by Marlowe Blue
I loved some of the challenges and I loved my friends, but when things got out of control and I wanted out, it was as if Coach could read my mind. True to his word, he never said another word about Officer Downs. He’d just smile real big, baring all his teeth like a hungry wolf, and that was how I knew he was reminding me of our evil secret.
I couldn’t tell the detectives any of that though, not unless I wanted them to add another murder to my charges. Coach wasn’t around to take the blame anymore and who knew what Shawn Perkins would say.
The detectives watched me expectantly.
I closed my eyes, trying to push away images of Coach. “We were childhood friends. We dated during our freshman and sophomore years. After we broke up we were still really good friends. That’s it. I have no idea who would want to kill him.”
I was ashamed to admit the thought had crossed my mind a few times. Coach being dead would give me my freedom, I would never have to worry about him telling my secret and ruining my life. Yes, I thought about it, but I would have never been able to go through with it.
McAllister gathered his things. “I think that’s enough for now, gentlemen. My client needs to sleep.”
Nichols glanced at his watch. “Yes. We’ll pick up later this morning. Hopefully by then you can remember a little more than you did tonight.”
My eyes drooped but I didn’t think I would ever sleep again. I’d spend the rest of my life tossing and turning, seeing the images of my murdered friends. “Morning? Where am I going to sleep?”
“In a cell,” Bloom said matter-of-factly as if I’d asked the stupidest question ever. “Don’t worry. You’ll be isolated from the other prisoners. They’ll bring you some breakfast and we’ll reconvene right here.”
McAllister leaned over and touched my arm, giving me goose bumps. “Don’t say a word to anyone until I get back here, okay?”
I nodded.
I went to bed that night going through the list of people who could have done this to my friends. I had to remember something about that night before I ended up taking the fall.
13
The Present
I slept in a small room with white cinderblock walls and a bed that was too hard. A sink and toilet were located in the corner. It took me a while to fall asleep because my thin blanket did little to protect me from the cold, but eventually exhaustion took over.
At around 8 AM a guard brought me a Styrofoam tray filled with breakfast items. I had scrambled eggs, a small box of cereal, an apple and a carton of orange juice. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was as I wolfed down my breakfast. Placing the empty tray beside me, I sat on my bed, anxiously waiting to see what would happen next.
As I waited, I made a mental checklist of people who would want to kill my friends. I’d already thought of people like Hunter Clarke and Zander Finley, but neither of them was capable of doing something like this.
The image of Neil Bradley popped in my head. I could see him grinning at me from underneath his trusty baseball cap. Neil had been trying to get in with the Hex since his freshman year and we’d always denied him. Not only that, we’d never even given him a chance. Even when we had an opening after Zander’s accident, Coach wouldn’t consider Neil. Had he finally had enough of being rejected and lost it? Did he really want to be a part of our group so badly that it would push him so far over the edge? If he had, why did he kill the others and leave me alive?
It didn’t make sense. Why would he have been at the Donahue’s house? We wouldn’t have let him in and he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to drug us.
It was almost ten when I was led to a room to meet with McAllister. He looked pale and more exhausted than he had the day before, but each of his hairs remained perfectly in place. I imagined he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep trying to figure out how he could possibly win this impossible case.
“I want to see my parents,” I told him as soon as I had taken my seat.
“You may not be able to see them again until after your arraignment, which should be no later than tomorrow. That’s when the judge will decide what to charge you with.”
I sank lower into my seat.
McAllister leaned forward, wearing a super serious expression. “I really need you to try to remember what happened yesterday between the afternoon and night. This is really important. It’s going to be hard for you to defend yourself when you really have no idea what happened.” He paused and raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you know?”
I glared at him. Did he think I was making up the fact that I had completely lost all that time from the night before? “If I knew what happened, I would gladly tell the detectives so I could go home. I didn’t do this.”
“I’m not asking you if you’re guilty. I’m just asking you to remember.”
I looked down at my dry, cracked hands which were in desperate need of lotion. “I remember I was supposed to be going over to AJ and Brayden’s just to hang out. That’s it. I don’t remember going, though.”
McAllister sighed. “Lela, you don’t have to answer any more questions if you don’t want to. I can have them take you right back to your cell to wait for your arraignment.”
“No. I need to talk to them. How else are they going to find out who did this if I don’t? I don’t have anything to hide from them because I haven’t done anything. I didn’t kill my friends.”
McAllister rubbed his forehead in exasperation. “Lela, you need to understand something—this story has gone nationwide. With a horrible crime like this, especially one involving young people, there’s going to be extra pressure placed on the police department to take down the murderer. You’re the most likely suspect and were literally caught red-handed. They’re not going out of their way to look for other suspects.”
The room seemed to tilt. They were going to pin these murders on me while the real murderer was out there running around getting away with their heinous crimes.
I sat up straighter and squared my shoulders. “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t get how being quiet is going to help me. I want to talk to them.”
