Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga
Bernie
Dr Bernadette Krantz had created an impressive life for herself. After fleeing the dreary town of Forks upon her graduation from high school, she was accepted to Brown where she doubled majored in psychology and chemistry, graduating summa cum laude after three years. From there, she went on to obtain a PhD in chemistry from Harvard. She was currently employed by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and living in the much sunnier Atlanta, Georgia with her husband of four years and their two cats. She wasn't very tall, standing at five feet two inches, though the three-inch heels that she wore compensated for her lack of height. Her dark brown hair was smoothed back into a severe bun and though her brown eyes were obscured by a pair of thick red glasses, she gave off the impression that she was not a woman to be trifled with.
Yet none of that all seemed to matter as she sat under the harsh fluorescent lights of the Forks Police station, her shoulders hunch while she listened to and attempted to answer the questions of a bored Sergeant Todd. The fingers of her left hand drummed against her thigh with an uneven tempo, a pen rolling between the fingers of her right. Her eyes cast nervous glances around the room when they weren't focused on the piece of paper that contained the statement she had made over a decade before.
Louisa watched through the one-way mirror as Chief Swan and Sergeant Todd volleyed question after question at the woman, watched as the normally well-spoken scientist tripped and stumbled over her words, and watched as the muscles in her body wound so tight they seemed like they might snap from the tension. She had to look away when the first tear slid down Dr Krantz's cheek.
"What are they hoping to accomplish in there?" Louisa ground out, grabbing a nearby chair and throwing herself into it.
Rosalie didn't respond, instead tilting her head tilted to the side, watching the interview through narrowed eyes. "Does anything look wrong to you with this scene?"
Louisa snorted and tossed a disgusted look at Sergeant Todd's back. "Besides the fact that they are botching the interview? Mark my words, Todd's going to waltz in here the moment he's done and proclaim that this was a waste of time and taxpayers'—"
"She's surrounded by men."
At Rosalie's gentle words, Louisa sat up in her chair, focusing on the interview that was crashing and burning less than ten feet from her. Sergeant Todd had stood up and was pacing the room, circling the table at which Dr Krantz and Chief Swan both sat. The former chief of police who originally oversaw the Sweet case had been invited to the interview and was leaning back in his chair next to Chief Swan's, starring at the ceiling in disinterest. Off to one side, an acne-scarred officer was huddled into a corner working on a completely unrelated case (as the interview room technically doubled as his office), his fingers flying across the keyboard of the laptop perched on his knees. And in the centre of it all, sat Bernadette, who was being asked in the most insensitive of ways, to recall a traumatic event that had occurred some eleven years prior.
Surrounded by men indeed.
Louisa didn't have the opportunity to respond before Rosalie had leapt from her chair, storming out of the observation room. She rose and followed after her, more interested in what her friend might do than the travesty that was masquerading an interview. By the time Louisa had rounded the corner, Rosalie had already descended on the desk of the lone female police officer Forks had to offer, a young woman who looked barely old enough to be out of college, let alone having graduated from a police academy.
She watched as her friend tossed herself in the chair next to the desk, her face transforming from a scowl to sweet, cautious smile. "Hey Officer Nguyen, you got a sec?"
The young woman looked up at them in alarm at their sudden appearance but nodded none the less. "You can call me Mary. Everyone does."
Rosalie shrugged. "Sure thing, Officer Mary. Are you busy?"
Officer Mary glanced up at Louisa in confusion, who was only able to offer a shrug in response, before focusing on Rosalie. "Not particularly."
"Do you want to hijack the interview?" Rosalie asked, tilting her head and looking the picture of innocence. "They're going to bungle to the investigation in there."
Officer Mary's eyes widened at the candour with which the girl spoke. She hadn't interacted much with the two high schoolers, as she was usually acting as the gopher for the more senior officers on the force, but it was usually stories of Louisa Collins' abrasiveness that she heard, not Dr Cullen's oldest daughter. "I've never conducted an interview before," Officer Mary replied after a moment to recollect her thoughts.
