A/N: Thank you to Bianka-chan for beta-ing this chapter for me! Here we are, shiny chapter eleven!!

Chapter Eleven – Evidence In Flames

Officer Almasy returned to the room. He smelt like cigarette smoke, which indicated he'd made the most of Rinoa's time with her lawyer, catching a quick break. His face looked drawn, and there were dark circles under his eyes from tiredness. He had a file under his arm and a pen behind his ear. A female officer also entered the room behind him and took a seat next to the tape machine.

"Right, are we ready to talk now?" Almasy asked as he seated himself.

Rinoa looked to her lawyer, he could answer for her as much as he could, for she knew that way she was more likely to keep her secrets secret.

"My client is ready to answer your questions," Mr. Katare answered, moving his own papers into a neater pile.

Almasy nodded.

"Miss Heartilly, care to tell us where you have been these past few days? You have had a lot of people worried about you, especially your father."

Rinoa snorted and rolled her eyes. Her lawyer put his hand on hers to stop her from saying anything she would regret. She was thankful for the reminder; she was about to say that her father wasn't concerned about her--more about what people would think of her disappearing.

"As to my client's father, it is her wish that she should not meet with him under these circumstances, and in fact we might soon be in the process of filing for a restraining order."

"Would your client not consider a supervised meeting, within the premises of course?" the female officer asked.

Rinoa didn't need to 'consider' anything.

"No," she answered. "I will not."

"Your father has requested to see you as soon as we are finished here," she tried again, obviously thinking she was speaking to some little girl who had a quarrel with her father and who would eventually come around, only Rinoa was determined never to see that man ever again. He'd controlled her life for much too long, and she was no longer a child.

"Well, you know where he can shove his request!"

"Can we please proceed?" the lawyer asked. "You are distressing my client."

"Certainly," Almasy replied, looking at him and then turning his attention on Rinoa. "We have reason to believe that you have been spending your time with a group of criminals. In fact, we have evidence to prove our suspicions. You might remember that you took a little drive one evening," he produced a photograph.

Rinoa looked at it. He was right. It was her in the passenger seat, but thankfully the photographer hadn't caught Squall, who at the time had been driving.

"Care to explain why you were in a stolen car?" Almasy asked.

"I would like to remind you that Miss Heartilly is not under any obligation to answer your questions."

"And I would like to remind you that if Miss Heartilly doesn't answer our questions, she will be arrested under this evidence and will have to answer our questions in order to avoid the implication of her actions."

Rinoa sat frozen in shock. She never thought for one moment she would ever get herself into trouble. She knew the photograph looked bad. She might not be driving the car, but she was certainly in it, and how could she prove that she hadn't been party to acquiring it?

She looked at her lawyer, who nodded at her. It was true what Almasy was saying, and she shuddered. She had a dim view of prison.

"Fine, but I'm not promising you'll get anything worth hearing from me. I don't know anything about these criminals," Rinoa said, folding her arms and sitting back in her chair. She tried to give an air of indifference.

"So, then, you do agree that you were in the company of criminals?" the female officer asked.

Rinoa's gaze darted to her lawyer; she didn't know what to say to avoid this question.

"I don't know if they were criminals," Rinoa said, unsure of herself. "Ok, so maybe they weren't saints, but they were nice people."

"Regardless of whether they were nice people or not, you might want to think about talking in order to save yourself from being any more entangled with them than you already are. We are prepared to waive this photograph in return for your information."

Rinoa sat in silence. It was obvious what she had to do. In order not to be brought before a judge she would have to start talking. She didn't need her lawyer to tell her that.

"Ok. I'll tell you, but it wont be much. They kept me away from discussions and plans," Rinoa said, waiting for an answer or a nod to continue. All she received was the tape player being turned on to record her words. "They took me to this warehouse on the outskirts of the town."

"Could you remember the exact location?"

"No, but I'd know it if I saw it again."

"Very good. Continue," the female officer said.

Rinoa took a deep breath.

"Like I said, they didn't include me in any plans. They let me stay because I had nowhere to go, and because I wanted to, and mainly because they knew I knew where they all were. We had a bargain; they gave me shelter in return for my silence."

"So what went wrong?"

"Well fell out, had an argument, and I escaped out of one of the windows. I made it into town, and that's when I realized I had to give myself in because I had nowhere to go. I knew I couldn't go back because they were all leaving, too."

Almasy stopped scribbling notes.

"Leaving, too? Where were they going?" he asked.

Rinoa shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know. They wouldn't tell me, but they were readying all their cars and vehicles and leaving one by one. They had something planned, but they wouldn't inform me, and to tell the truth I didn't care what they were doing. I had my own agenda, after all." Rinoa paused. This was harder than she thought it would be, mainly because she had nothing to tell. Squall had kept her more in the dark than she had imagined. She had felt herself to be one of them for a time, but in fact she knew nothing of them.

Almasy looked at her for some time, and Rinoa looked back at him, both waiting. He believed her story. These criminals were too clever to tell an outsider anything of what they were doing, and he also believed her when she said she was uncurious as to what they were up to. If he had a father like her's, he wouldn't have jeopardized an offer to stay by snooping about.

"Alright, Miss Heartilly, your story seems genuine, so now that you are no longer under investigation by the police, you won't mind giving us a full description of everyone that you met with and accompanying us to the edge of town to show us this warehouse."

Rinoa froze, and her heart seemed to miss a few beats as she realized she wasn't off the hook yet. This was going to go on and on until these people were caught, and if they were, it would be her own fault. She just hoped for their sakes they'd done as they said they were going to do and vacated their premises.

If giving evidence was hard work, Rinoa had no idea how much harder giving a description good enough for the police could be. It seemed they wanted to know everything, and since she had been living with them so long they wouldn't let her be vague; Rinoa quickly realized that this was what would catch her criminal friends, and so she lied.

"A beard?" Almasy asked. "And you say his name was Squall? And he had a full beard?"

"That's right. Look, I'm really tired now. Can't I go? I've answered all of your questions, and you've asked me so many, after all."

Almasy looked at her. She did look tired. He couldn't officially hold her for any longer than she was willing to stay, though he tried clever wording to make her think she had to say when she could have left at any time.

"You are nearly finished. You'll show us where this warehouse is, and then an officer will drive you to a safe-house where you may meet with your lawyer to discuss anything further," Almasy said. He waited for her to protest, but she just sighed.

The traffic on the roads was busy. It was five in the evening and everyone was coming home from work. It was dark out due to some heavy-looking black clouds gathering over head, and before they had reached the outskirts it was spitting with rain.

Rinoa was driven past many warehouses, but none were secluded enough to have been where she had stayed; she told Almasy this, and they took another route, going even farther out of town. They turned up a small dirt track that Rinoa said she recognized, and as the trees on either side of the road disappeared they were hit by a blaze of orange light. The driver slammed on the brakes fast, sending them sliding forward in their seats.

Almasy didn't want to ask, but knew he must, as his evidence was going up in flames.

"Yes, that's the place," Rinoa confirmed, looking at the building that was ablaze.

"Stay in the car," Almasy snarled, slamming the car door as he exited and leaving Rinoa alone and in the safety of the vehicle as he and his colleague stared at the flames and began radioing for assistance.

Rinoa watched in a daze as fire engines arrived, one after another and police officers searched the surrounding areas for clues. She supposed the building hadn't been on fire all that long, for most of it was still intact. The roof had collapsed, but the walls were still all there; therefore she guessed the officers were looking for the one that started the blaze. If it was one of her friends, she knew that they'd be looking in vain.