by Tamara White
Why did my mom, of all people, call the police? How did she know I was in my room, or that I was covered in blood, when I hadn’t seen her come in? So many questions, yet not a single answer. I feel defeated.
“Oh my god! Valerie? Are you okay?” Sally’s voice draws me from my misery and the tears come unbidden.
Sally and Jessica are both waiting for me in an empty room and I almost weep from relief. Neither of them are looking at me like I’m a guilty monster. No, they both look concerned.
The female officer undoes my cuffs. “You have ten minutes before I have to take you back to your cell.” Then she turns to Jess. “You owe me for this.”
“Yes, fine, now leave us alone.” She nods her head and makes a ‘shoo’ gestures to get her out the door.
I watch the female cop shake her head with a small smile on her lips, before closing the door, leaving me alone with my friends.
“How did you get here? I figured they wouldn’t let me see anyone until the arraignment thing was over.”
Jessica smiles at me, but I can see the sorrow in her eyes. “The cop who brought you in here? That’s my older sister, Misty, from my mom’s first marriage. She moved here a year ago. I never thought I’d ask for a favor, but when your father told us you were here, we thought you might need the support.”
I’m crying freely at this point, and I don’t bother wiping the tears away. Sally and Jess both wrap me in their arms as I sob. We drop to the floor in a huddle, all of us shedding tears of our own.
Even after the tears stop, we all stay on the floor, silent over the loss of Natalie.
After a long moment, I ask, “Do either of you know what happened to her? All I know is that she died.” I think about the blood coating my body when I woke up and need to know more.
Sally leans away to look into my face. “You sure you really want to know?” she asks, sounding hesitant.
I look between Sally and Jessica, trying to decipher the looks they are exchanging.
“Yes, I need to know. Maybe it will trigger my memories,” I say, determined to try anything that might help me remember what happened.
“So you really don’t remember anything at all?” Sally looks concerned by that fact.
I shake my head sadly.
Jess stares at me a little too long and I snap at her. “What? Did I miss some blood on my face?” I ask snarkily, but then immediately regret it. “Sorry, I’m just not doing too well. It’s hard to accept she’s really gone.”
“That is, if she is gone,” Sally murmurs under her breath. It feels like she wasn’t intending for me to hear, but I did.
My head whips around so fast I probably look like something out of The Exorcist. “What do you mean? Why would you say that?” I demand, taking a step towards her.
Jess slides between us and holds her hands up peacefully. “Hey, don’t get mad. She just means we have some stuff to share. Come on, let’s sit down and we’ll explain everything that’s happened in the past few hours.”
I hang my head in shame for acting like a lunatic, but if there’s any chance Nat’s alive I need to know about it.
“Okay, spill. What happened after I was arrested? How did you guys even know that happened?”
Sally tucks her hair behind her ear nervously. “Well, we didn’t find out until we saw your mom on the news. She was being interviewed about Natalie’s death and told reporters she knew you had something to do with it because she watched you come home in a daze, covered in blood.”
“Wait, my mom was on the news?”
“Yeah, man. There’s been a lot of media coverage about Nat’s death. Here’s the thing, though. We drove past where the accident happened and Sally noticed something... strange. We may have snuck around, looking for clues,” Jessica admits, not at all caring that she may have compromised a crime scene.
Then again, if our positions were reversed, I would have done the same for either of them.
“So, what strange thing did you notice?” I ask, wondering what they could have found.
Sally shuffles from foot to foot and glances around to make sure we’re still alone. “When we saw the scene, I thought for sure someone had been killed. Natalie’s car was still there, but it looked as if a bomb had hit the front of it. But I guess that’s to be expected from the way the tree was destroyed. What wasn’t normal, though, was the blood. It took a lot of sneaking for us to get close, but when we did I noticed something… off about it.”
She pauses, making me want to shout at her for answers, but I know Sally’s mind. She is processing things as she speaks and it’s best not to interrupt her if I don’t want her to get side-tracked.
“Do you remember the science project we did during our last semester of senior year?”
I immediately nod. We wanted to show the physical differences between synthetic and real blood. Things like color, smell and even texture. A jock in our class had made a snide comment before we started our project, saying that without the proper equipment you couldn’t tell the difference between the two. We decided to prove him wrong and grind home the point by developing different versions of synthetic blood: the kind most commonly used in movies and one we developed ourselves. Our formula was as close to real blood as you could get; it could easily fool someone at first glance. But ultimately if someone was paying close enough attention, they would be able to spot the difference.
“Are you saying the blood that was on me, and the blood that was at the crime scene, was synthetic?” I ask, unable to mask the hope in my voice.
“Yeah, it wasn’t as sophisticated as ours, but the majority of it was fake. There was some real blood mixed in with it so I can see why initial field test results and the crime scene technicians didn’t catch it. I don’t know what happened last night, but I don’t think you killed Natalie. I think someone hurt you, then kidnapped her and staged the scene so you’d take the fall.”
“Well, what do we do now? Do I just sit here and wait? What if she’s out there being hurt?”
