Stonebrook High School

Chapter 22

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"Did you notice any... strange activities before today from your friend?"

Jess shook her head. "No, sir, it was my friend Lukas who called me on the phone yesterday and told me about his last meeting with her."

The Captain tugged on the end of his mustache. "What did he say?"

"Her collarbone area was pale gray and the veins were popped out, much like how she looks in bed right now. He said like 'withered flowers,' I think. He also said that she looked tired as they were speaking, and sometimes she would forget what they were talking about and she even forgot who he was as well. I think he also said that he asked her what she was doing and she said, 'I don't know, who am I?'"

"Where were your friends when they had this conversation?"

"At the plaza, sir."

"What time?"

"It was... past midnight if I remember correctly. A Saturday, two weeks ago. Actually, it should be Sunday, because, ya know, it's past midnight."

He lifted an eyebrow at her verbal antics. Then he returned to scribbling in his notebook. "Do you have a theory as to how your friend contracted the illness?"

"Petra... She..." Jess felt herself get tongue-tied, something that never really happened often. Did she have to give away Petra's kind-of-secret job of trading with underground dealers and getting herself in physical dangers? Or could she keep that a secret?

She took a breath. "Petra is a dealer who finds what her contacts need and trades them for money and such. I think she may have gotten the sickness from her last contact." There was no way that Jesse would keep Petra's job a secret if her life was in peril. The Captain needed to know the truth.

"Do you know if anyone accompanied her to her last contact?"

Jay. "No, sir, no one was with her. She didn't let me come with her although I kept begging her to." Sometimes the truth has to be bent or even broken. He can't be brought into this.

"Do you have any siblings?"

She bit the inside of her mouth. Crap. "Yes, sir, why?"

"Maybe they have more information."

She shook her head slowly yet vehemently. "Captain Reginald, I can tell you with 110% confidence that my brother knows nothing about her job or that she is currently sick. He just didn't happen to know about the job, but I've been keeping her illness a secret. If he knew, he would go crazy, sir. Lovesick teenage males are like that." Yeah, she stretched some things here and there, but at least the last part was true.

The Captain nodded. "I see." He started to scrawl down a few words in the margins of the tiny notebook.

"Is there anything else I can answer, sir?"

"No, Miss Ryder, you're free to go."

She felt her eyebrow twitch up. "How'd you know my last name?"

"I had asked the Visitor's desk earlier."

Her mouth formed an 'O' shape. "That makes sense."

Captain Reginald was about to leave the room and close the door when he took one last glance at Jess over his shoulder.

"You know, you look like my boss. That's a compliment, by the way."

He shut the door behind him.