Louisa couldn't stifle the snort that rose up from her chest. "By the looks of it, neither have they."
Rosalie waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "It wouldn't hurt to ask, would it? They have been able to learn anything useful. If there is nothing to learn, then there is no harm in you trying."
After a moment of hesitation, the young officer nodded, causing identical, wolf-like grins to spread across the teens' faces. In the blink of an eye, the two descended on her, handing her file folders she hadn't even know that they were carrying, lists of potential questions to ask, and, for some reason, a box of tissues. They whisked her away in the direction of the interview room, hissing instruction on how best to get Chief Swan and Sergeant Todd out of the room. Louisa Collins, it would seem, had quite the silver tongue.
Surprisingly enough, their instructions worked, and Officer Mary was left in the interview room with Dr Krantz. They watched in surprise as the former Chief of police grumble as he followed after an annoyed looking Sergeant Todd. Even the officer who used the interview room as an office vacated the area. The two women were left in a sort of stunned silence which was only punctuated by the ticking of the analogue clock on the wall.
Officer Mary introduced herself with a firm handshake to the doctor, hoping her hands weren't as sweaty as they felt. She offered the woman water, which she declined before she sat down in the chair opposite Dr Krantz. She shifted the papers in front of her as if this would somehow help her collect her thoughts. It didn't. In fact, all it managed to do was knock the cheat sheet of questions Louisa had given her off the table and onto the floor.
"How old are you?" Dr Krantz said, watching Mary through narrowed eyes.
Thoroughly off balance at the question (wasn't she supposed to be asking the questions?), Mary managed to stutter out, "Twenty-four," without sounding too pathetic.
Dr Krantz sighed and slid down into her seat. "Let me guess, your first interview?" She didn't wait for confirmation before steamrolling on, her words clipped. "They figured it doesn't matter who took my statement, I suppose. It's not like they're going to find out who killed Anna."
Mary figured that it wouldn't be the best time to admit that two juniors at the local high school were behind all of this, not the police. Instead the words, "Do you know who did it?" slipped out of her mouth and she fought the urge to slap herself.
Dr Krantz levelled an impressive glare at the young officer. "If I did, I would have told the police when they asked me, eleven years ago. Is that all that you're going to ask? Because I have a lot of things I need to do, none of which involve this Godforsaken town." She rose from her seat as if to leave and Mary found herself diving across the table to grab a hold of the woman's wrist. This interview wasn't going well.
"Ma'am, please," she whispered. "I want to help."
Dr Krantz watched Mary for a moment, the lenses of her glasses obscuring her dark eyes, her lips pursed. "Why?"
Mary's brain raced for an answer, trying to find one that didn't seem stupid or sound vain. "Because…" panicked, her brain swirled around, searching and unable to settle on an adequate response.
"Because it's the right thing to do?" Dr Krantz sneered. "How noble of you." She wrenched her wrist out of Mary's hand and started towards the door.
Mary stood up so fast that her chair clattered to the floor. "Because Anna deserves better than what she got," she snapped, her voice much stronger than she expected. It sounded strong without being aggressive, and Mary found that she kind of liked it. She would need to remember it the next time one of the other officers tried to pawn their paperwork off on her. "Because I wasn't here eleven years ago. But I'm here now, and I want to help Anna."
Bernadette's hand paused over the doorknob. She didn't turn around, but her head was tilted, listening to what Mary was saying. Emboldened, Mary took a step towards the woman, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Let me help her. Help me put her murderer in prison. Help me bring closure to her mother. Anna deserves justice."
They settled back at the table, Mary flicking on the tape recorder and began sifting through the stack of notes Louisa had shoved at her on her way into the room.
Start easy, Louisa had hissed into her ear as she and her friend frogmarched her towards the interrogation room. Establish rapport with her. Make her like you, trust you.
"When did you first meet Anna?"
