'Okay, guys,' I began, as I drew a circle around Chloe's name. 'Let's use this time here wisely.'
'The time here is supposed to be for finishing the sets,' Juliet said.
'Fuck the sets,' I replied. 'We'll spend an hour on Chloe and an hour on the sets. Now, suspects!'
I drew a line out from Chloe's name and wrote down Gabriella's.
'She's the only suspect,' Shane told me.
'The only suspect the detectives have,' I replied. 'If the four of us come together, we can start looking into who else could possibly be a suspect! Anyone know anybody else who had problems with Chloe besides Gabriella?'
There was silence as they all looked at each other.
'Come on, guys!' I pressed. 'Olivia, you must know some other things about stuff Chloe had going on. Come on, she was your best friend, don't you want to find out who did this?'
'Okay, yes, you're right,' Olivia said, nodding. 'Has anyone mentioned any other names besides Gabriella to the detectives?'
Tate popped into my head but I kept my mouth shut and watched as Shane and Juliet shook their heads.
'Actually, now that I think back, I've just remembered something,' Olivia mumbled. 'Conrad!'
'Conrad Coleman?' Juliet questioned.
'Yes, he pulled Chloe out of the common room just before we all started fighting, remember!' I cried, cursing myself for forgetting all about that as I wrote his name on the board.
'Pulling her out for a chat is hardly suspicious,' Juliet said. 'Weren't they friends? I think we're just clutching at straws here.'
'They weren't friends, they just hung out because of me and Axel being together,' Olivia said. 'But before Brynn stormed in and started yelling at Chloe over Tate, Chloe was just about to tell me something about Conrad!'
'What did she say?' Juliet asked.
'Nothing,' she sighed. 'She said something along the lines of "you won't believe what I have to tell you about Conrad" or something like that, then I stupidly changed the subject, and then Brynn came in and that was the last thing she ever said to me.'
'Wait, what did you say about Tate?' Juliet asked, getting to her feet and speaking quickly. 'Brynn was yelling at Chloe about Tate? What was all of that about?'
'That was nothing,' I told her, feeling annoyed and panicked.
'It surely sounds like something,' Juliet said. 'I think we should at least discuss it.'
'It was nothing!' I snapped.
'It wasn't nothing, Brynn.' Olivia said to me, warily. 'Chloe rejected Tate and embarrassed him in front of everyone. He was obviously upset because you were furious.'
'People get rejected all the time, they don't go out and murder the person who did it!' I cried.
'It's worth writing him down, Brynn,' Shane said.
'Absolutely fucking not!' I barked.
'Okay, listen,' Shane sighed, getting to his feet. 'If we are going to do this, the four of us need to be transparent with each other, even if it means outing friends. It stays between the four of us and nobody says anything to the detectives unless we all agree on it, deal?'
'Deal,' Olivia and Juliet said in unison.
'Brynn?' he questioned. 'None of us will mention Tate to anyone. We're all here because the four of us went through something crazy and terrible together and the four of us are going to work this out. We will not bring Tate up without consulting with you first and that's only if more things come up that make him seem more of a suspect! Okay?'
'Fine,' I sighed, and I turned to write Tate's name down. 'Anybody else?'
'Okay, since you've put down your friend, Brynn, I'll be honest about mine,' Shane said, taking a breath. 'Hanna needs to go on the board.'
'Hanna Wang?' Olivia questioned. 'What did she do?'
'Nothing really,' Shane sighed. 'The day Chloe died she had an argument with her in the hallway but Hanna is going to tell this to the detectives herself because she has nothing to hide. You will probably hear about it anyway; she went to the detectives last night and told them.'
'Okay, not a big thing but we'll put her down,' I murmured, writing down Hanna's name.
'What were they arguing about?' Olivia asked. 'I've never known Chloe to have any problems with Hanna. I don't even think they'd really ever spoken to each other at all.'
'I have no idea,' Shane replied. 'It was probably something really minor but it's important we give all of the information we possibly can here.'
