Cross-Examinations
1516 Words
(Jackson)
All of the warriors we talked to were calm and collected.
I would expect nothing less of them and I had to suppress the pride I felt knowing that there was a possibility that one of them helped Jennifer escape.
“Did you hear anything out of context that they said, something that didn’t make sense in a sentence?” Cam asks the last of the six men that were on rotation on her cell.
“If you’re asking me if I noticed a possible code, I did not, Gamma.” Cam nods.
“Anything else that could have been of interest?”
The man pauses for second thinking before shaking his head, “Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, and we were on alert, especially when she had visitors.”
Cam already had searched her cell and found nothing of importance, nothing that smelled similar to that sulfur scent we picked up in the delivery room.
“Thank you, Todd. That will be all for now. Go join the others, no speaking.”
“Yes, Gamma.” He heads out.
“Call back in Mick.”
“Yes, Gamma.”
We have been at it for hours, now we were at the stage where Cam wanted to cross-question them, make sure their stories held up a second time around.
Sorry, this is taking ages. How are you, my love?
Just eating a late lunch with Abigail and my new man
I let out a growl in my mind and heard her giggle
He’s not so bad honestly, just a little quiet, but we're working on it.
I’m sure he's loving that
How much longer?
No idea, Cam is onto our second round of interviews
Better to figure it out sooner than later to get it taken care of
You’re right, - I sigh - I’ll see you for dinner at least
I cut off the link when Mick comes back in and takes the seat across from us again.
“You were the first one to bring her dinner?” Lucas asks, we already asked him this question multiple times but he answers without any annoyance in his voice.
“Yes, Beta. I was assigned to her that evening.”
“Who took over for you?” Cam starts to rapid-fire
“Samuel took over for the night shift.”
“What time?”
“3:00 AM sharp.”
“Who took over after him?”
“I think Jake, I was on patrols during the afternoon so I’m not exactly sure.”
I give Lucas and Cam a look
Why haven’t we interviewed Jake?
He’s not on the list - Lucas responds looking back at his notes
I’ll link him now
“Why wasn’t Jake watching her after that morning?”
“I’m not sure.” He looks down as if trying to remember, “Someone was making fun of him the next day for being demoted but the captain shut him down immediately.”
“Demoted,” Lucas says the word as if he was rolling it around in his mouth
I’m linking the captain too, I wasn’t informed - Cam links me, his mouth twitches in a frown for a split second before he composes himself again
“Where was Jake stationed after?”
“He was mostly in the dungeons but near the gate or making rounds, he wasn’t assigned to any of the prisoners.”
“Was there any contact between the witch and Jennifer?” Lucas interjects a likely theory we played around with, but they were too far away and I knew that there was no way she could have used her magic in that place to communicate with her.
“No, Beta. I don’t know if they even knew of each other's existence.”
Cam nods, “Thank you, Mick. Bring in Jake, he should be waiting outside now.”
“Yes, Gamma.” He gives a quick bow to us.
Jake comes in sitting down looking more flustered, a sharp contrast between the other warrior's composed auras.
“Alpha, Beta, Gamma.” He stands behind the chair I nod to him to sit down.
“Well, Jake.” I start, expanding my aura, so he leaned into himself looking down. Definitely not like the rest of them, “I think there is something that you need to tell us.” I go on, hoping that this hunch would pay off.
“I-i-i I promise that I didn’t know.” Lucas’ eyes go wide as he looks at me before looking back at the quivering man.
“Know what, Jake? We need to hear it out loud.” I prompt firmly.
“I didn’t know, I swear, I didn’t know that she was supposed to be supervised for the visits, I just took over and I was by the door while the others did their rounds and the captain stepped to his office to run his reports. I swear, Alpha, on anything. I had no idea.” He hangs his head shaking. I look at Cam and Lucas confused. Cam nods forward seeing if he can cut in and I lean back, letting him take the stage.
“Step by step, what happened, leave nothing out.” Cam says his voice devoid of any emotion, “Sit up.” He commands and Jake does it immediately but looks back to the table not able to face any of us.
“So, Jennifer’s dad came to the door and said he was allowed a visit and was there to see his daughter.” Cam looks at him before he stumbles to go on, “So I lead him down to her cell and, uh, I went back to the door because I had to be there to man it. I get back to the front and Nick was in my face asking me why I left my post, so I uh told him Jennifer’s dad was there. We were all informed that she was a prisoner there and was only allowed visits from her parents, so we knew that.” He stumbles over his words.
“And then?”
“Then, Nick drags me down and tells me that I’m being taken off guard duty and that her meetings were supposed to be supervised. He tells her dad to leave and then escorts him out and me to the captain. I swear, I didn’t know. I just got to my post, what else was I supposed to do?”
“Not let him in,” Lucas mutters under his breath and Jake looks up at him fear in his eyes.
Cam sits back, “They shouldn’t have left only one person at the gate anyway, I need to revisit the dungeon assignments, maybe switch shifts with more overlap.” Cam says mostly to himself.
“And what did her dad look like?” Lucas asks taking notes on his notepad, seeming bored.
“Uh, not that tall but tallish?” He’s able to look at Lucas’ face now who is still scribbling, doodling in his notebook, something about it made Jake feel more comfortable, “Dark brown hair, graying a bit, blue eyes, it was hard to tell-”
“Dark brown hair?” I sit up asking him, he immediately looks back down to his hands, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Cam and Lucas look at me, before realization dawns on Cam’s face and his stare snaps to Jake.
“Was he stocky?” Cam asks, Jake looks confused and Lucas sits up and puffs out his chest, pulling his arms back.
“Uh, like big? Or fat?” Jake asks.
“Both,” Cam says and Lucas nods nonchalantly.
“Not really, he was a bit lean, on the skinnier side but not skinny.”
“Can you describe anything else about him?”
“He was confident, I guess. He didn’t seem too sad about the situation, actually almost emotionless.”
Cam nods and folds his arms, “That's nice but we're looking for something more physical.”
“He seemed to be late forties early fifties, maybe.” He shrugs, “I think he was wearing a blue button-down.”
Cam sighs, and waves his hand indicating for him to stop, “You may leave this room. Wait outside. Speak to no one.” Jake gets up and trips over his chair before bowing to us and backing out of the room.
“Who wants to fill me in?” Lucas asks
“Greg, Jennifer’s mom has light brown hair, blondish,” I say, thinking about how he looked the last time I saw him.
“I think that’s called dirty blonde.” Cam cuts in
“Whatever it's called, it's not brown.” Lucas waves him off, “So what? It could have been dark.”
“He’s also stocky.” Lucas turns to me
“Wait, so who visited her?”
“Unaccompanied,” Cam adds.
“That’s what we need to figure out.”
- Writer