The question seemed to surprise Bernadette. "I always knew her. I can't remember a time in my life when she wasn't a part of it. Our parents went to church together, so we grew up together. We were in the same year at school," she replied. "Sunday school, primary school, even throughout most of high school."
"So you spent a lot of time together, then?" Mary asked, settling down in her seat, growing more confident that Dr Krantz wasn't going to leave. "What sort of things did you get up to?"
Bernadette shrugged. "What most girls get up to, I guess. We used to have sleepovers and make movies with her mum's camcorder. She was always a bit of a drama queen," she replied, a soft smile playing at her lips. "Once, I slipped when we were filming and cut open my knee— there was blood everywhere and I ended up needing stitches. Anna was the one who fainted."
"When you say she was a drama queen," Mary began, trying to choose her words so they didn't come across as aggressive. "Would you say that she liked to be at the centre of attention?"
"It was more like she overreacted to things. If her favourite characters broke up on television, you'd have thought it was actually her that got dumped— she'd have to miss school the next day, she would be so distraught. And if you told a joke, no matter how funny, she'd laugh until she cried," Bernadette replied, drumming her fingers against the table. "She felt things more deeply than other people, I guess. Things affected her more, no matter who they happened to. Your wins were her wins, and your losses were her losses. People liked that about her and she had this sort of infectious personality where you always felt like you wanted to make her happy because then she'd share it with you."
"So she was popular then?" That more or less lined up to what Mr and Mrs Sweet had said in the original investigation.
"I guess. She wasn't Heather Chandler popular," Bernadette explained. "But you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who had anything bad to say about her. Well, at least, before…"
The implication that this was no longer the case anymore hung heavily in the air. Mary might not have grown up in Forks, but she had heard whispers of how wild Anna Sweet could get, especially after a few shots of alcohol. She lifted the box of tissues Louisa had provided to the doctor, who accepted one with a weak smile.
"After she was murdered, everyone claimed to know her secrets. Which is ridiculous, of course— Anna only told me everything. And what she didn't tell me, she wrote in her diary."
Her diary. Louisa had mentioned something about a diary after interviewing Anna's mother. Mary rustled through the notes in front of her, extracting the notes from that interview, scanning them. This was the second time someone had mentioned the diary. The original investigation had never turned one up. "Could you tell me about this diary?" she asked.
Bernadette tilted her head, her brows furrowing. "She started keeping one when she was eight, I think. Wrote in it every night. I never got a good look at it. Whenever I saw it, it was because she was shoving it under something." She shook her head and focused on Mary with such an intense expression, the police officer had to force herself not to squirm in her seat. "You think she might have written in it her boyfriend's name?"
Mary's eyebrows shot up at this, disappearing beneath her fringe. "Her boyfriend? She had a boyfriend?"
"Technically, no," Bernadette explained through pursed lips. "I always suspected that she did, but I was too afraid to ask. Anna became increasingly secretive in the year leading up to her death. All of the sudden, she would be too busy to hang out or she'd be going out of town for the weekend. I would ask her about it and she'd give evasive answers: a service project with the church, or going to see her grandparents, or she'd have too much homework, or she had play practice. I believed her at first, because why would she lie? We told each other everything." Bernadette leaned forward and rested her crossed arms on the table. She looked away, her eyes focusing on a distant memory, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet. "We went to the same church though, and I knew there were no service projects, or else I would have gone too. That was my first clue something was wrong. I asked her about it, of course. She didn't talk to me for a week. I never brought it up again."
On the other side of the mirror, Chief Swan and Sergeant Todd had joined the two teens and were watching the interview with rapt attention. Despite the shaky start, Officer Mary had indeed been able to get Dr Krantz to open up and the two were chatting like old friends. The tension had all but drained out of Dr Krantz body, and her words were less sharp and more informative. What the two men had tried to do for a whole hour, Officer Mary had accomplished in less than half that.
"She's doing great," Chief Swan said, his eyes trained on the back of Officer Mary. "How is she doing this?"
