Lisa Scottoline - Moment Of Truth

'Technically it's attempted cheating, but I won't bore you with the legalities.'

Paige smiled. 'So it's over with him. I want nothing to do with him.'

'Good for you.' Mary wondered what it meant for the baby, but decided this wasn't the time or place. Paige had enough to think about. The girl was growing up in only a few days, and Mary wasn't completely surprised.

Adulthood never had anything to do with age anyway.

Mary sat behind the conference room table like a judge while Paige stood up and told what had happened the night her mother was killed, and by the time she was finished Mary had almost succeeded in visualizing the scene. 'Tell it again,' she said anyway. 'I want to see if there's anything inconsistent, telling to telling.'

'Mary, I'm not making this up. It's the truth, I swear it.'

'I believe you, but something's wrong. You have no bruises on you and you should, if what you're saying is true. Start over. You and Trevor go to your parents' house…'

Paige sighed without further complaint. 'My mother started to fight with me, right off. Told me I looked fat and I shouldn't be eating. She started in on the Bonner shoot. How I looked like I was gaining. How I had to watch what I ate to get over.'

'Get over?'

'You know, make it,' Paige answered, and Mary flashed on the sweating kids under the hot lights, all hopeful but none with The Face. 'I felt like who was she to tell me, I'm not a child, and now I was having a child. I'm going to be a mother, a way better mother than she ever was. So I said, "I'm pregnant, that's why I'm so hungry," and she hit me. I fell off the chair onto the floor.'

Then what happened?'

'I got up from the floor and I started to cry. Then she grabbed me and threw me down and started kicking me in my stomach. At least I thought she did.' Paige paused, her forehead a knot of confusion. 'I remember that happening.

I swear, I remember she was trying to kick the baby out of me. She said so.'

Mary shook her head, confounded. It rang completely true, especially the way Paige recounted it, but it couldn't have been. 'What was Trevor doing?'

'He was trying to pull her off of me, I think. I don't really know.'

'But he was in there, fighting?'

'Yes, I think. She was yelling, "You kill it or I'll kill it!" I hurt, so much, and I rolled away, trying to protect the baby from her. But she kept coming at me, kicking.' Paige looked like she wanted to cry but didn't. 'I was so scared. Trevor said I was just crying and rolling on the ground.'

Mary's ears pricked up. 'Last time you didn't say, "Trevor said."'

'What?'

'Is it Trevor said, or you remember?'

'I remember. I remembered. Later. I mean, I remember crouching and rolling, trying to keep her away from the baby.'

Mary frowned. 'Do you remember really, or did he tell you? And when did he tell you?'

'I do remember, but we discussed it later, over and over. I couldn't get it out of my mind. I needed to talk about it. We talked after it happened, a lot. Until you came over. I was so upset, and he calmed me down.'

'By talking about what happened?'

'Partly.' Paige brushed a strand of hair from her troubled brow. 'I think I remember. I needed to talk about it. Parts of what happened I couldn't remember. It happened so fast and I was so high. So crazy.'

'What do you mean you couldn't remember parts of what happened?' Mary straightened, intrigued. 'You didn't tell me that before.'

'I didn't?' Paige's hand fluttered to her forehead. 'Let me think. There were things I wasn't sure about, I think. Details. It was just so awful, the whole scene.'

'You know it was awful or Trevor told you that?'

'I know that. I remember. It happened. Didn't it?' Paige's eyes flickered with bewilderment, and Mary dug in.

'You were high.'

'Not so high that I don't know what happened to me.'

'But think about it.' Mary stood up, wondering aloud. 'You go to dinner, you take a drug you never took before, and it makes you feel crazy. You and Trevor are together later and you go over what happened when you were high. How do you know what happened and what didn't?'

'I know because I remember.'

'But how can you be sure you remember correctly? Memory isn't always reliable. It's like recovered memory. Those cases with the kids at nursery schools. They question the kids so much they forget what they remember and what they were told. The kids want to please the questioner. They remember what they're told to remember.' Mary leaned forward. 'Consider that there are drugs in this scenario. You were on drugs at the time of the murder and you told me that Trevor gave you a drug to calm you down after, right?'

'Yes. Special K. Ketamine, like a tranquilizer.'

Mary thought about it. 'How do you know it was Special K?'

'It looked like it. A pile of white powder.'

Mary had never taken a drug in her life, except for Midol. 'But aren't lots of drugs white powder?'

'It made me feel relaxed, like K does.'

'I would think lots of drugs do that, too. Maybe it wasn't Ketamine, Paige. Maybe it was some other kind of drug, to make you more suggestible.'

'What?' Paige cocked her head, her hair falling to one skinny shoulder.

'Trevor gives you the crystal, or what he says is crystal, before you go over to your parents' house. By the way, why did you take it, if you had never taken it before? You knew you were going to an important dinner.'

'I knew it would be hard. I didn't think I could go through with it straight.' Paige flushed with regret. 'I know it was stupid, but Trevor said the crystal would make me stronger.'

'So he gives you the crystal, and you feel strong. Your memory is spotty. You feel out of control. You come home and he gives you another drug, then he tells you what happened. You said you two went over and over it.' Mary's excitement grew. 'What if you don't really remember what happened, you just remember what he tells you? In time it becomes the truth, but it's only in your mind.'

Paige looked dumbfounded. 'Is that possible?'

'Of course, given what you're telling me.'

'So what really happened, with my mother?'

'Anything could have happened, but only one thing is the most likely. Trevor killed your mother and made you think you did it.'

'What?' Paige's eyes widened. 'Trevor killed my mother?'

'It makes sense, doesn't it? We have only your word that he didn't. No one else was there.'

'I remember picking up the knife.'

'But do you remember stabbing her, actually stabbing her?'

'I don't know.' Paige raked her hair with her fingers, a gesture of Jack's. 'I don't remember. I don't know what I remember.'

'You heard what Walsh said. It takes force to kill somebody that way. Trevor is a big, strong guy. You'd have to remember stabbing your mother, actually bringing a knife down, five times. Do you? What were her reactions and yours? Did she fight you? Rip your clothes? How did you fight her back? Do you remember it?'

'I think -'

'Don't answer so fast.' Mary held up a palm. 'Concentrate. Think about it, every detail. Do you really remember? Can you tell it to me?'

Paige's eyes fluttered closed, then, after a moment, open. 'I can't. I really don't remember what happened between when I grabbed the knife and when I found it in my hand, later, all bloody. I thought I had gone into like a trance or something.' Paige shook her head. 'But I would know if Trevor did it, wouldn't I? I mean, I would have seen him do it.'

'But who knows what you perceived, under the influence of whatever drug he gave you? And who knows what you remember or what you saw?'

Paige blinked. 'But why? Why would he do it?'

'You tell me.' Mary's thoughts raced ahead. 'He had to know your mother had money, didn't he?'