"I'd love to come back," I said, "but unless my campus insurance covers this, I can't afford it."
She smiled. "Your sessions are on me. Pro bono. You can pay it forward when you're an attorney and find a client who needs your help but may not have the means for it."
"Thank you."
I felt a small measure of hope blossom in my chest as I left her office, only to have it quashed when I found myself face-to-face with Detective Gray. "Miss Travis, I need you to come to the precinct with me and answer a few questions."
The temporary calm disappeared and I looked to Professor Cavin, who stood behind him helplessly, and then to Lauren, who placed herself between me and the detective despite relatively little room. "What's this about?" she asked.
"This doesn't concern you, Lauren," Detective Gray said in a way that made it seem he knew her personally. "Catelyn has some explaining to do about her relationship with Bridgette Beaumont and her role in the young lady's disappearance.”
Chapter Fourteen
Alternate Theory
THEY MADE ME wait in the interrogation room for three hours with no contact or interaction before Detective Gray and his potbellied partner came in. I wondered if they'd fall into the good cop/bad cop role and, if so, who would be what. From my vantage point, they were both bad cops.
Detective Gray sat across from me and dropped Bridgette's journal in front of me. "This tells an interesting tale, Miss Travis. One of escalating anger and out-of-control outbursts toward Bridgette and others. One of a young woman who began to fear for her safety around her best friend. One that ends the day she was kidnapped after multiple people saw and heard you fight with her."
My heart sped up and I wished I'd had time to fill the anti-anxiety prescription before coming here. It would be useful right now.
"Is there a question in there somewhere or are you just talking to hear yourself talk?" I asked, surprised my voice sounded so calm and cold considering how absolutely terrified I felt inside.
"That's not a very cooperative attitude for someone who claims to care about her best friend," Gray said.
"I've told you everything I know," I said, my voice getting louder. "What else do you want from me?"
"I want to know what happened the day your friend disappeared. I want to know why you're lying to us about going to the impound lot that day. I want to know why she was scared of you." His voice rose to match mine and his partner stood in the corner, his face unreadable.
I guess I was getting the bad cop/silent cop treatment today.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Brig wasn't scared of me or anyone else. And, yeah, we had fights. What roommates don't fight sometimes? But I love her and would never hurt her. You should be out there looking for the Midnight Murderer. He's the one who has her, not me."
He pulled pictures out of a file and laid them in front of me. "We found a lot of blood on the Beaumonts’ back porch. Our labs matched it with Bridgette's. This much blood means she might not still be alive."
My face drained of feeling, and probably color. I couldn't keep listening to this, couldn't let them talk about her like she was already dead and I was a suspect.
"That's not possible. He has her. I told you. The message on the wall. The note."
Gray sneered. "Right. The disappearing note that only you have ever seen and the lipstick message on the wall anyone could have written, including you. The man at the impound lot that only you have seen. No one there matches the description you gave us and no one claims to have seen you that day."
This didn't make any sense. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't making it up.
"You have to dig deeper. Look harder. Someone's trying to set me up. The guy who killed my parents is still out there."
"So you say," he said. "But we have a different theory. We think that you have become addicted to the attention of being a victim, that when Lucky was captured you couldn't handle falling into anonymity, so you had to create a story that would keep you in the limelight. We think that Bridgette knew you were snapping and was trying to help you, but you two fought. And that day, when you snapped, maybe it was an accident. Maybe you didn't mean to hurt her. If that's the case, and you confess, we can help you. Get you help. But if you don't tell us what happened, there's nothing we can do."
The roar in my head took over and I pushed my chair back and stood, screaming at Gray as I leaned over the table to hit him, to stop him from saying these things. "She's not dead. I didn't do anything. You're lying. You're in on it. All of you are in on it!"
The silent partner in the corner rushed me, yanking my arms back aggressively and putting my wrists in too-tight handcuffs that pressed painfully against my still-healing scars. They dragged me down the hall and into a cell, locking me behind bars and leaving me alone. At least they'd taken off the handcuffs.
I fell to my knees, sobbing and pulling at my hair, knowing everything in my life was about to crash down around me.