Rosalie glanced at Louisa and they both rolled their eyes at the same time.
"Was there any sort of mentor in her life? An adult she was comfortable with? It could have been a sports coach or a youth group leader."
Bernadette actually laughed at that. "Anna only ran if someone was chasing her," she explained through chuckles. "But she liked the chemistry teacher. Mr Hewitt. We all did. He was young, just out of college. Anything with math was not Anna's strong suit but he would spend hours after school tutoring her."
Mr Hewitt? That didn't make any sense. Louisa had interviewed the chemistry teacher and he claimed that he barely knew her. Sure, he probably had had many students over the years, but one would think that the girl you used to tutor, especially if she was murdered, would stick out. Something wasn't adding up here, and Louisa wished more than anything she could burst into the interview room and take over the questioning herself.
As if sensing her thoughts, Rosalie laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking her head. Not only would it undermine Officer Mary's confidence in her interviewing abilities, but it would most likely piss off Dr Krantz. The interview continued uninterrupted for some time as the two discussed Anna's behaviour in the months leading up to her death.
"That wasn't Anna's room, you know?" Bernadette explained when asked about the day of Anna's death. "Her room was originally the one that faced the front garden."
Louisa sat forward, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She had never thought about it before, but Anna was an only child. It would make much more sense for her to take the bigger room, over the tiny library. So why did she switch rooms? Was it because of the secret tunnel? It must have been if that was how her lover had been able to sneak in and out. The only question being, was the tunnel there before or after the bookshelves were built?
Officer Mary seemed to be thinking along the same lines because she made a note on the case file. "Who built the bookshelves?"
"Her dad and one of the neighbours, I think. It was supposed to be for her seventeenth birthday but it took longer than expected. Anna always wanted to be surrounded by books— a personal library, sort of like Belle, from Beauty and the Beast."
Chief Swan pushed Sergeant Todd out of the viewing room at this proclamation, with the order to contact Mr Sweet, no matter what. "Go to his damn house if you have to!"
On a whim, Louisa chased after him, confident that Rosalie would fill her in on anything important. She perched on the edge of his desk, earning a scowl from the surly officer. "Ask him about the diary," Louisa instructed.
"I'm not your errand boy," Todd snapped.
Louisa fought the urge to roll her eyes. "We need to find that diary, Sergeant. If Anna wrote in it who—"
"We have no proof that she did," Sergeant Todd pointed out. "Even if she wrote his name down—"
"She would have."
"It won't prove that he was her murderer."
"Circumstantial evidence is still admissible in court," she reminded him. He paused at this, and sensing him wavering, Louisa decided good old fashioned begging couldn't hurt. "Please."
Sergeant Todd sighed. "Any idea what he should look for?"
Louisa wanted to make a sarcastic comment about looking for a diary but held her tongue. For once, the two were holding a civil conversation and she didn't want to ruin it by antagonising him. Instead, she leaned forward, resting her chin on her fist, and let her mind wander.
Anna kept a diary, meaning she was most likely detail and goal oriented. She was a personable woman and had a lot of friends. Yet she valued her privacy. Her diary was a secret to even the most trusted of her friends. She would have hidden it well, not under a pillow. She would have kept it somewhere safe, where she could keep a close eye on it. The police would have run across it when they searched the room and her belongings, so she hid it well. Inside the vents, perhaps? But no, it would have been found after the police found the hidden cameras in the house or even by the person who placed the cameras. Under the floorboards? No that would have been too difficult to access on a regular basis. Somewhere easily accessed, if you knew where to look. She had so many books that her father built bookshelves into the walls of her bedroom one year for her birthday. English would probably be her favourite math was her worst subject she struggled academically she had dyscalculia you know Anna always wanted to be surrounded by a personal library she could always be a librarian for her seventeenth birthday.
