Page 113 of Distress Signal

“Thatvictimis our baby sister,” Trey ground out. “Of course we’re here.”

“I’m not a victim,” Aria said. “Stop calling me that.”

Lane raised his hands in surrender, then sank into the armchair across from the couch. He pulled out his work phone and placed it in the center of the coffee table on which Aria’s feet were propped, already recording. The rest of us went silent.

As he ran through his usual spiel with file number, date, time,and interviewee, he also withdrew his trusty spiral-bound notebook from his pocket and clicked a pen open.

“Can you tell me what happened the other night?”

Aria took a deep, preparatory breath, and Reagan reached across my lap for her hand.

“Mama and I got in a fight,” Aria started, eyes avoiding the part of the room where Mama sat.

“It wasn’t afight,” Mama said. “Just a disagreement.”

Aria waved her off. “The particulars aren’t important. I needed out, and you all know Finn’s guest house is my favorite place to go. And since Reagan had moved in with him, I knew it was empty.”

“You also know the only reason Reagan moved in with me is because someone broke in and left her a threatening message,” I ground out.

“Yeah well, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”

“So you went to Finn’s,” Lane stated, getting the interview back on track.

“Right,” Aria said. “I was working on a new song, and when I came out of that haze, I realized how late it had gotten. So I got up to get something to drink before going to sleep, and?—”

Her breaths increased, and her eyes slammed shut. I wrapped her up tighter, and Reagan’s fingers blanched white from Aria gripping them so tightly.

“Sorry,” she said hoarsely, sniffing back unshed tears.

“It’s okay, Ari,” Lane said. “Take your time.”

“I didn’t really see anything,” she finally managed to gasp. “I was at the sink in the kitchen, and an arm came around my waist, and something cold and hard pressed against my temple.”

“Describe them,” Lane prompted.

“It was definitely a man,” Aria said slowly, eyes unfocused, as though she was a thousand miles away. “Deep voice, thick, dark hair on his forearms. A few inches taller than me.”

Aria was on the tall side for a woman, only a few inches shyof six feet, so that gave us a good estimate of her attacker’s height.

“What did he say to you?”

“‘Make a sound, Reagan, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to save you.’”

“Fuck,” Reagan breathed. “I told you this was my fault.” Then to Aria she said, “I am so sorry, Ari.”

“Stop that!” Aria pulled her hand away from Reagan. “It isno one’sfault but the asshole who did this.”

“What happened next?” Lane asked.

“I told him I wasn’t Reagan, and he spun me to face him.” Aria held up her hand before Lane could speak again. “He was wearing a ski mask. Best I can tell you is he was white and his eyes were an unremarkable shade of brown.”

“Better than nothing,” West muttered as Lane jotted down notes.

Trey said, “Height at least matches the figure on the security footage.”

“You looked at footage from the house?” Reagan asked.

Trey answered for me. “Yeah, but I meant from the bar the night Lainey was taken.”