Chapter 9: The Alibi

"That's not me," I say.

The detective doesn't blink.

"It's your hair. Your scrubs."

"At 6:14 this morning I was in a conference room on the thirty-eighth floor of Kastar Holdings. Signing a contract."

"Before that?"

"On a double shift at St. Vincent's. I clocked out at 5:40."

"Anyone can say that."

"Then don't take my word."

I pull my badge off my chest and hold it up.

"Scan it. The hospital logs every door."

Damien is already on his phone.

"Get me the St. Vincent's records office," he tells someone. "Not the director. Records."

The detective watches him, then me.

Ten minutes pass on the cracked marble with the smell of smoke coming through the broken windows.

Claire stands beside me, silent, her fingers wound into my sleeve.

The detective's phone buzzes.

He reads it.

His jaw shifts.

"Badge swipe, ER side door, 5:42," he says. "Then the lobby camera. Then your name on the sign-out sheet."

"And the photograph?"

"Timestamped 6:14, at Seventy-Fourth Street."

"I was on Park Avenue at 6:14," I say. "With forty witnesses."

"The woman in this picture isn't you," he says slowly.

"No."

"Same build. Same hair. Same scrubs."

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