them. And watched the reflections do the same.
    Which woman was she? she wondered. Which woman would they believe?
    She knew there were other faces on the opposite side of that glass, staring back at her. Staring through her.
    They had given her a cup of water, but she