Chapter 9: Where I Slept

Every camera in the courtyard swung to Kip.

He didn't flinch.

He stood at the end of the last row with his arms folded, and he looked at me.

He waited for me to decide.

I walked back to the microphone.

"Mrs. Whitbread asked where I spent Wednesday night," I said. "I'll tell you."

The courtyard went quiet.

"I slept on a couch in Dr. Neville's living room. He slept upstairs.

"My mother packed my bag, and she's standing behind me. Ask her."

"I packed it," said my mother, loud enough for the back rows. "I zipped it myself."

"I slept on that couch because a Whitbread security car had been parked behind my mother's diner for hours," I said.

"It was there to take a recording from a twenty-year-old bellhop."

A ripple went through the chairs.

"But that isn't what I want to ask her."

I turned and looked at Whitney.

"I want to know how you knew where I slept."

She opened her mouth.

"I was in Dr. Neville's car at nine that night. Nobody knew where I'd gone.

"Nobody but a driver who followed it."

My voice finally steadied.

"You had a grieving mother followed, Whitney. And now you're calling it a scandal about him."

Whitney's hand tightened on the rose.

"I would never," she said.

"Then who did?"

She didn't answer.

A reporter in the front row had stood up. "Mrs. Whitbread, did you have Mrs. Hazard followed?"

"This is a memorial," Whitney said. "I won't turn it into a circus."