It took a while, but Bloom and Nichols finally strolled in. They had on fresh clothes and Nichols had shaved, but they still looked tired and haggard as if they’d been up for days.
“Morning,” they mumbled.
I nodded in reply.
The detectives sat across from me. Nichols took the first question. “Lela, why did you go over to the Donahue’s yesterday?”
I shrugged. “I guess maybe someone called or texted me to come over. Whatever it was, it was probably a last-minute thing. I don’t remember us having anything planned beforehand.”
Bloom shook his head. “We pulled your phone records. Someone texted you to come over.”
Isn’t that what I had just said? “Yeah, okay.”
Bloom slid a sheet of paper across the table—a print out of the texts pulled from my phone.
Bloom cleared his throat. “It was your friend, Morgan.”
14
The Present
I stared at the sheet of paper which held the last few text messages between Morgan and myself. The last one she’d sent to me read:
All going 2 A&B’s in 15. C U there!
So Morgan had been there to? Did she know what happened?
I read the message over and over as if I could make it say something different. “What does it mean?”
Nichols took the paper from me. “We have Morgan here in the next room. She says she wasn’t there. We thought it was strange that she would tell you to go over there and then not show up herself. Like she knew something bad was going to happen.”
That was absolutely ridiculous. They were grasping at straws. “Morgan had nothing to do with this. She’s an angel. Other than falling in with us, she never did anything wrong. What did she say when you asked her about the text?”
Bloom stroked his chin. “She said she was on her way out the door but then her mother told her she couldn’t leave the house u
ntil she finished her paper.”
That sounded about right. The Thornes were very strict and serious about school work so I could totally see that happening. “What? You don’t believe her?” I asked the detectives.
Nichols leaned back in his seat. “Maybe. We told her a normal person would have sent a follow-up text to their bestie telling them they weren’t going to be able to make it after all, but she said she forgot.”
Yes, Morgan would have sent a text letting me know, but people do forget things. “What did she say? Does she think I did it?”
The detectives looked at each other and I had my answer. There was probably a whole big world out there who thought I was guilty. I needed to get to the bottom of this. Drugged or not, I knew I hadn’t killed anyone.
I dug my fingernails into my palm. “Let me talk to her. I need to ask her some questions. Maybe she can help me remember something. Maybe she can help me figure out who would do this.”
The detectives looked unsure, then Bloom nodded his head toward the door. Both detectives left the room, I assumed to discuss whether or not I should be able to speak to Morgan.
Once they were gone, McAllister leaned in close. “This Morgan—would she have a motive?”
I rolled my eyes. “I told you. She would never do anything so awful.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” McAllister replied firmly. “My job is to plant the seeds of reasonable doubt. Does she have a motive?”
“No,” I said out loud, but on the inside, I was screaming, Yes!
I had never told anyone the secret of Officer Downs. The Saturday after Morgan had been kicked out of the Hex the two of us sat by the stream. We were perched on a fallen log, dangling our feet in the water. Even though Morgan said she hadn’t been mad at me, she was acting funny. I knew she had something on her mind that she wasn’t saying.
“What is it?” I asked.
Morgan pulled a Snickers from her back pocket and unwrapped it. She took a huge bite without offering me any. She always let me have first bite. “I have to say, Lee, if you were ever kicked out of a group that we were both a part of, I would quit. I wouldn’t keep being friends with those people.”
She had no idea how badly I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t. “Morg, I’m sorry, real sorry. You’re my best friend, but they’re my friends too. I’ve known them forever.”
She took another huge bite and laughed. “I get it. You’ve known them longer so your loyalty lies with them. Good to know.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Why was I lying to her? I was only going to make it worse. I didn’t want to lose Morgan and I felt like that was about to happen.
“I want to quit so badly, but I can’t.”
She made a circle in the water with her toe. “Why? Because you’ll lose your reputation of being a bad ass? I swear, that’s all you guys care about.”
“That’s not it at all.”
Morgan pursed her lips. “Yeah, what is it then?”
Silence fell between us for a few moments, as I contemplated what I was about to do, but then I broke like a dam. I told her everything, from the baby carriage to the whole catastrophe with Officer Downs. She listened with wide eyes. As soon as I told her, I wished I hadn’t. There was absolutely no telling what she would think of me after that.
Surprisingly her shock quickly turned to fury. She was the angriest I’d ever seen her. “Lee, you have to do something. You can’t just let Coach hold you prisoner like this. He can hold this over your head for the rest of your life.”
Yes, I knew that. The thought hovered over me like a black cloud every single day. “There’s nothing I can do. I made my bed and now I had to lie in it. I should have never gone with Coach that night and I never should have picked up that rock.”
The only reason I had even gone to Coach’s house was to keep a situation he had created from getting worse. The only reason I had hit Officer Downs with that rock was to stop him from killing Coach. How had all my good intentions ended so horribly?
