Nicole and Ashley headed out after a few hours of catching up. I can't remember the last time I've felt like this. Like... okay. Alive. Peaceful. But that soon changed when I looked up to a man in a suit asking around for me.
"I'm over here Detective." I waved him over. He stopped in his tracks, looked at me weird, then proceeded over. I pushed a chair over so he could sit beside me. I find that men are more trusting in conversations when they are side by side. Women are more trusting face to face. "Hi, I'm Sam." I hold out my hand for him to shake it.
"Hi, Sam. I'm detective Cole. But I guess you already knew that." It kind of sounded like a question. Surely he knows how I know him?
"Yeah, you stopped in yesterday. My Doctor told me but then I must have had low blood sugar because I ended up passing out." I shake my head in disbelief.
"Ah. Well... I suppose we can go ahead and get started then? Your doctor told me that you're not much into small talk." He chuckles at himself in amusement.
"Ha! No I am not. I hate it when people do that. It's so annoying." I roll my eyes at him.
He reaches into his brief case and pulls out three manila folders. One is labeled Evidence in big red letters all over the front. The other has my name on it, and the third has Lucy's name on it. He opens up the folder with my name. Scans over the first page, then raises an eyebrow.
"Tell me why you're in here." Well, that was blunt. No sugarcoating in this guy. Maybe I like him more than I thought I would. I let out a small chuckle. He looks at me so intensely. Waiting on me just like Doc used to.
"That's a complicated question detective. Could take a while to answer it in full."
"What's the short reason?" He shrugs his shoulders.
"Lucy's death sent me over the edge."
"The long one?" He turns his whole body toward me. He must really want to hear about all this.
"In high school, being a friend of Lucy's, there were all these... expectations." I pause. He looks at me like he wants me to continue. "She had all these 'rules' to being her friend. We had to wear the best clothes, wear name brand makeup, could only go to Gustavo's for our hair, and had to have the best grades. Obviously, I had the best grades. I was on track to become the Valedictorian. Which, by the way, Lucy was my opposition for that title. There was pressure from Lucy, from my parents, my teachers, and adversaries. Then, when Lucy went missing... my grades started to slip. I couldn't focus. I just felt like I was in a sinking ship trying to bucket out water but couldn't save myself. Then, when the police found her body, I just stopped trying to bucket out the water. At her funeral-" I stop. I need to phrase this carefully. He looks at me pleading with his eyes to continue on. Like this is some kind of tell-all for a talk show. "I just stopped feeling. I couldn't feel anymore. I didn't want to feel anymore. The only way I knew to try and feel anything was to see if my body could feel pain. It did by the way. Then I lost too much blood and passed out. My dad kicked my door down and called 911 and they put me in here three days later." I show him the scars on my arms.
"You've been through a lot." I nod. Obviously. No one comes here just to hang out. "I'm sorry that all happened to you."
"Don't be, I'm not. I learned a lot from the experience. And besides, the only person keeping me in here now is me. I can literally leave anytime I want to. I just don't want to yet. It's easy here. It's too much out there."
Detective Cole just sits in his chair, looking at the second page of my profile, and continuously nods like a bobble-head. He flips through five pages of my profile. Then he abruptly stops. He looks up at me, then down at the page, then back up at me again. "Tell me something, Sam." I just look at him expectantly. "Other than Nicole, you were one of Lucy's longest friends, right?" I nod my head. "So tell me... what did she do that was so bad that you had to end up in here?" He just looks around him like he is in complete disbelief.
"Hmmm." I have to think about that one. "It was never just one thing." He just raises an eyebrow at me. "It was a series of things that lasted over a lifelong friendship. It wasn't just her death that sent me over the edge. It was just the final nail in the coffin. And it wasn't even just because of her. There were a lot of different reasons." I stop for a minute. He says nothing. He just keeps glancing at my profile then back up at me. "What are you looking at?" I yell at him.
"Your profile."
"No kidding."I scoff. I cross my arms and roll my eyes. I swear this man is bringing out my inner teenager. Maybe because all this talk about Lucy is making me feel like one again.
"I'm looking at a sentence. It's part of your first line of questioning from two years ago when the police were first questioning you and your friends." I just look at him to continue on. "You said 'Lucy will turn up in a few days. She always does. She doesn't do anything without a plan, and I'm sure she had a stupid but glamorous one that will leave everyone in a shock and awe.'" I hug my knees into my chest. If I'm not careful, he will know how guilty I feel. "What plan would that be?"
"What?" I didn't know what else to say. I feel like he knows more than he's letting on. Like he knows more about Lucy's plan than anyone ever should. But I made a promise. If I just act stupid and like I don't know anything, then he will leave.
"I said, what plan would that be? Did she have some kind of plan?" I just shake my head like I don't know what he's talking about. "Because to me, it would make sense that if Lucy did have some kind of plan, then one of her longest friends would know about it. That would also explain why she was missing for almost an entire month. It would explain why no one knows where Lucy was or what she was doing. It would also explain how we found new evidence two years after she was murdered by her friend. Which, it's looking like Karma is innocent after all. Which begs a new question. Who really murdered Lucy?"
"Visiting hours are over people! Please sign out at the front desk and leave your photo guest passes with the night clerk on your way out." A small smirk makes its way across my face. Saved by the bell, or nurse in this case. "You too detective. Sam needs her rest. Time to go."
Detective Cole puts his folders in his briefcase. "To be continued..." He says as he stands up and heads for the front desk. I walk back to my room, plop on my bed and let my mind fade away.
But to no avail, my mind won't stop racing. It won't stop mulling over Cole's last words about Lucy having some kind of plan. A plan she did have, but only four people knew what that was. And one of the four is dead now. The plan died with her.
As I lay in my bed pondering what kind of questions detective Cole has in store for me tomorrow, I hear a knock at my window. I stand up on my bed and look outside. There stands Nicole, shivering in the night air. I open the window. "What are you doing here? Are you trying to get arrested?" I stare at her in disbelief.
"Shut up and let's go." She opens the window the rest of the way. Luckily I don't live in one of those crazy asylums with bars on my windows. She nudges for me to follow her. So, I climb through my narrow window out into the cold night air. She stands there with a bag of my clothes from my closet.
"Nik?" I look at her in confusion.
"Just put them on so you blend in. We're taking you out of here for a night."
"I don't know what's going on, but if a nurse does a random bed check-"
"They won't. I made sure of that before I left this afternoon. I have a friend on the inside and he just happens to be running rounds tonight. You are off limits this evening because Dr. Miller wants to be sure that you get plenty of undisturbed rest." She smirks at me like she is proud of herself. I oblige and put on an outfit I haven't worn since high school. Actually, I know exactly what this outfit is and when I wore it last. My face must have contorted into something weird. "What's wrong? You look all concerned."
"I wore this the day Lucy was supposed to get back." We just look at each other for a moment. Then I see a light flash by my door, and I grab Nicole's arm and run. "Where are we going anyway?"
"We're going to church."