Audra left Yolanda in the room with Mrs. Shelley to keep her company. Before going to face off with Principal Shelley, she took the loop towards the left that brought her back to find Cordero in the observation room.
"What's wrong?" Cordero asked.
"Okay, both Mrs. Shelley and the Councilman swear that Principal Shelley was caring for Margret while Mrs. Shelley was seeing to her husband and the Councilman was working on his next campaign. But she was keeping Margret drugged and now we find out the triplets are Principal Shelley's love children." Audra shrugged, completely at a loss. "I have no idea how to play this. My money is on her but she's a different kind of dangerous. If she strikes, even if we get an energy signal from her, how the hell do we stop her? But, if it's not her…"
"I'll go in," Cordero said. "You wait here. Give me the energy reader"
Audra unstrapped the reader and Cordero handed her the phone.
"I'm going to send Ethan into the hallway. If you see this thing blip or you get a call from Pierce, you run to help, calling for Ethan to go in ahead of you."
"I can go in," Audra said and Cordero winked at her.
"You run faster than I do," he said with a smile.
"Okay."
Audra turned her attention to the third interrogation room. She had taken several breaths as she waited for Cordero to get to the room. She took note of how unassuming Principal Shelley seemed, so old and frail.
Eric sat at the table cattycorner to the right of Principal Shelley, his electric blue eyes hooded and unreadable. Ethan leaned against the wall across from her, next to the door. At that moment Audra would have given anything to send a specter in there to guard them.
Several moments passed before Cordero opened the door and asked to speak with Ethan in the hallway. Eric sat up straight as Ethan left him alone with Principal Shelley.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"Should I be?" he countered.
"I've been a principal for nearly forty years. I can tell when someone is out of their depth."
"You still have the right to remain silent," Eric reminded her.
"You have a thing for Agent Wheeler don't you?" Principal Shelley asked.
Eric smiled "Doesn't everybody?"
"The Sheriff certainly does."
Eric exhaled just as Cordero reentered the room and took the seat across from Principal Shelley.
"We already know that Eli Shelley fathered Abigail Stevens' children, both Gwyn and Margret are his daughters. We also know that even though he was told that she was his sister, he was going to marry her anyway. We know you and your mother tried your best to break them up with rumors and lies but they didn't fall for it, not the second time around, did they?"
Principal Shelley shifted in her chair and looked as if she were thinking.
"Those people," she began, "I don't know what it must be like for poor people. The things they do to make rich people responsible for them. Just spread their legs a couple of times, pop out a baby, and they have a meal ticket for life."
"How many times did you spread your legs, Principal Shelley?" Cordero asked.
"Excuse me?" The Principal seemed caught off guard.
"Eli was told that Abigail was his sister, and you had him test your brother's DNA with Abigail' so he would believe it. But, if he had tested his own he would have found out that they weren't brother and sister. Because they were cousins, right? Because the triplets are your children."
"Who told you that?" She slumped over as if in defeat.
"Your lover didn't take care of you after that, did he? How many times did you spread your legs for him, expecting him to leave his wife and marry you, only to find out that isn't the way it works with married men and their mistresses?" Cordero asked coolly.
"I'm nobody's mistress," Principal Shelley stated just as coolly.
"Who was he?"
"Why am I here?" Principal Shelley kept her cool. "Something about abusing Margret. I would never. I love Margret. She was a danger to herself. I was trying to keep her sedated so she couldn't kill her silly self."
"I see. Why would you care if she did? She wasn't your child."
"She is my grandchild," Principal Shelley finally admitted.
"So was Gwyn, you knew that much didn't you?"
"I couldn't look after all of Abigail's bastard children. I feel that loving and caring for one was beyond my duty as a grandmother. Gwyn was cared for by the Sheriff and the other was adopted in Boston."
"What other one?" Cordero asked.
"Margret's twin," Principal Shelley said. "Abigail had three children."
