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sick,” she croaked. A plastic bowl appeared. She vomited. The bowl went away and a tissue wiped her mouth. When she looked up, Detective Cargill was watching her with such sadness that she felt somehow better.
    “I’m sorry about all this,” he said quietly.
    “Time for you to go, Cargill,” said Cindy. “She’s having drug surges. Look at her; she’s watching her arms.”
    “If I leave now, she’ll forget,” Cargill said stubbornly. “Try to remember, Miss Conti. How did you get back to the hotel? The snow was really coming down last night. Do you remember snow?”
    Grazia watched her arms float down to their normal position. “When I try to see last night, it’s a dark hole.”
    “Can you find the taxi driver who drove her back to the hotel?” asked Sophia.
    Cargill shrugged. “Yellow cabs are independent. I could try calling a few cabbies I know but it’s a long shot.” He turned to Grazia. “Here’s another possible scenario. You get drugged somewhere, possibly the Brazilian Bar. Some man brings you to the Hotel Fiorella by taxi or on foot. It’s late so the lobby is empty except for Manuel. The man hands Manuel a bribe. Manuel turns a blind eye while the two of you go into the elevator. Manuel leaves for Italy before his shift is over.”
    Stanley exploded. “The Hotel Fiorella is a boutique hotel, for God’s sake, Russell. Rich people stay there. We don’t hire staff who take bribes.”
    “Manuel is our only witness. He’s also a possible perpetrator, Stanley. Why is he on a plane to Italy?”
    Stanley pulled out his smartphone. “I’ll call his wife. She has to be home. They can’t afford to fly three children to Italy at the drop of a hat.”
    Cargill turned back to Grazia. “Let’s assume you went to the Brazilian Bar and nowhere else. Who did you meet there?”
    “I don’t know. Oh, my head hurts.”
    Cindy cut in. “Time’s up, Detective. You’ve got the possible location of the drugging, the bartender’s name, and a vanished desk clerk. You have detective things to do. Janine has medical things to do before Grazia’s body metabolizes the drug. So you can leave. If we learn anything that will help you, we will phone.”
    Cargill’s voice seemed faint and far away. “If you remember anything more, Miss Conti,” he was saying, “write it down in that journal of yours. Write every thought, every memory that might light up that dark hole in your memory. I’ll be with the medical examiner’s team at your hotel when you’re through here. With luck, they may have a DNA match for you by, say, Tuesday.”
    Janine appeared as soon as Detective Cargill left. She ran her eye down her clipboard. “We need another urine sample.”
    “But I filled a whole jar!” Tears came to Grazia’s eyes, astounding her. She hadn’t cried since her divorce five years before. Now she cried every time someone looked at her!
    Janine answered patiently. “The urine in the jar contains the drug. The lab will test that urine. But the lab has to verify that it is yours. So give us another sample. The lab will compare that to what’s in the jar. If your case goes to court, the information in the rape kit must be absolutely accurate.”
    Bewildered by the overload of medical and legal information, Grazia followed a nurse’s aide to the toilet. She filled the small vessel with urine, and then slowly washed her hands, watching the water run over her fingers without feeling its warmth. She looked at her reflection in the metal-rimmed mirror and examined it minutely: broad, low forehead with stylish bangs concealing one arched brow; large, oval, dark eyes flecked with green; small nose; tanned cheeks and chin; and the wide mouth that usually relaxed into a smile but this morning drooped at the corners. “Do I look the same to others today as I did yesterday?” she thought. “Can a person look the same and yet be entirely different?”
    A lab tech was waiting with a tray of needles, tubes, and jars.