"She loved reading." She wasn't sure when her eyes had closed, but when she opened them, she noticed Sergeant Todd watching her with an almost concerned expression on his face. Louisa reached up to wipe her nose and was unsurprised when it came away covered in blood. "She would have kept the diary close at hand for easy access but disguised it so nobody could read it. If I were her, I would have made it look like a book."
"Which book?"
"Her favourite. You'll have to ask him what that was," she said, swaying as she stood up. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go…"
"If you get any blood on my things, I'm arresting you."
Louisa gave the sergeant a mock salute before stumbling in the direction of the toilet, pinching her nose to stem the bleeding. Fortunately, either the nosebleed wasn't that bad, or Louisa was becoming more adept at stopping them. She bent down and splashed cold water on her face, removing all traces of blood from her face. No doubt Rosalie would smell it when she left the interview room, but at least it would be easy to convince her that it wasn't a big deal—she hadn't even fainted this time, which was fortunate because she doubted Jasper would let her out if his sight if that had happened again. She was, after all, still banned from investigating, thanks to the concussion she had incurred the previous month.
The door behind her opened and Dr Krantz entered, startling when she caught sight of Louisa. When the two made eye contact in the mirror, Louisa could see a look of concern flash in the older woman's eyes. Dr Krantz inched towards her and laid a hand on the teen's shoulder. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"
Louisa gave her a weak smile and nodded. She could understand the scientist's concerns: Louisa did look a fright. Her skin was ashen and her cheeks had hollowed out in the last few months, and she knew that beneath her clothes her ribs and hipbones were beginning to jut out, a fact that concerned Carlisle. Beads of sweat were forming at her hairline, despite that she was so cold that her skin had goose pimples and her toes were numb. All in all, Louisa was hardly the picture of health. "Nosebleed. I get them a lot," her explanation punctuated by sniffs.
Dr Krantz's eyes widened and darted down Louisa's body. "Oh," she replied softly before slipping into one of the stalls. Louisa fled before the woman could come back out.
After collecting her belongings, Louisa bid farewell to Chief Swan before exiting the police station. Rosalie was already in her shiny red BMW and had the engine running the moment Louisa slipped inside. "Dr Krantz thinks I'm a coke head," she said, pulling on her safety belt.
"What are we going to do with you?" Rosalie sighed as she threw the car in reverse and peeled out of the car park. Within minutes, they were on the road that would take them out of town, towards the Cullen's house. "You're a walking disaster."
Louisa shot her friend an impish grin before lifting her hands to the vents. The rain had picked up while they were inside the station, and Rosalie had to turn her wipers on high in order to see through the torrential downpour. At least it wasn't snowing, Louisa had to remind herself. "Don't worry, I'll save all of my major travesties for when you return on Tuesday. I wouldn't want you to miss out."
Normally, the two would spend Saturday together, but Alice had foreseen a sunny day on Monday and proclaimed that the entire family would go on a hunting trip. Jasper had told her about it the previous evening, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice, practically giddy at the prospect of catching carnivorous prey. Mountain lion was a rare delicacy near Forks in recent years, apparently.
"Yeah, about that," Rosalie began. "Alice said that it's going to be sunny Tuesday too."
"I hope you know that I can't be held accountable for what happens in your absence. You and Jasper make up eighty per cent my impulse control, and I tend to get destructive when I'm bored."
Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Jasper will return by Monday morning, so do try to curb your urges until then. I might come back too if I finish early. Emmett enjoys playing with his food and I have no desire to stick around and witness it. Alice will definitely be back by Tuesday night. She says that we'll be having a movie night at your house. Something called Gal-entine's day."
"Who am I to bet against Alice?" Louisa said with a shrug before turning to watch raindrops streak across her window. The soft hum of the engine and the pelting the rain on the windscreen the only sound filling the silent cabin. Despite their light-hearted conversation, the interview they had witnessed weighed heavily on the minds of both girls. "Do you think Mr Hewitt did it?"
"I don't know," Rosalie said, her voice soft. "Whatever you do, don't engage with him, if you can help it. At the very least, wait until Jasper or I am there."