'Okay,' I said, exhaling heavily as I turned to the board. 'So, we have Gabriella, Conrad...Tate and Hanna. Right now, Gabriella certainly seems to be the main one.'
'This thing with Conrad could be something too,' Olivia said. 'He's always up to no good. I'll talk to Axel and see if he knows anything about him that could be important.'
'Okay, so you're gonna' talk to Axel about Conrad,' I mumbled, as I scribbled that down by Conrad's name. 'I'll talk to Tate a little more but I'm telling you this is nothing to do with him. Shane, you can talk to Hanna and maybe try and find out what happened with the detectives and see if she'll tell you what she was arguing with Chloe about.'
'Will do,' Shane said.
'Okay, well I guess we all just keep looking into things and we'll see how things go with Gabriella,' I murmured, before something clicked in my head. 'Wait, I totally forgot! I told the detectives that I caught Chloe sneaking out one night. She told me she had been to the grade 13 wing.'
'Oh my god, how could I forget?!' Olivia gasped. 'She was seeing a guy from grade 13! His name was Christian...something...I can't remember his surname. She was so upset over him! I have no idea what he did because she refused to even talk about it which is not like Chloe! She said it was over and she was so hurt because of it.'
'So where is the motive here?' Shane asked.
'Maybe if he dumped her and she wouldn't leave him alone or maybe she knew something about him he didn't want anyone to know or maybe he did something to her that he shouldn't have!' I cried, writing the name Christian down on the board. 'Olivia, you need to try and remember who this guy is.'
'He will be in my search history!' she cried, pulling out her phone. 'I looked him up on Facebook.'
'God, what the hell was she doing dating a grade 13 guy, they're all assholes!' Shane exclaimed.
'Christian Cahill,' Olivia said, with a victorious grin. 'His name is still in my search list. I remember he looked like a total nerd and not at all like someone who Chloe would...oh my god...he's deactivated his Facebook!'
'Suspish!' Shane gasped.
'Hella' suspish,' I murmured, making a note of it on the board. 'We need to look into this guy.'
'The detectives will be, won't they?' Juliet questioned. 'If you already mentioned it to them.'
'I didn't give them a name or much to really go off,' I replied. 'I just said I caught her sneaking in from the grade 13 wing and that it sounded like she'd been with a guy.'
'Are we going to tell the detectives about him?' Shane asked. 'We have a name and you said yourself she was upset and hurt and that it was over between them.'
'We have to all agree on it,' Olivia said.
'Do we tell the detectives or do we investigate him ourselves?' I asked the three of them.
They all looked at each other and shrugged.
'The only information we've got that we can give to the detectives is his name and that they were seeing each other,' Juliet said. 'Chloe didn't even tell Olivia any details so it's still not a lot of information to give them. I say we see what we can find out ourselves first and try to get some more knowledge of what was going on with Christian and Chloe before we hand it all over to the detectives. Let's lay off the other people on the board and focus on Christian for now.'
'All agreed with Juliet?' I asked the other two, and they nodded. 'Okay, but we still talk to the other guys on the board to see what we can find out.'
'And I will see if I can track down Christian and talk to him myself,' Olivia said. 'I don't want to panic him incase he did do something so I'll make it out like I'm just there to see how he's doing after finding out about her and tell him that I'm here if he wants to talk.'
'Get him to trust you, that's good!' I cried, writing it on the board.
'I think that's where we hit a wall,' Shane said. 'Although, something tells me there's gonna' be plenty more coming out of the woodworks where Chloe Yates is concerned.'
'Eyes and ears open at all times, guys,' I told them. 'Like Margo said, the person who did this is probably still walking around in this school right now.'
'We have to find out who did this to her!' Olivia cried. 'I won't rest until I do!'
'We're here to help you do just that,' Shane told her, resting a hand on her shoulder. 'We will get to the bottom of this.'
'Thank you,' she replied, with a smile.
'Okay, time check?' I called.
'It's almost 7pm,' Juliet told me.
'Okay, investigation hour is over,' I told them, putting the cap back on the pen. 'I'm gonna' go hide this whiteboard then we can continue painting this motherfucking set.'