Don't Scream (Complete)

Chapter 49

Eli Bensworth 

"So, you want to tell us what you were doing at the scene of a crime, holding the knife used to kill a girl?" Rhonda asked the boy seated on the hot seat in the interrogation room. 

Jonah shook his head, his lips curled back and his eyes brimming over with tears. "I told you, I don't know." 

"You just happened to magically appear next to two girls' dead bodies?" Rhonda asked coldly. 

Jonah sniffed, gazing up at Rhonda with red eyes. "I came over there to look for P- Ponnie earlier that day. I found the two of them and then I lost consciousness. Someone knocked me out! I woke up with the knife in my hand! I've been framed!" 

Rhonda looked at Eli. 

Eli shrugged. "He could be telling the truth. Alberto's physical assessment showed that he had a bump on his head when he came into the station but he could have hit his head on anything. He might even have done it to himself to take the suspicion off him." 

"Did it to myself?! I didn't kill them! What can't you understand? Ponnie was my girlfriend! I'd never hurt her! I would never kill her! I was devastated to find her dead!" Jonah shouted. 

"Calm down," Rhonda spat. "Whether you're telling the truth about your head bump or not, you're still a suspect. Besides, you may not have motive to have killed Ponnie Adams, but there is motive for you killing Sylvia Thorne." 

"What?" Jonah looked genuinely confused. 

Eli cleared his throat. "We found DNA under Sylvia Thorne's fingernails and it belonged to Ponnie Adams." 

It took a while for Jonah to process this. "You're- You're saying Sylvia killed Ponnie? Why? Why would she do that?" 

"That's what the evidence says," Rhonda said. "I sent the DNA for testing myself. So here's what I'm thinking happened." She leaned in close to Jonah the same way she normally did when intimidating suspects. "Sylvia killed Ponnie and so, to avenge her, you killed Sylvia with the knife. An act of love. A murder, instigated by romance?" 

"You're insane!" Jonah spat back. 

Eli's phone beeped in his pocket. He took it out and stared at the screen. 

"Rhonda, come on, let's talk outside," Eli said, indicating the door with a jerk of his head. 

Rhonda straightened up and the pair of them hurriedly left the room. 

"What is it?" Rhonda asked once they were outside. 

"Alberto found a wooden club at the construction site, covered in blood. He ran it for DNA testing and he affirms it belongs to Jonah," Eli parroted back. 

"Jonah? So you're saying he really was knocked out?" 

"By the looks of it, yes." 

Rhonda sighed, dragging a hand across her face. "Alright. Can we still keep him in custody though?" 

"We'll have to speak to Lt Powers about that," Eli said. "I'd like to head back to the scene of the crime later though. Maybe we can sniff around for a little more incriminating evidence that will direct us in the right way." 

* 

Jonah Whitley 

Jonah sat in the interrogation room, staring straight ahead, not really moving at all. His mind was still fresh, but the look in his eyes was dead. 

Ponnie was gone. That was all he could think of. 

He remembered the last time he'd seen her, that Friday after school. They'd made so many plans, to do so many things together. 

They'd planned to go on so many more dates. They'd never seen the movie at the mall. They'd never got the chance to even see the newly renovated theater. Hell, they'd never get the chance to take pictures of the construction site, not that Jonah cared much about that given that it was where Ponnie had died. 

How had she died? 

Jonah closed his eyes, the tears leaking out nonetheless. He knew he was being monitored by police officers in the room hidden behind the one-way mirror on the wall, but he didn't care. He wasn't afraid to cry. Ponnie had once assured him of that. 

Jonah kept his eyes closed, trying to remember Ponnie's smile, trying to keep her face in his mind forever. She'd died so young, so innocently. 

Ponnie had been the light in Jonah's life. Everything in Jonah's life had changed for the better the day she came back into his life after so many years since their first meeting in their childhood. 

Jonah had been so happy, so filled with bliss the first time he'd kissed her. They'd been a happy couple, but the injustice of it was that it had only been for such a short period of time. 

The tears dripped down one by one onto the white table in the interrogation room. This room itself had seen many tears, many criminals, much anger and much frustration. Criminals, murderers, convicts had sat in the chair he sat in now. He wasn't a killer. Was he? 

Jonah was starting to doubt everything he'd ever known. His entire life had seemed to shred apart once Ponnie, the thread holding him together, had been snapped and taken away. 

"Ponnie...I'm sorry..." Jonah whispered to himself. 

He wanted to hear her voice one more time. He wanted to be there for her...through life and through death. But he hadn't been. He hadn't been there for her. Who had killed her? Who? 

Jonah refused to believe Sylvia killed Ponnie. She had no motive to. Jonah knew for certain that Sylvia wasn't the killer because he'd been knocked out from behind. That meant the killer was someone else. But the detectives had refused to believe him. 

Why, of all people, did Ponnie have to die? It was so sudden, so unbelievable. One minute, she was alive and well, ready to go out on their movie date. The next minute, she was gone. 

It was only now Jonah thought of his uncle. Surely his uncle would have been notified that Jonah had been arrested by the police. But he would know Jonah was innocent. 

The door to the interrogation room opened and the male detective from earlier peeked his head in. 

"You're free to go."