Mother Knows Best
Sara's mouth dropped. Nick cracked his knuckles. "No." He finally said allowed. "Chris. Why?"
Sara looked at him. It still didn't make sense. None of the suspects made sense. "I don't know. But we need to talk to him. They can't protect him forever."
"I guess not." They walked back into the interrogation room. Lissy looked up with a scared look in her eyes.
"What's going to happen to us?" she asked.
"Nothing. We're gonna let you go for now," Sara said quietly.
Jance looked outraged. "Go? We just confessed to murder. How can you let us go?"
"We have more people to question," said Nick matter-of-factly.
Lissy stood up and walked out the door. Jance followed her, mumbling about police incompetence after a couple minutes. Nick and Sara went out the door and watched them leave the station. How they planned on getting home, they didn't know. All they knew was they needed to get to Chris before Jance and Lissy could. They rushed to Nick's SUV and drove to the Morrison house. Hopefully Chris would be there.
Nick parked in front of the house and saw a familiar car. Ms. Bauer, Rod's mother's car. They walked up towards the house and saw Chris and Ms. Bauer walking from the backyard. Ms. Bauer had her arm across his shoulders speaking sternly. Chris had a look of defeat on his face. "Listen to me Chris," she said. "We are going to get through this. Just do what I say and everything will be ok."
Nick and Sara stopped. They slowly crept towards a bush, being as quiet as they could. "She knows?" Sara whispered. "We need to talk to Chris… alone." He agreed. As Ms. Bauer and Chris passed them, they stood up out of hiding. "Ms. Bauer?"
She turned quickly to face Sara, obviously surprised. She looked Nick and Sara up and down and took on a face of innocence. "Yes? How may I help you?"
Nick folded his arms. "Ms. Bauer, we need to speak to your son."
"What is this about?" she asked calmly.
"Rodney."
Ms. Bauer paused for just a second, and nodded. "As long as I am with him, you can talk to him."
Sara put her hands on her hips. "Can we talk downtown?"
The woman sighed. "Of course."
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The clock was ticking away the seconds accusingly. The four were sitting in the interrogation room. Chris was sweating and cracking his knuckles, occasionally glancing up at his supportive mother. She was rubbing his back, soothingly telling him everything would be ok soon. It was a sad sight to see. Nick and Sara were watching them through the one way mirror. "We need to talk to him alone. How are we going to get the mom to leave?" Nick asked.
"I don't…" her phone rang. She grabbed it and read the caller id. Should I answer? She gave in. "Hey."
Nick could hear through the man on the other end. "Hey Sara, what are you doing tonight after work?"
"Going to sleep."
"Come to my place."
"No, I'm really tired. I'll call you when I wake up."
"I never see you anymore."
"Me and Nick are trying to figure out this case, I've been busy."
The man paused. "Nick? The guy that tried to threaten me?"
Nick glanced over when he heard his name. He mouthed "Tyler?" to her. She nodded.
"I can't talk right now. I'll call you later." She snapped her phone shut and threw it on the table behind her.
He knew this might not be the time to say anything, as he didn't want to be slapped, but he went ahead. "You need to break it off with him Sar."
She glared at him. "I need to do what I want to do." She walked out the door and into the interrogation room. He followed after her, grabbing an evidence bag from the table.
He and Sara sat down across from Ms. Bauer and Chris. He showed the bag, containing the jump rope to them. "Chris, do you recognize this?"
Chris looked at it and back to his mother. She nodded with a look of approval. "Yes. It's Jenny's jump rope." There was a knock at the door. Catherine. Sara got up and opened the door.
"Brought you coffee. Want any help?" Catherine whispered.
Normally, Sara would have been slightly offended at the question. However, since she could use it, she put her feelings of pride aside. "Yeah, can you take the mom out of here?"
"No problem." She walked a couple feet into the room. "Ms. Bauer, can I speak with you?"
Ms. Bauer looked at her. She gave Chris's shoulder a squeeze and followed after Catherine, closing the door behind her.
Sara went back to her seat. "Chris. We need you to be completely honest with us. What happened to your brother?"
Chris glanced at both of them, sat up straight and took a heavy breath. "Ok."
----------------------------------------- :) new chapter tomorrow