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was like, maybe, ten p.m.? I heard the buzzer, and a minute later Andie came running in and told me to put out the joint because there’s a cop outside. I was freaking out, but Andie said just stay in my room because he was just there about something for school.”
    Realizing what she’d just admitted, she turned to Garcia; he was scratching away in his notepad, not reacting. Reassured, she went on.
    “So I closed the door and opened my window to air the room out. I heard Andie say she was alone, but then they went into the living room, and I couldn’t hear them so well.
    “I was pretty high, so I just lay there and waited. After a while I realized that Andie wasn’t talking anymore, just the guy. Then I heard her kind of . . . screech.
    “I didn’t know what to do. I picked up the phone, but it was dead, and my cell was in the kitchen. I got up to see what was Precious Blood
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    going on, but before I opened the door, I heard him hit her, hard, and I heard her fall, and then I got really scared.”
    Her shoulders were shuddering. “And then I didn’t do anything . . . ”
    Jenner said, “If you’d tried to do something, he’d have killed you. There was nothing you could have done—you have to understand that.”
    A tear was trickling down her cheek. “You weren’t there.”
    “No. But I saw what he did.”
    She gave a dismissive half shrug, then sharply pulled the glass toward her and took a good belt of scotch; this time, there was no grimace.
    She wiped her mouth, then continued, her jaw set.
    “First thing he did was turn on the TV, really loud. Then he started moving all around the apartment, searching. I heard him go into the kitchen, then the telephone suddenly jerked and started sliding toward the door—he was following the cord to my bedroom. I got under my desk just as he came in.
    “He yanked the bed away from the wall like it weighed nothing, then went through the closet, and then he came over behind the desk. I thought he’d found me, but he just opened up the wardrobe. His feet were right next to my head; he was wearing army boots and they had pink mud on them, and I could smell blood. But he didn’t look under the desk.”
    She took another gulp of whisky.
    “Then he went to the bathroom, and then Andie’s room.
    When I heard him start to go in her room, I went into the kitchen, but I couldn’t find my cell. I could hear her moaning. I heard him coming back, and I hid under the counter until he went back to the living room.
    “There are window guards in the kitchen, but I figured if I made it to the bathroom at the end of the hall, I could try to climb down the trellis into the garden.
    “That’s when she started to scream. He must have stuck something in her mouth, because she suddenly stopped. It 26
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    was like I was paralyzed—I knew he was hurting her, and I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t move.”
    Seeing her start to shake, Jenner said, “About what time was that?” Keep her focused on the details.
    She shook her head. “Maybe eleven p.m.? A little later, maybe.”
    He nodded. “Then what happened?”
    “I was too scared to move. I just lay there under the kitchen counter, trying not to breathe. Smelling the linoleum and just . . . listening to him doing stuff to her. I kept telling myself, he’s going to rape her and then he’ll leave, and then it will be over, and we’ll be okay in the end. But then I heard the drill.”
    She picked up the tumbler and drained it, then put it back on the table. She looked at Jenner, then slid the glass to him.
    He poured and set the tumbler in front of her.
    “He turned up the TV real loud, but I could hear him using the drill, like . . .” She breathed slowly, concentrating, then continued, stronger now. “It didn’t sound like when you drill wood.
    “That went on for a while. And he was talking to her, but she wasn’t saying anything. Then I heard the whipping sound, over and over, and she wasn’t