Page 80 of You Know Why

Sheehan’s gaze moves to Margot. “You haven’t told her?”

“Told me what?”

Margot’s face, so like my own, twists in fury. “She’s been out of sedation for less than a day. Stop it, right now. The doctors don’t want her stressed.”

“Margot? What are they talking about? What do you know about this?”

Margot’s face is covered in misery.

“Tell me.”

“It’s what I told you earlier. Someone tried to hurt you at the hospital in Atlanta.” She glares at Sheehan. “And there’s no reason we need to get into all of it right now.”

“Yes, we do.” Sheehan clears his throat again. “The sooner we find out what Mrs. Locke remembers, the quicker we can put all of this to bed. And clearly she needs to see it for herself to start taking us seriously.”

“I’m. Right. Here. Talk to me, damn it.”

Detective Lee is a motherly sort. She gives me gentle vibes, incongruous with the weapon strapped to her belt. “You’ve had a terrible trauma. We understand that, more than you realize. If it were your family, I’m sure you would want the police investigating to do everything they could, right?”

“Of course I would. But I don’t understand. Why would someone try to kill me? I’m nobody.”

Margot strokes my forehead. I don’t want her touch. I want the truth. “Tell me.”

The FBI agent fiddles with his iPad again. Another video. This time, a long hallway, easily identified as a hospital. And a man in scrubs who pauses briefly by a door, then disappears inside.

Margot gasps. “That’s Trey.”

I glance at my sister. “I told you.”

“Told her what?” Detective Lee asks.

“That Trey came to see me in the hospital. He told me he didn’t do what he was accused of.”

Margot steps to my side. “Brook was so out of it, I didn’t believe her. That’s really him. Trey was at the hospital in Atlanta?”

“Yes,” Detective Lee said. “The cameras went down an hour later, and you were attacked soon after.”

The FBI agent’s voice gentles. “You’ve escaped tragedy twice, Brooklyn. We want to ensure that you are never hurt again. Can you work with us? Can you help us?”

Margot turns her back on them. She leans in close. Whispers, “You don’t have to, Brooklyn. You can wait.”

I summon an inner reserve. Maybe seeing the accident will shake free my memories.

“They can’t make me, but I want to. If it will help, go ahead.”

Sheehan reopens the iPad. “We’ve compiled this from several videos. It’s a little jerky, but you’ll understand well enough.” He hits play.

The video is dark, grainy. I see an SUV’s lights whip around a corner. Then a sequence of shots. The SUV is going fast. So fast.

A woman enters the frame. She is mid-turn, leaning precariously toward the street. She falls. The SUV hits her midway down. She is thrown through the air, disappearing from the frame. Taillights now, and then it ends.

It’s over in a heartbeat. I squeeze my eyes shut. The lights in my face, the sense of falling, then flying. Blackness. It is me, I know this, but it doesn’t feel right. Something is missing.

“Keep watching,” Sheehan says.

I open my eyes. The next sequence is close-ups. It’s even more grainy. The video stops as the car turns onto the street. It zooms in on the driver of the vehicle.

The man’s face is fuzzy, pixelated. Impossible to recognize.