The Tattooed Devil Wears Chucks

Chapter 43: Sleeping Beauty, a Criminal and a Correctional Officer

I rack my brain as to what to ask first.    "Are there any suspects yet?"

He shakes his head no with a frown.  "There wasn't much evidence out there.  It's tough with it being in the woods and it was raining not two hours later and dark.  They tried to gather as much as they could."

My heart sinks.  "They didn't get anything?"

"They have footprints. They have photos of the trail she left with her fingers in the dirt, so we know part of the way she came from.  Which we could have easily guessed anyways, we saw her at the party, they were coming from that direction.  She also had a small piece of green felt in one of her hands, fucking lucky the lake didn't get it but it was stuck to her class ring."

So there was something.  Green felt.  "Like clothing?"

He shrugs.  "Fuck if I know.  If it is clothing it will be hard to narrow it down to anything unless the perp's blood or something is on it.  But it was graduation weekend, I mean everyone was wearing green.  It was thick though, thicker than normal felt.  I don't know.  I honestly didn't see it that night."

Gabby twists in her seat, catching both of our gazes.  She doesn't wake.    "Dan, Gabby said she can't get the image of Court out of her head.  That it's giving her nightmares.  How bad was she?  I know the cause of death was drowning but I'm not sure that's something that would shake Gabby like that..."

He shakes his head and quickly wipes away a tear.  "That's something I'm not going to tell you."

"Why?" It comes out angrier than anticipated, causing Dan's eyes to glare directly at me.  Shit Jax, don't get angry around him.  "Why?" I repeat in a defused tone.  "She was murdered.  It's not as if she fell into the lake and that's why she was screaming for help.  Something about the way she looked told you she was murdered."

"Trust me on this, you don't want to know.  I can't get it out of my head either.  Drop this part of it.  Ask as many damn questions about the case as you want, but please don't ask what we saw.  You'll be better off not knowing."

I'm not going to be able to help Gabby if I don't know what she saw. I'm going to have to ask her and I'm not prepared for the look I'll get as she tells me. If Dan was crying as he refused to not tell me, Court had to have looked pretty bad.

I change the subject with a roll of my eyes. "What's in the envelope? Weekly questions?"

"Yeah." He sighs and dumps out his notebook and pen.

"Am I in trouble for missing my last one?"

"No." He flips open the notepad.  "I'm not a complete asshole."

"I know you aren't." I sigh and look back to Gabby.  She has got to be exhausted if she still hasn't woken up. 

"Do you want me to kick her out of here for this?" Dan's brow raises as he looks back to Gabby.

My head shakes.  "No.  I have no secrets from her.  I don't care what she hears.  She seems pretty out of it anyways.  She's been like that since I woke up like five hours ago."

He nods and clicks his pen open.  No look today, he's just prepared to ask his questions and leave.

"You can just do your UA from here, you won't have to come in for it.  I'm also skipping the question about where you live, since that is apparent."  His pen flies across the paper as he begins writing.  Thank fuck he plans to make this quick today.  I'm tired and honestly just want to go back to sleep.  My entire body aches from what it's been through this week.  "Are you in a relationship?  And before you give me shit for asking that, you told me that night you dumped her."