9: Accusations
Previously:
"You seem to be amnesiac, these records say you're twenty-two."
"But I'm not!"
Alfendi exclaimed, "Yes you are!"
Seeing him and Deirdre, Lucy inhaled sharply, and backed against the wall, the beeping of the heart rate monitor quickly speeding up along with her breathing.
The doctor noticed and asked, "What?"
"Th-those two...th-they did this to me..."
Immediately there was a commotion.
"What are you talking about?!"
"Lucy, we didn't cause this!"
"Just wait a second!" the doctor yelled, creating a silence. "Lucy, are you sure it was them?"
She nodded, frightened.
"Then it looks like I have to report you two," the doctor said to the Laytons.
"But-"
"I have no other choice. I'll be reporting you two to the police."
"A-Ally...," Deirdre began, almost crying, quickly filling with anxiety as she looked up at him with childlike fear, clinging to his arm. "Wh-what do we...?"
"Scotland Yard, right?" he asked the doctor, and the medic nodded in return before turning back to the telephone.
A security guard walked over to them to escort them to Scotland Yard.
"We're just going to go to Scotland Yard," Alfendi replied to Deirdre slowly, and he wrapped his arm around her, noticing how scared she was, yet not knowing why.
She followed him, staying close, and tried to wipe away her tears, trying to tell herself she would be fine, though her tears were only replaced by more. She bent her head down, letting her crimson hair hide her face.
That night, the two were taken in for questioning, and they each gave their entire explanation on what happened, both of them lining up with the reports. It was concluded by Scotland Yard that she was amnesiac and that while what she reported seeing was true, she hadn't realized what was going on at the time, which led her to the thought that she had been attacked by them and hen kidnapped. Deirdre and Alfendi were released, free from the charges placed by the victim, and immediately went back to the hospital where Lucy was staying for the next couple nights, so the doctors could keep an eye on her and make sure she recovered well, aware of the circumstances.
The next day, two days before she was supposed to go home, the siblings were trying to convince Lucy that she knew them and it was all a misunderstanding. She had been told what had happened by Scotland Yard officials, but didn't really believe them, the fact that she was amnesiac throwing her off, yet they'd assured her that she was safe with them, and therefore the doctors let them stay with Lucy.
"What do you remember of us?" Deirdre asked, sitting in a white plastic chair next to Lucy's bed while a crimson-haired Alfendi paced around behind her.
"I-I remember...being in a strange room, and you two were there, looking at something...and my arms were covered in blood and cuts, and my 'ead were hurting really bad..."
"Why were you there?" she asked. Deirdre had planned to ask all the questions because she knew with how sleep deprived she and Alfendi were, Alfendi wouldn't be patient for long enough. She at least could control her anger, unlike her brother, or at least she hoped with the lack of energy she had.
"Because you brought me there! You were trying to kidnap me, that's why I were so injured!"
"That's not why we brought you there-"
"The door wasn't locked. If we'd had been trying to kidnap you, we would've had the sense to lock the door," Deirdre cut in, shooting a glare at Alfendi who only returned it.
"Or ya just forgot." Not helping, Luce, Deirdre thought as she sighed.
"Lucy, we took you to a police station! Why would-"
"Ally!" Deirdre cut in sharply, twisting around to shoot him a dangerous glare that he returned equally. "Just shut it!" Even not asking questions, hearing the answers exasperated and irritated him.
"Did you notice that we had also bandaged you up and cleaned off all your wounds?" Deirdre asked, trying to ignore the argument.
"But ya didn't."
"There was a lot more blood on your arms than you remember beforehand," Deirdre answered. "We dragged you from an alleyway where you had been assaulted, and cleaned you off."
"Then why didn't you bandage my arms?"
"Because Ally doesn't have a good enough First-Aid kit. It didn't have anything that would've worked for bandaging up your arms. But there's a deep cut in your knee that I bandaged, and a lot of blood I cleaned out of your hair and off of your clothes." Today, she happened to wear the same thing she had worn the day of the incident, and it was just as bloodstained as it had been then. "Look at my clothes, this is what I was wearing. There's blood all over them." The knees of her dark jeans were bloody, stained a deep red, and her hooded green shirt had blood at the hem.
"'Ow do I know you didn't dye it on purpose?"
"Why would I do that?"
"To make a point."
Deirdre sighed again, beginning to feel frustrated. Lucy had been taught to interrogate well, but not against them! But it was somewhat relieving to know she had at least retained that skill, even if her memories were temporarily lost, though it would be harder to convince her then. "Everything I used should still be on the floor, if you'd like to come see when you're released. The First-Aid kit, the towels I used to clean off the blood, all the bandage wrappers, everything. Er, wait...," she paused, thinking, "it happened a month and a half ago, so it might not be there."
"So you don't have any proof that you were helping me."
"No, we do..." Deirdre began to protest.
"Deirdre, we have the reconstruction to look for clues," Alfendi reminded.
"Oh, right!"
