The stale smell of coffee wafts through the door as Deacon walks in again, this time with my lawyer trailing behind him, having been filled in on what I was arrested for. Placing his briefcase down on the table that my hands are cuffed to, he takes a seat beside me. Deacon and another officer I’m not familiar with, sit across from us as they go through the spiel about recording the interview.
“Can you please state your full name?” Deacon asks after rambling off his and his colleagues names along with today’s date and time.
“Rory Eric Vincent” I blankly stare at him, wondering how he could possibly believe I did this. He has known me since I was a kid. I know he is just doing his job, but I would be lying if I said the thought of him not believing me didn’t sting a little.
“Can we start with how you know Bristol Montgomery?” I look at my lawyer for confirmation that this is an acceptable question and he nods for me to proceed.
“I don’t know her.” Yet I do, but she told me not to say anything and that is what I plan to do for now. It’s my word against theirs and they have no proof. I made sure of it.
“If you help us, we can clear all this up.” Deacon says.
“Don’t promise my client anything. You don’t know if talking will clear this up,” my lawyer snipes in adon’t bullshit ustone.
“Since he is under arrest for kidnapping, I suggest he gives us something.” I can tell Deacon is getting annoyed with my lawyer, his thumb lightly tapping against the table, his angry tick when he is trying to keep calm.
“I take it you have a statement from Bristol stating that my client kidnapped her... Wait you couldn’t possibly since she is currently known as JD and has no memory of what happened that night. So your case against my client is based on some very rough video footage of a girl and a boy running down a paddock, where it is possible they parted ways.”
There is more back and forth between the officers throwing out theories and my lawyer refuting them. My lawyer promises that he will have me released by the morning since their evidence is circumstantial at best. Apparently JD’s family has some good connections and they plan to hold me for as long as they can legally.
Once they realise I have nothing more to say, Deacon takes me back to the holding cells. When I was first brought in, the booking officer tried scare tactics in hopes of gaining a confession from me. He stated that since I’m seventeen I can be tried as an adult and would get put away for a very long time. The problem is, I didn’t kidnap her. I do know her contrary to what everyone thought and hope she forgives me after all this for not saying anything sooner, but it was for her own safety.
I’m worried about the guys, and I honestly don’t know if they will ever trust me again. They wouldn’t understand; I never lost a parent, I was never abused, starved or beaten but I was starved for the affection I should have gotten from my parents. My rich mum is batshit crazy and pops all different kinds of pills, washing them down with vodka. Her treatment is at an upscale psychiatric hospital three hours from where we live, but her friends think she is at some wellbeing resort on an extended holiday.
I lay back on the metal bed staring at the ceiling of my empty cell. My plan was fool proof or at least I thought it was until we found her broken and battered on the beach. At first I didn’t realise it was her, but as soon as I did, I wanted to tell the guys I knew who she was. They would have stopped me from leaving though, so I figured we could take her to the hospital, they would send her back and we could figure out how to break her out again. Money talks and I have enough of it, it’s how we escaped. When she woke up with no memory I figured if she doesn’t know who she is, all we needed was six months to put our plan back into action. I hired a private investigator who found out; her parents were out of the country for eight weeks, the psychiatric hospital couldn’t call the police to file a missing person without her parents permission due to a privacy clause that was signed and it wasn’t hard for him to switch out the numbers in her files to burner phones. Watching her every day and not telling her I loved her was hard, but watching her fall for my brothers was worse. I wanted to be jealous, to hate them but honestly how could I. If anyone deserved her, it’s them. I deserve someone inconsiderate and snake-like, someone like Cindy.
“Rory.” Lissa’s voice is a welcomed one. I might be able to get out of my head for a few minutes with her here, because every time I close my eyes, I see her beautiful face.
“Lissa, what are you doing back here?” She unlocks the cell door and brings me in a sandwich and a bottle of water.
“Bringing you food and letting you know JD is fine, just keep doing what you’re doing. They have nothing on you, her father is a very seedy man with deep pockets.”
“Has she gone back to them?” She nods, I can tell she knows why I’m concerned.
“Please make sure she is safe, they won’t let us anywhere near her.”
“There are orders being put in place as we speak, you and the guys can’t go near her. So make sure you keep them away, please trust me.”
“Find a way to keep her out of that hospital, breathe down their neck, if she…” I can’t imagine what will happen to her if she ends up back in that place.
“I will, just keep away from them Rory, I mean it and watch your back.”
She leaves me alone and I’m left to think about that night, it’s all I have thought about. How she ended up on the beach is something I can’t figure out.
“Do you think anyone is following us?” Bristol asks, looking through the back window of my mustang. We have to switch cars, so I have Cindy meeting me out on Old Creek Road. She may be a bitch but we’ve been friends since we were born, I have had her back more times than I can count. She knows I’m only leaving for six months, we have everything planned. Bristol is eighteen in December and I turn eighteen in January. If we get married her parents can’t send her back to that place. Once I’m her husband, I get a say in what happens to her whether they like it or not.
“No, we were careful, we have planned this for so long, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, it’s the only way to stop them, you don’t even know half of what they have done. Once we get married I can tell you, then you can’t testify against me. I want out.” I think it’s shit her parents committed her and are having her classed as mentally unstable so they can act as if she has no idea of what she is saying. I read her file, her family is vile.
We pull up onto the old dirt road, halfway down Cindy is parked in my shorty off to the side of the road. I tell Bristol to stay in the car for a minute. I know what Cindy is like and I need to speak with her alone first.
I step out of the car and Cindy does the same as I close the gap between us. She looks genuinely sad, which isn’t an emotion she knows, unless it’s crocodile tears to get her own way.
“Are you sure you want to do this Ror, it’s huge.” Cindy doesn’t care about much unless it involves her. We have known each other forever and I know she cares about me, maybe too much and I have used that to my benefit.
“I’ve told you Cindy, I love her, you just wouldn’t understand. I can’t leave her to rot in there any longer.” I haven’t told her much, just the basics. I don’t expect her to understand, girls like Cindy won’t ever fall in love, marriage is about money and connections in our world.
“I understand better than you know. Be careful and please come back, as much as it pains me to say it the guys won’t cope with you gone.”