Jessica shakes her head sadly. “We have no choice but to wait for all their results to come back in. Your dad said hopefully the evidence will be enough to clear you; until then there’s nothing we can do.”
A knock on the door, followed by Jessica’s older sister entering, has me moving to the give each of the girls a hug. “Thanks so much for coming to see me.”
They each respond by giving me a tight squeeze. Then Misty puts the cuffs back on me. She pulls me to the door, but Jess stops her. “Wait, Misty. Please just be gentle. She’s my friend.”
Her sister laughs at her. “I have a job to do, Jess. If I give her special treatment, then I get called out. Until we know for certain she’s innocent, I have to treat her as the killer she’s presumed to be.”
No more words are spoken after that. We leave the room and I’m led back to my cell, but I notice that Misty is a lot less harsh than she was the first time. Once she leaves, I start to pace. Adrenaline is coursing through me with no way to release the pent-up energy.
I pace in my cell for God knows how long before a new cop opens the door and makes his way down the hall. He leads a woman into the cell next to mine and shoves her through the door.
He locks her in and then comes over to open my cell door. “Stand against the wall with your hands behind your back.”
When I comply, he roughly grabs my hands, cuffing me.
“Hey! Could you be gentle? I’m not resisting.”
He doesn’t listen, instead he just guides me harshly down the hall, then through the door into the station where my dad waits for me. He comes hurrying over to us and then the police officer leads us into yet another white-walled room with a two-way mirror. The officer undoes my cuffs and then leaves us alone.
“Okay, baby girl, there is a lot we need to discuss. Tomorrow morning we’ll be going to court. Now, my team has looked over the evidence the police have, and it’s not much. The most they have going for them is the fact that both your DNA and
Natalie’s were in the same car. We can easily explain that, though, because you two were best friends and hung out all the time. The thing that has made the case a little more difficult is the fact your mother is acting as a witness for the District Attorney.”
My father remains emotionless as he talks, all the while rearranging papers that he pulls out of his briefcase. He pauses, his hands gripping the last pieces of paper tight, seeming hesitant to show me whatever it is.
“These pictures,”—he gestures at the papers he’s holding—“honey, these are pictures of the crime scenes. I thought it might be a good idea to let you see them in a private environment before you have to see them in the courtroom. But if you aren’t ready, it can wait.”
“No, I need to see them. Maybe it will trigger memories of what happened.”
With that, Dad sighs and lays them out on the table one at a time, much like I imagine a police officer would. I gasp at the sight.
The whole front of Nat’s pink car has been crushed as if she crashed into something. It looks the same as when my mother and I hit that tree when I was sixteen. The only difference is that the whole front of the car has blood spattered everywhere. The ground is soaked with just as much blood and bits of my dress are clearly visible on the front of the car.
How could that have happened? Did I hit my head? No, I couldn’t have because I don’t have any injuries. None of this is making sense.
“Dad, Sally told me most of the blood is fake.”
His eyes narrow. “And just how would Sally know that? The crime scene was sealed.” I open my mouth to respond when he holds up a hand to stop me. “Wait, I don’t want to know.”
I close my mouth with a small grin. He knows whatever she did probably wasn’t strictly legal and doesn’t want to implicate himself.
“Right, anyway, we got a little side-tracked there. Tomorrow your case is going to be presented before the judge and if things go our way, you should be out of here soon. The judge has preemptively put a gag order on the courtroom so no press will be present, but there’s something else I need to tell you.”
He pauses to take in a deep breath before fixing his sad eyes on mine. “Your mother may mention this in court to hurt you and I feel you should hear it from me first. No matter what, just know I love you.”
I frown, unsure where he’s going with this. It sounds like he’s saying goodbye. “Dad, you’re freaking me out.”
“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” He blows out a puff of air and speaks quickly. “You’re not our daughter, not biologically at least. You’re adopted.” He leans back and covers his face as if he can’t bear to see my expression while I just sit there, absolutely stunned. To think I might be adopted is one thing, but to have it confirmed is another.
I quickly push to my feet, the metal chair slamming as it hits the ground. I walk backwards, my heart racing.
“Honey, you okay?”
I nod quickly, taking slow, deep breaths, feeling myself on the verge of a panic attack. As my breathing becomes more labored, I sink to the floor and wrap my arms around my knees. Then the silent tears start to fall. It feels like the world is playing some cruel joke on me. But why me? What did I do to deserve this?
“Oh, baby girl. I am so sorry. I didn’t ever want you to find out like this. You don’t deserve any of what’s happened. I promise, we will fix it.”
At my father’s words, I realize I must have spoken out loud. Not that it matters.
I look up at my father and the pity in his eyes almost breaks me. Has no one in my life been truthful? Something inside me starts to build, a darkness I don’t understand.
My father walks over and lifts me to my feet. “I promise you, Valerie, you are my daughter, regardless of who your biological parents may be. Please don’t think any differently. I will always love you and I only wanted to tell you because it’s likely your mother has already informed the DA. I couldn’t let you be taken off guard by such crucial information.”
His watch beeps and he looks down with a grimace. “Sorry, honey, but I have to go.”