"I have no plans to," Louisa sighed, sinking lower into her seat and rubbing her face. "The idea of running into him on Monday makes me want to vomit."
"Don't go in then. Say you're not feeling well. You've been ill so much lately that nobody will question it."
"I've missed too much school. I don't want to fall behind," Louisa explained. Besides, it was completely ridiculous to be afraid of him. She had no proof that Mr Hewitt was Anna's killer. A lot of damning circumstantial evidence, certainly, but no physical proof. If only the medical examiner hadn't lost the skin samples he had taken from under Anna's nails. How did one even lose a vital piece of evidence from a murder investigation?
And then there Louisa's memory-visions she had seen. The one from the closet came to mind first. She got the impression from the memory that it would have been a big deal for Anna and her boyfriend to get caught— a way bigger deal than if it was two horny teens in a supply cupboard. Was it because Anna was seeing her teacher? And then there was the memory from the night Anna died. What had she said?
"Better yet, maybe I should just go straight to the police. I bet they would be really interested that you've been fucking your eighteen—" had she been about to say student? The thought made her stomach clench.
"Mum was a teacher, you know," Louisa began, watching the trees whizzing by as Rosalie sped towards her house. "She always said that her first year of teaching was the most difficult and that she almost stopped teaching after it."
"I didn't know that," Rosalie said, turning to look at her, her face set in a frown. "What did she teach?"
"Physics. She taught for ten years, but she always said that she never forgot her first year. She learned a lot during it, apparently." Louisa's voice drifted off as her thoughts raced, her grey eyes stormy and unfocused. "Mr Hewitt said that Anna died his first year of teaching," Louisa added. "But Anna died her senior year. So unless she took chemistry as a senior, then she couldn't have had him as a teacher. It's possible that he got the years mixed up, of course…"
"You think he was lying?"
"He said he didn't know her that well, and yet he tutored her?" Louisa looked down at her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to pick her cuticles. "I don't like this, Rose." Now that the seed had been planted, more and more strange things didn't add up about the chemistry teacher's story. And then there were her visions. First of Anna, telling her boyfriend that she was pregnant: Louisa had never gotten a good look at the man's face, only his blue eyes. She knew from the vision in the closet at school that the man had dark hair, but that description could apply to so many men. The fact Mr Hewitt had these features could be a total coincidence.
Louisa leaned forward, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes and suppressing a groan. What she wouldn't give to be able to see the surroundings, rather through someone else's eyes during one of the visions. If only she could turn around and see the man's face the day he killed Anna. If only she could turn on a light in that damn cupboard. Instead, all she got was a vague idea and wicked headaches. What was the point of her 'power' if it couldn't even be useful? She couldn't use it to solve the case unless she wanted to be locked up in a mental hospital after explaining how she came across the information. And the case…
She sat up, trying to ignore the ringing in her ears as she did so. "Do you think we're doing the right thing?" At Rosalie's curious glance, Louisa elaborated further. "Is solving this case the right thing to do?"
Rosalie slammed on the breaks and Louisa flew against her safety belt, which dug into her skin. Her friend paid no mind to her discomfort, however, and turned to face her, eyes wide. "What the hell are you going on about?"
Louisa shifted in discomfort under Rosalie's scrutiny. Okay, so perhaps Rosalie wasn't the best person to ask these sorts of philosophical questions. But the words were out there now, and she would have to commit to it. "Are we doing the right thing by solving this case?" she managed to say, her voice low.
"Is— are you fucking serious? Of course, it is."
"Jesus Christ, Rosalie," Louisa snapped. This wasn't going well. Rosalie was the absolute worse person to ask. She took a deep breath, trying to word her next sentence so she didn't sound so combative. Or insane. "My sister is in his son's maths class. It's a real fucking person that we could be sending to jail."
Nailed it.
"And it's a real fucking person that he killed," she retorted. Her eyes had narrowed to dangerous levels and Louisa was certain that if they weren't friends, she would be dead.
