The Life and Lies of Mil Winchester - Book 1

2:07 the usual suspects

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Urgh. So first off, we were in a police station. Not visiting, interviewing or even posing as police - Dean and I had tried it once or twice - but prisoners. Yes, this time we were prisoners. All thanks to Dean. Much to our luck, Sam and I were confined in the same interrogation room. Meanwhile, Dean was being held in a high security room, or so we’d been told.

A police woman, Ballard, entered the room, carrying a pair of coffee cups, which she placed on the table. I stood up from my seat at the table, and went to join Sam, who had paused in his pacing by the window.

“Thought you might be thirsty,” Ballard said.

“Okay, so you’re the good cop,” I said. “Where’s the bad cop?”

“Oh, he’s with your brother,” Ballard said breezily.

“Okay, and you’re holding us why?” Sam asked.

“Well, he’d being held on a suspicion of murder. And you two, we’ll see.” I was going to protest about me being juvenile, but the word murder shocked me. Sam and I reacted identically, at the same time.

We leaned forward, fists on the table, we spoke in unison, equally shocked. “Murder?!”

Ballard’s eyes narrowed. “You sound genuinely surprised. Or are you that good actors?” No. We were surprised. Dean hadn’t murdered any humans; unless he’d been hacking peoples’ throats behind Sam’s and I’s backs.

“Who was he supposed to have murdered?!” Sam exclaimed.

“We’ll get around to that,” Ballard said.

“Well, you can’t just hold us here without formal charges!” Sam said angrily, looking knowledgeable about that topic. I wasn’t so sure. But I did know that I was underage. And I voiced that now.

“You can’t hold me here at all! I’m seventeen. Shouldn’t I be in juvenile detention?”

“If your crimes are serious enough, then actually we can. And we can hold both of you here without formal charge, for forty eight hours, actually. But you being a pre-law student, Sam, would know that. I know all about you two, Sam and Millicent.” Ballard read from a file. “Sam, you’re twenty three years old, Millicent seventeen. No jobs, no home address. Millicent doesn’t go to school. Your mother died when Millicent was a baby, your father’s whereabouts are unknown. And then there’s the case of your brother Dean. Whose demise was, well, just a little bit exaggerated. Feel free to jump in whenever you like.” Sam and I leaned back against the wall, stubbornly silent. Sam’s arms folded across his chest, mine stuffed in my jeans’ pockets. “Shy? No problem, I’ll keep going. Your family moved around a lot when you were kids. Despite that, you were both straight- A students, till Millicent dropped out of school. Sam got into Stanford with a full ride.” Ballard closed the file. “Then about a year ago there was a fire in Sam’s apartment. One fatality. Jessica Moore, your girlfriend. After she died, you fell off the grid. Left everything behind.”

“I needed some time off,” Sam explained. “To deal. So I’m taking a road trip with my brother and sister.”
“And how’s that going for you?” Ballard asked. 

“Great,” Sam said, almost too enthusiastically. “I mean... we saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental US. Awesome.” He pulled up a chair to the table, and straddled it. I sat on the table, ignoring the look Ballard was giving me.

“We ran Dean’s fingerprints through AFIS,” Ballard said. 

“Okay,” Sam said slowly, pressingly.