Chapter 10: The Truth At Last
Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth- Buddha
All the agnets and police officers stared at her for a moment, processing what she said. Then she was ushered into a small room with a little, round table and two chairs. She was nervous as shit, but she kept her head high. She knew in her heart she was doing the right thing. Agent Hotchner motioned for her to sit in one chair, and he sat across from her. She kind of wished that it had been Spencer. Hotch never smiled, just glared ahead, kind of brooding. It unnerved her even more, but she didn't show it... rather, she didn't think she was showing it. The other agents filed in, along with the police cheif.
"Okay, please tell us what you know," Agent Hotchner said in a suprisingly gentle tone. Spencer gave her a reassuring smile and she took a deep breath before relating her tale.
"Before I start, I have to tell you. Me and my friends... well, mainly me and Chelsea, did some pretty bad stuff. It's the only reason we didn't say anything sooner."
"What stuff?" he asked.
"Well, it's part of the story." Agent Hotchner nodded and she began. "This was two weeks before Chels was reported missing. We snuck out past midnight one Saturday. Like normal, we met in the park, the one Chels would later be found in." The agents listened in bated breath, showing no emotion. "We decided to walk around the neighborhood. After a while, we came to a house with a small barn in the back. The light in the barn was on and we wondered who'd be in there that late at night. Quietly, we snuck over and peeked through the window. It was the last person we thought we'd see.
"Conner Jenkins. He was at a work bench, and he had a laptop. He didn't notice us, even though he was facing us. The creep was too absorbed in what he was doing on the computer. He had this weird look on his face, like he was high or something. Then a dog barked and snapped him out of it. He looked at a wrist watch and closed the computer. We ducked in a bush so he wouldn't see us. Chelsea and I convinced the others to go in because we wanted to see what he was looking at. They didn't want to, but eventually, we got them to." She looked sort of ashamed of what she drug the others into.
"We didn't want to stay in there, so we grabbed the computer. We were going to bring it right back, as soon as we knew what was making look like he was getting high... and Andria was a smoker. She had a ciggarett (?) when we went in, and dropped it before we left. There were ciggarett butts on the floor already, so she figured it would go unnoticed. But she didn't put it out, her foot missed... we think."
"Think?" Agent Hotchner asked.
"We didn't hang around long, so we don't know it that is really what happened, but it is the most likely solution. We didn't know till the next moring that the barn had burnt down. We were going to take the computer to the police because of what we saw on it-"
"What was on it?" he asked.
"Little... kids..." he voice cracked and she began to sob a bit, looking down at the table. "It was so... sick!" All the adults' jaws clenched as they realized what she was talking about. Everyone felt bad about what they must have seen. "We will never un-see that..." Tears were now streaming down her cheeks.
"But the pervert came over to us when we got there and said that he knew it was our fault that the barn caught on fire. We didn't believe him until he showed us a hair ribbon that Chels always wore. He said that he found it in the bushes. Plus, we had the laptop. We told him that we saw what he had on there and that we were going to give it to the police. But then he said that he'd tell them that we burnt down the barn if we said anything. We got scared so we didn't say anything and he took the laptop back." She looked really ashamed and guilty now. They didn't blame the girls, not really. They were just kids.
"But the guilt was eating us alive. We were about to break, and Conner's threat still hung over our heads. One night, the night before she went missing, Chels agreed to meet him in the park. She was going to tell him that she would tell on him, wether or not he told on us. We tried to talk her out of it, afraid that we'd get in trouble, and we found her a few hours before she agreed to meet with him. We fought, and everyone said things that..." he voice cracked. "Things that we regret and now we can never take back..." She was on the edge of breaking down, crying heavily.
"Go on," Agent Hotchner prompted. She nodded and took a shaky breath.
"She stormed off and we all went home. I tried to follow her, doubling back a few minutes later, but I couldn't find her. Then the next day she was reported missing. With every body found, we wanted to tell, but we'd see Conner before we could puck up the courage. The guilt was eating me alive and... and..." And that's as far as she got because she was now in full-out breakdown mode. The women went over and rubbed her back soothingly. Hotch stood and walked over to the police cheif.
"Go pick up Conner Jenkins. I want to see what he has to say about all of this."