Morgan put her arm around me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Now I feel extra shitty about being mad at you. I’m sorry I ate the whole Snickers.”
I laughed and then we said nothing for a long time. Finally, Morgan said, “You’re a good person, Lee. Don’t ever forget that. I could tell from the second I met you. Don’t worry about Coach. One day he’s going to get exactly what he deserves.”
I didn’t think much of those words at the time because people always said things like that, but now they echoed through my heart. Morgan hadn’t done it. She’s simply not capable. Even if she had, why kill Charlotte, AJ, and Brayden? They had nothing to do with Officer Downs. Would she had killed them simply because they were there and in the way? That made no sense. She would have simply waited until she was alone with Coach and done it.
But Morgan didn’t do it.
The detectives came back into the room and Bloom gave me their decision. “We’re going to let you talk to your friend, just for a few minutes and it will be video-monitored.”
I nodded. That was better than nothing. Even if I didn’t get any answers, I had to tell Morgan that I was innocent. Even if no one else in the world believed me, I needed her to. I had to explain to her that I wasn’t a murderer. She was one of the few people who thought I was worth something.
McAllister protested, but I insisted. Nichols led me down a long narrow hallway to a room on the very end. In the room, Morgan sat with her head on the table. When she saw me, she ran over and wrapped me in a tight hug and kissed my cheek.
“Lee, are you okay?”
I nodded because I didn’t want her to worry. Morgan looked terrible as if she hadn’t brushed her hair or slept in days even though I had seen her the day before.
Nichols handcuffed me to the table and then left us alone. Morgan took a seat at the other end. “You know they’re recording this, right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Morgan, I didn’t do this. I swear I didn’t. You believe me, don’t you?”
She quickly glanced down at the table and I knew she didn’t. She thought I was guilty just like everyone else did. “Lee, come on. You were bloody. You had a knife in your hand. You can’t tell anyone what really happened when you were there. I don’t want to believe it, but what am I supposed to think?”
She was right. I wouldn’t have believed me either, but I needed her to have enough faith in me to look past all that evidence. “I need to remember. Morgan, what do you remember about that day?”
“I was on the phone with Char asking her if she wanted to go shopping this weekend. Remember, that was my job. To get her to think we were going shopping but then we would kidnap her for her surprise birthday trip?”
Yes, the birthday trip. That had turned into a totally awkward situation.
The trip had been planned before Morgan was kicked out of the Hex. We were supposed to be staying at her family’s cabin. Coach had wanted Morgan to know she was still invited and had ordered the others to be nice to her only so we could still use the cabin. I’d wanted to tell Morgan, but that would only hurt her feelings and ruin the plans for Char’s birthday. I figured what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles. “Yes, I remember.”
“When we were about to hang up, she told me she was over at the twins’ house as usual and that they were ordering pizza and that I should come. I thought it was weird for her to invite me since Coach had ordered everyone to stay away from me, but she said he didn’t mind me just hanging out. Lucky me, huh? She told me to come by and she told me to tell you too.”
Morgan wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly why they had invited her over. Even though she wasn’t saying it, I detected the bitterness in her voice.
Morgan stopped talking and took a deep breath. “I was all set to go but then my mom was being all bitchy and said I couldn’t leave the house until my history paper was done. We got into this huge blow out fight and th
en I was so angry I forgot to let you know that I wasn’t going.
“Then that was it. I spent the rest of the day working on that stupid paper. I ate dinner with my parents. Showered. I was making myself a little snack and about to go to sleep when you came knocking at the door and . . . you know the rest.”
I felt as if I were going to bring up my breakfast. None of this information was helping me at all. It gave Morgan an alibi, but it wasn’t doing anything for me. “Who do you think would do this?”
She shrugged and her eyes darted around the room, maybe looking for the video camera. “I thought Zander, but obviously he couldn’t. Hunter could still be pissed about what you guys did to his father’s business. Maybe it was just random. Some wacko off the street came in and hacked them to death, but then that doesn’t explain why you’re still alive. That’s why . . .”
“That’s why what?” I demanded.
She looked away from me. She only did that when she knew she was about to say something that would piss me off. “That’s why it looks like you. You were there. You were the only one who survived, but you can’t say what happened. What do you expect people to think?”
“So, you really don’t believe me.” I guess I had been in denial up to that point. The disappointment weighed me down.
There was a brisk knock on the door before it flung open. “That’s enough,” Nichols said. He came over and released my cuffs from the table.
The room blurred as my eyes filled with tears. I stared at the multi-colored glob that was Morgan. “I can’t go down for this. I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison for someone else’s crime. Morgan, please, I didn’t do it.”
Nichols pried me away from the table. The chair tipped over and clattered to the floor. I couldn’t see Morgan anymore, but I heard her. “Lee, if you didn’t do it, you have to start remembering. You have to remember what happened yesterday!”