The air felt too hot and the walls of the car seemed to be closing in on her. She realised on some level that she was panicking but that level was very far away and completely inaccessible to her at the moment. She wished Jasper was there. He would understand her worries, wouldn't he?
Louisa dove for the car handle, only to watch as the door locked, courtesy of Rosalie's superior vampire reflexes. "No, you're not running from this. Explain it to me."
But Jasper wasn't here. He was back at his house, no doubt preparing for his upcoming hunting trip, and it looked like she would have to comfort herself. She swallowed and it felt like a lump of coal was being shoved down her throat. Focusing on her hands, she tried to collect her racing thoughts and ignore the death glare Rosalie was giving her. She could understand Rosalie's agitation, of course. Rosalie took this case personally, especially after what had happened to her. The last thing Louisa wanted her friend to feel was like she was betraying her. And in a way, maybe she was. So why did she feel this way? God, why did she have to say anything? There was no way in hell that Rose would let her drop the conversation.
"Who are we helping?" she asked, her voice quavering. At least she wasn't crying; that would have really pissed Rose off. Small daily victories, she supposed. "Solving this won't bring Anna back. And will it be any comfort for her parents to know that their child's killer was her tutor and teacher? If it's Mr Hewitt, what about his family? They'll have to deal with the fallout from all of this too. I mean, if we're right, and it does turn out to be Mr Hewitt, think of the impact it could have on not only his family but the entire town. For fuck's sake, after Anna died, people tortured her family. What would they do to his family? If they even believe that he did it, of course. This could turn the town against itself, people siding with Mr Hewitt as the likeable small-town science teacher or siding with the girl they more or less vilified for years! It could turn into one of those he-said-she-said things, where Mr Hewitt will get off with a light slap on the wrist, and then what happens?"
She took a deep breath, which rattled her shoulders and left her feeling light-headed. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it might burst. "It's just… what's the point of it all?"
Rosalie didn't respond, but the judgment in her yellow eyes was more than enough. Without a word, Rosalie started the car, pulling a U-turn and driving back towards town. It looked like Louisa wouldn't get to say goodbye to Jasper after all. The drive to Louisa's house was painfully quiet and the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. It made her chest constrict and her eyes water. Rose and she had had disagreements in the past, sure. Their spirited debates in homeroom were the thing of legends if Emmett were to be believed. But this wasn't a disagreement. This was a lot more serious. If only she had kept her fat mouth shut.
The BMW pulled up to the Collins' home, stopping in the drive behind Louisa's silver Prius. She didn't even put the car in park. Knowing when to retreat, Louisa unbuckled her safety belt and scooped up her bag from the floor.
"I never took you for a coward, Louisa Collins." Rosalie's voice was cold as ice and Louisa froze, hand poised over the door handle.
She wasn't sure why the words stung so much.
Louisa didn't respond. She wasn't even sure how to. She settled for opening the door and sliding out of the car. Rosalie took off before she had the chance to step back, the tyres squealing as the car took off back down the street and she flinched at the sound. She wasn't sure how long she stood in the drive, watching the street. She couldn't feel the rain drenching her or the coldness soaking into her bones. She didn't feel much of anything.
She knew, realistically, that Rosalie was pissed off and would be fine once she cooled down a little. But it didn't feel like that. It felt like she was losing a best friend, all over again. The last thought she had before tearing her eyes away from the street and trudging inside, was if this was only the beginning of the fallout from the investigation. And the worst part was that it wasn't solved yet.
"One day soon, you'll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You'll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley, in Aloha, Oregon.
The doorbell rings.
No side gates are left open. You're long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell.
This is how it ends for you.
"You'll be silent forever, and I'll be gone in the dark," you threatened a victim once.
Open the door. Show us your face.
Walk into the light."
-Michelle McNamara
A/N: well... thoughts? Leave me a comment and tell me what you think! -Checkalexa
