Page 31 of Every Step She Takes
It’s cold. Her body is cold.
No. It’s just chilly in here with the air conditioning pumping. She tripped and hit her head on the tiled step, and she’s unconscious.
She isn’t moving.
Because she’s unconscious.
Her lips aren’t moving. Her chest isn’t moving. She’s not breathing.
I can’t be sure of that. I’m not a doctor.
You know how to check. Two summers as a lifeguard, remember?
I press my fingers to the side of Isabella’s neck. Her cold, clammy neck. I tell myself it’s just cool to the touch.
Unnaturally cool, you know that.
I swallow hard. My fingers don’t detect a pulse, but with that voice of doom clanging through my head, I might not be checking properly. I try again. I watch for signs of breathing, of a heartbeat.
There are none.
Isabella is dead. She hit her head on the step and died here, alone.
That makes no sense. Look, Lucy. Think.
The gash is on her forehead, meaning she should be lying on her stomach. Instead, she’s resting peacefully on her back with her eyes closed.
Someone put her here.
Someone all but crossed her arms over her stomach, leaving her looking as peaceful as a corpse in a casket, with that halo of blood…
Why is there bloodbehindher head when the injury is on her forehead? There’s no trail of it down her scalp.
I see blood under her nostrils, and I realize her perfect nose isn’t quite straight. There’s smeared blood on her cheek and chin, as if partially washed away.
She’d been face down on the carpet. Face down and bleeding, and then someone turned her over and cleaned her up and left her ready for her close-up.
I stagger backward. As I do, I bump the bed. I look at it again. Only the coverlet is pushed down, crumpled, the sheet still neatly tucked in. I catch sight of a gold square on the floor and bend to see a wrapped chocolate, the type left during turndown service.
Isabella didn’t sleep in this bed. Someone just yanked back the covers and rumpled them to look as if she did.
This has been staged.
And I’m part of the setting.
Isabella is dead, murdered, and now my fingerprints are everywhere.
Yes, my fingerprints are everywhere… because I found her body. I just need to report this and explain. I have the texts showing that she called me here.
That niggling voice in my head clears its throat.
About those texts…
I grab my phone and skim the messages. The first came at 5:53.
I may not know much about forensics, but I’ve read enough mysteries to realize a body wouldn’t go cold in an hour. Even if that could happen, it doesn’t explain the bed.
I scroll through the messages. They don’tnotsound like her, but there’s also nothing distinctly in her voice.