"How did you know Margret's twin was adopted in Boston?" Cordero asked.
Audra's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
Principal Shelley cocked her head to the side as if she were considering the answer to that.
"Let me see. I'm about eighty years old now. What are you going to do? Jail me for the rest of my life?"
"Why would I jail you?"
"Because, I had that little slut killed," Principal Shelley admitted.
"Why?"
"Well, she wanted to take my baby away and live in sin."
"She didn't know anything about that."
"Even if she had…" Principal Shelley exhaled. "Eli was always the good one. The one I saw as the future President of the United States. My son."
"But nobody knew he was your son."
"I knew," Principal Shelley snapped.
"Okay, so how did you find out about Abigail's second child?"
"She called the high school on a long shot to see if the school had record of a girl being pregnant on or around her exact birthdate, the same as Margret. I took her information and did some investigating. Her pregnant photograph looked just like Margret, and Abigail."
"So, did you kill her too?"
"I tried. But something interrupted me."
"How did you do it?"
"You want to know how I know I could do it?"
"Alright," Cordero conceded.
"The married man, the father of my three sons was my own uncle." Principal Shelley laughed. "And my mother knew. But she called me a whore and threatened to kick me out if I didn't burry the shame of it. My father sat, kowtowed, refusing to help me, useless like all corrupted men. My uncle, my father, my brother, and then my own sons."
"Your sons?"
"Eli with his one whore and Brendon with his three. The only good of Kenneth being gay was that there were never any baby mamas with their hands out for him."
Principal Shelley paused. "So, my mother sent me to this Hindi community to be pregnant and learn to meditate and find inner peace. Then they came, got my children, and just left me there for a whole year. I got in touch with my chakras and learned to center myself. But my teacher could see the pain. She understood, the plight of a woman was tough. She told me about the legend of the seven sisters, a constellation in the heavens.
She taught me to use the power from that heavenly body which had grown strength from the prayers of their believers. I could use that power through my meditation to get to a higher level, telekinesis. She taught me how to control my rage and focus that energy into a power beyond myself. I went home and I remembered everything my teacher taught me. I sat on it for nearly thirty years, getting stronger in private, taking my time to perfect the things I had learned.
"Then my father died. Once he did, I faced my mother the same night of his burial and asked her why she didn't protect me from my uncle, her brother. She was old and frail, and finally didn't scare me anymore. But she acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. I stood in front of her and I felt this energy surround me, and then leave me. And before I knew it she was on the floor gasping for air. Then I wished her heart would stop."
Principal Shelley's eyes blazed. Pierce's energy reader beeped. The phone in Audra's hand rang and time slowed down to a freakish crawl as she saw Cordero and Neil's hands go to their chests.
"I imagined a hand going into her chest and just squeezing," Principal Shelley's voice echoed, slower and deeper than normal.
Audra turned to run as she brought the phone to her ear and heard Agent Pierce with crystal clarity warn that the energy signal was four times its usual size over the jailhouse. She dropped the phone as she cleared the door of the observation room and turned right. She reached for her gun as the gripping on the floor seemed to turn into quicksand and her legs seemed to move entirely too slow.
"Ethan!" she shouted. "Ethan! Get in there! Get in there, now!" As she rounded the first corner she heard a gunshot that seemed to snap her back into real time. She flew the remaining distance to the third observation room.
"God!" she breathed before she turned into the open door with her gun at the ready.
She found Cordero on the ground clutching his chest. Eric Neil was kneeling, gasping for air. Ethan stood over the fallen body of Principal Shelley who had a bullet wound in her left shoulder.
Audra went to Cordero placing her hand over his heart and performed CPR. She flashed back to the night she'd done the same for Kendra. She heard Eric on his phone calling for an ambulance. Cordero passed out, but Audra continued CPR until her arms felt weak. Ethan took over and she watched helplessly from that point on until the paramedics arrived and rushed him to the hospital.