Lucy looked at them curiously, asking, "What're you talking about?"
"We have a machine that reconstructs any crime scene down to the last detail. We got a reconstruction of the scene where you were attacked, and we can show it to you so you can see it wasn't us to attack you."
"And 'ow do I know ya won't kidnap me again? No thank you!" she answered, crossing her arms over her chest.
"We did not-"
"Ally, just let it slide. If that's what she wants to think, until we have proof, it's not going to change anything," Deirdre cut in, turning in her chair to face him. "Let's go back to the Mystery Room, assuming we're allowed inside, and investigate."
"Why wouldn't you be allowed?" Lucy asked, not understanding, but too curious to ignore it.
Deirdre turned back to face her, answering irritably, "Because it might be counted as a 'crime scene'-" she made air quotes with her fingers "-seeing as your body was there and so is a hell of a lot of your blood, and seeing as you accused us of the crime, some of the detectives there might not realize we are actually innocent."
The two siblings left the room and went to the Mystery Room to find the only difference between that night weeks before and that day was about thirty more case files piled onto Alfendi's desk and that all of Deirdre's medical supplies had been moved to the desk and shelves, bandage wrappers thrown in the trash can. There was a clear elongated bloodstain across the floor by the sofa, and the Reconstruction Machine was still on, wasting energy.
The Laytons immediately went to the Reconstruction Machine, looking over the scene for clues to prove Lucy it wasn't them who attacked her.
After a few hours, Deirdre had chosen to look through the physical evidence, and started looking through Lucy's messenger bag, the one she used instead of a purse.
"Since when does Lucy carry pepper spray?"
"What are you talking about?"
"There's a bottle of it right here, Ally." She was in the process of looking through everything she had dumped out of Lucy's bag and straight onto the floor, though she knew to be more careful of fingerprints and was wearing latex gloves to keep her prints off the evidence, her black fingerless gloves over them.
"What makes you think I would know when she started carrying that around?" he asked, not turning from the Reconstruction.
"Just asking. Did you know she has glasses?"
"No."
"She has some seriously messed up vision, Ally," Deirdre continued, looking through the glasses. "And of course, here's an empty contact case. You think she needs this at the hospital?"
"Maybe," he mumbled absentmindedly, still looking through the crime scene.
Continuing to look through all the evidence, she saw Lucy's wallet and car keys, a charger, and a big yellow-orange envelope, the clip holding it closed worn down from being repeatedly opened and closed. Deirdre opened it to find a file inside, similar to the ones that were sent to the Mystery Room, but unlabeled aside from the name in the lower right-hand corner: Baker.
"What's this?"
"What are you talking about, Deirdre?"
"This. It's a file, in Lucy's bag. And not the file we were working on at the time."
Alfendi glanced over, seeing the file. "That file..." His eyes widened as he remembered what it was. "That's the murder case...she had it with her the entire time," he breathed.
"What murder case?"
"Read the names of the victims."
She opened the file and skimmed for the names, finding them. "No way...was she trying to find the killer then?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"Her parents and sister were killed right in front of her...and she was only fourteen."
"Yeah...she lived on the streets for a year before one of her friends took her in."
"That's...terrible." Then she had an idea. "Ally, where's Lucy's cell phone?"
"Right here. Why?"
"Give me it."
Alfendi handed her the cracked device. "It doesn't work, Deirdre."
"Or...it's out of battery," Deirdre replied, checking the charging outlet on the phone and grabbing the charger from Lucy's bag.
A minute of being plugged in, and the phone turned on automatically, a clue that it had been on before.
Deirdre looked through the phone to see a recent conversation between Lucy and some unknown number, a blocked number, from a week before the attack, consisting of many threats from the blocked number before the conversation ended with a threat of attack, four days before the incident.
"Ally...look at this."
"What?"
"Just-come here and look," she answered, motioning him over.
He quickly read through the entire conversation. "She didn't mention a word of this..."
"Well whoever it is threatened to kill you if she said anything. Bit different than just a threat of herself, don't you think?"
"Yes, but she should've known better."
"I'm gonna look through the rest of her phone and see what else is on it."
After a few minutes, she found a thirty-second recording and listened to it.
There was a staticky silence before the sound of Lucy crying out in surprise, then her mouth was quickly covered, a slight scraping of shoes on pavement, and a dull thud and a scream of pain from Lucy, then the recording cut out.
"Ally, I think Lucy knew what was going to happen, and was trying to record it, there's an audio recording here."
"Really?"
"Yeah, and it sounds like how the attack started off."
Oh my god I've finally finished this chapter! It's insanely late, I know, but I've had a huge project to work on the past few weeks and hadn't a moment to write (but it was finally finished on Thursday!).
Comment if you want me to post another chapter of this for Christmas or if you want me to write a oneshot (you'll have to give me a prompt though). I'll be working on the next chapter to at least have it posted for the 30-31st/1st so it hopefully won't be late. Holidays are messing with my schedule though, my apologies.
~girlycathy~