As if on queue, the door opens and the officer who brought me in walks in, carrying a pair of cuffs. “Time to go back to your cell,” he says gruffly.
I turn and hold out my hands behind my back, already used to this treatment. Once I’m re-cuffed, he pulls me to the door. But before I can leave, my father meets my eyes. “I will get you out of this, Valerie. I swear.”
Then I’m led back to the cell and uncuffed. My mind spins round and round with all the information that’s been piled on me in such a short time. I lay down on the small cot and close my eyes, trying to process it all. I can only hope sleep will make everything clearer.
Five
“I know you.”
The handsome man in front of me reaches up with a hand, caressing my cheek. “Yes, love, you do.”
“Who are you?” I ask, trying to ignore the way his touch makes me feel hot all over. I’ve never been the type to swoon, but with his skin pressed against mine, it feels like I could at any moment.
He drops his hand and intertwines it with my own. “It doesn’t matter, Valerie. What matters is what you need to see.” He pulls me along through the trees at a quick pace. And then suddenly, we’re in my house, just outside the sitting room door. The mysterious man opens the door and voices float out. It feels familiar listening to my mother and Nat argue, but I don’t know what he’s trying to show me.
I turn to the man. “I don’t understand.”
He leans forward and presses a kiss to my cheek. “I know, but soon it will all make sense, I promise.” Then he takes a step away from me, and the look on his face makes me want to reach after him. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Valerie.”
My stomach is so nauseous that I have never been gladder for skipping a meal. A new officer grabbed me from my cell just after they gave us breakfast. It was a sticky porridge, and with my stomach already a bundle of nerves, I decided against having any.
The officer led me into a small room just outside the courtroom and told me my lawyer was on the way. I paced the room nervously, waiting for my dad to show up. The moment he did, my nerves finally settled.
“Okay, honey, you know the drill? When the judge speaks to you, you answer. Otherwise, just let me do the talking.”
I nod and then he opens the door to the courtroom. The police officer guides me to a seat right up front. I can’t help but feel like I’m in some kind of TV show.
Looking across the aisle, I see a well-dressed man in a suit sitting in front of my mother. They whisper together, both casting strange glances my way. He’s obviously the DA for this case, but what doesn’t make sense is the fact my mother seems to be all chummy with him. And judging by the way the man’s heated gaze lingers over her well-positioned cleavage as he reaches down to give her hand a squeeze, I suspect they know each other a little more than is appropriate, especially given the fact that she’s his witness.
I grit my teeth, angry that she could think I would be capable of something so heinous as killing my best friend.
The clerk sitting next to the raised platform at the front of the room gets to his feet. “All rise for the Honorable Judge Danson.”
My father and I get to our feet, along with my mother and the DA. Then a balding man in a black robe enters the room from a door behind the platform.
The clerk waits for the judge to sit before telling us all to be seated. Then he hands the judge a folder and states the case number and title. Wow. The people versus Valerie Jones; that isn’t terrifying at all.
The judge skims over the folder’s contents before looking down at me. “The charge is first degree murder. Do you understand the charges as they have been read to you?”
At a nudge from my father, I get to my feet shakily. “I do, Your Honor.”
He nods. “How do you plead?”
I take a deep breath, making my voice sound strong and confident, trying to convey to him with my tone that I’m not the o
ne he’s looking for. “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
"Very well." The judge shuffles some papers around on his desk. “I assume you both have statements prepared?”
My father and the DA respond in the affirmative.
"Okay then, you may begin.” The judge nods at the district attorney.
The man gets to his feet. “Your Honor, we’re here today because this woman, Valerie Jones, was found covered in the blood of the murder victim. She has been questioned by police, but has denied having any knowledge of the crime, even though her DNA was found at the crime scene.”
“Objection, Your Honor.” My father gets to his feet angrily. “My client’s DNA was bound to show up at the crime scene since the victim was my client’s best friend. They spent nearly every day together.”
The judge looks stern as he looks through the documents in front of him. When he’s finished, he meets my eyes. “Is this true? You were with the victim most days?”
I clear my throat nervously. “Yes, Your Honor. She was my best friend. I loved her.”
He writes something down before glancing over at the DA. “You may continue.”
The judge’s face remains stoic as the DA lists off every reason why I should be locked away for life. Listening to him describe my blackouts as some kind of rage episodes makes me feel sick to my stomach.
After he’s finished, he glances back at my mother with a cocky smile before turning to face the judge once more. “Ms. Jones’ mother asked to be here today and I would like to call on her as a witness if I may?”
The judge nods again and my mother walks up to the box beside the judge’s stand. Then the bailiff closes the gate behind her. Her hair is neatly primped and her makeup is perfectly done. She looks the absolute picture of a sophisticated woman with money, aside from her attempt to make her cleavage draw every man’s attention that is. As she takes a seat, I can’t help but wonder why she’s doing this. I’ve done everything for her. Hell, I stayed behind instead of going to college for her. I lived with her when I could have instead moved in with Natalie. But despite all of that, look where I am: accused of murder with my own mother acting as a witness against me.