Chapter 3:
Annabeth POV-
We were all separated into different rooms. Thankfully, Horatio Caine had managed to get me a blanket, but my exposed shoulders were still cold, and it was even worse now that Percy was in the other room.
"So…Ms. Chase," he asked, arching an eyebrow in my direction, but not making eye contact with me, "Can you tell me why you all were at the beach, today?"
"We just wanted to go to the beach and enjoy the water," I said, calmly. Horatio nodded slowly, still not making eye contact with me, "We didn't do anything wrong," I muttered in a much quieter voice. At this he looked up.
"Well, I have a whole audience of witnesses, who said that you all brutally beat an old woman with baseball bats, are you telling me that's not true?" he asked.
'Baseball bats,' I thought, 'Well I suppose that's better than anything else that they might have thought we used on the 'woman.''
"No, it's not," I said, my voice firm. Again Horatio nodded slowly, trying to analyze whether or not what I had just told him was true.
"So, where are all of your parents?" he questioned, staring at me out of the corner of his eye.
"Um…" I supplied, trying to think of a legitimate excuse. "Back home, we came here on a mission trip but we got separated from the rest of our group so we decided to go to the beach. I realize that was probably stupid, but we figured that they would find us eventually," I lied, managing to provide a completely believable sheepish smile.
"Hmm…" Horatio thought for a minute, "What kind of missionary trip?" he asked finally, hoping to trip me up in my own lie.
"A Greek Orthodox Outreach Program," I lied again, keeping my calm mask up.
He nodded one last time before standing up and walking toward the door with one last, "Thank you, Ms. Chase." I slumped a little into my seat, somewhat relaxed that the interrogation had ended, for now, at least. I wondered how everyone else was handling their interrogations.
Percy POV-
My foot tapped on the floor nervously, and partially due to my ADHD as a man named Ryan Wolfe interrogated me.
"So Percy," he started, sitting at the other end of a stainless steel table, "What were all of you doing at the beach today?"
"Umm…swimming?" I replied in a 'duh' voice, which was maybe not the best idea. Mr. Wolfe didn't seem to appreciate my attitude but made a note of my response anyway.
"And can you tell me why all of you are in another city, alone, without your parents?" he questioned.
"Well, we're here with the ADHD Awareness League. You see all of us have ADHD, but we got separated from our group and decided to take a trip to the beach for some fun," I informed him, only telling him half of the truth, we did, after all, have ADHD.
"Really?" Mr. Wolfe asked, arching an eyebrow in my direction, not seeming to buy my story but admiring the creativity of my excuse.
"Yep," I lied, smiling.
"Hmm…" was all he said before removing himself from the interrogation room.
Clarisse POV-
I was forced into a small interrogation room where this preppy-looking, Aphrodite-kid lookalike, was facing me.
"Hello, I'm Detective Calleigh Duquesne, do you know why you are here, Clarisse?" she asked in a bright and cheery voice to match her preppy exterior.
'Duh,' I wanted to reply, 'I'm here because all of you stupid cops had to interfere in us taking down a monster.'
But instead I replied, "I don't know, isn't your job to tell me," I sneered at the blonde girl. Almost, unnoticeably, she quickly gritted and un-gritted her teeth, which would have been hard to catch if I hadn't been looking for signs of her frustration with me.
"Alright then, " she said, "You are here because you were seen beating an elderly woman with baseball bats," she informed me.
"Do you have any proof of that?" I asked with a fake smile.
"Umm…" she faltered, "Other than twenty witnesses testimonies, all of which, put all of you at the crime scene, not yet," she said in her best 'how-do-I-say-we-don't-have-a-body-or-any-weapons-to-prove-anything-but-I-still-want-to-intimidate-you-by-making-you-think-we-have-something,' voice. Having been on this side of the criminal justice system several times before, it was not hard to pick out these details.
"So, can you tell me why exactly you are in Miami?" she asked, changing the subject off of her obvious lack of proof that we have done anything wrong, to trying to figure out as much about me as possible.
So, obviously, I lied.
"We were here to organize our efforts to help the homeless," I told her, batting my eyelashes innocently.
"On the beach?" she questioned.
"We were taking a break, helping the homeless is hard work," I said, again trying to sound as innocent as possible.
"Where were you helping the homeless?" she asked.
"The homeless shelter," I smirked, because that is obvious.
"Okay, so to help the homeless, you beat a elderly homeless woman to death," she interrogated, sneakily, I might add, which slightly impressed me. Ms. Blondie was expecting me to say 'She wasn't homeless,' which is practically an admission of guilt, but I wasn't about to fall for that.
"I still have no idea what you are talking about. Yes, I did see an old woman on the beach, but she wasn't homeless and we certainly didn't beat her to death," I said, somewhat, actually, telling the truth, we didn't beat her to death because technically we sliced her, and she cannot really die.
"Thank you, Ms. La Rue," she said, standing up, and exiting the room without any further questions.
Nico POV-
I said nothing, absolutely nothing to the police as they interrogated, I didn't want to give them anything else to go on just in case they actually found me in the system, and more importantly if they actually found out that I was born before World War II. That would be bad and would no doubt end in way more questions than I would be allowed to answer.
Thalia POV-
Like Nico, I also said nothing about myself or our time at the beach, or about whatever intentions they believe us to have. Also, like Nico, I am older than look (obviously not as old as he is) but even still, that would bring up unnecessary questions that I will leave Chiron in charge of taking care of, that is if he manages to get here soon.
Calleigh POV-
We all assembled right outside of the interrogation rooms where we had a clear view of all of the suspects through the one-way glass.
"What now?" I asked, not knowing what we should do considering we had all received separate stories or no story at all, as was the case for two of the suspects who had refused to answer any of the questions. Another weird thing was that no one had asked to call their parents or their lawyer yet, which was odd, for any criminal. Clarisse, the girl who I had interviewed after I got back from investigating the beach with Eric, seemed extremely cocky, like she expected to never get caught, like we would, no matter how hard we tried, never come up with enough evidence against them for a jury to incriminate them.
"Pull the security footage from the beach, test the blood sample you found at the beach, and find out as much as you possibly can about these kids. Also, try and find if there is any truth to their stories. We can hold them for now, if you find anything let me know," Horatio told us snapping me out of my thoughts.
We all nodded and set out to find some evidence about those kids.
By the way, thank you 3Alaska3 for being so persistent in getting me to update this story.
I don't own Percy jackson and the Olympians or CSI Miami.
