(unedited)
And I am feeling so small,
It was over my head,
I know nothing at all.
And I will stumble and fall,
I'm still learning to love,
Just starting to crawl.
"Say Something" -A Great Big World (ft. Christina Aguilera)
"You're at the police station?" Kaden repeated. "Why?"
I hesitated. Figures the one time Kaden's freaky all-knowing powers failed him is the one time where I was hoping he was would already know and I wouldn't have to explain everything. "Ashton got arrested."
There was only silence on the other end.
"Kaden?"
He didn't reply.
"Did you pass out or something?" That would be a pretty extreme reaction of Kaden, but who knew? He wasn't responding, and it wasn't exactly good news.
"I didn't pass out," he said, sounding annoyed. He sighed. "What happened?"
"I don't really know," I admitted.
"Was he caught driving while drunk?" he asked.
"What? No." Then I realized that we were definitely not on the same page. I had figured that Kaden would make the right conclusion as to what happened, though I guess it wasn't really the first thing you'd assume. "They think he killed Olivia."
There was another long pause.
"Kaden?"
He didn't reply again this time.
"Are you there?"
I was beginning to believe that he really had passed out this time.
I was just about to hang up and possibly try calling again, or calling Raine in case Kaden was unconscious in his office when Kaden suddenly came back on. "I'm on my way," he said.
"Don't be on your phone while you're driving," I heard Raine say in the background. "We don't need you in jail too."
Kaden's voice was slightly muffled as he called back. "I won't. Love you!"
"Love you too!" Raine yelled back, though she sounded farther away than before. I heard a door open then close.
"Are any of Ashton's friends there?" Kaden asked. I heard another door being opened and slammed, then the sound of a car starting.
"Yeah, Nathan and Detective Fallon are here," I told him, glancing around the room. Nathan had been my ride here, and Detective Fallon had already been waiting when we arrived. They were sitting in the far corner, deep in discussion.
Keira was also around here somewhere, but I didn't think she counted since she was probably being interrogated in some room in the back. Everyone else was still at the dance, I think; Nathan had said he would keep them updated on what was happening.
"Go wait in Shawn's office," he instructed.
I blinked. "What? Why? Is he even here tonight?"
"Yeah, I think he got called in." I heard the sound of him pulling out of the driveway.
"I thought Raine said not to drive while you're on the phone," I reminded him.
"I'm not going to be on it for very long. Wait in Shawn's office okay?" he repeated.
I sighed. "Fine. See you soon."
I hung up, then glanced at Nathan and Detective Fallon. They seemed pretty deep in conversation, so I headed to the front desk. "Hi, can I see Detective Shawn Whitlock, please?"
The guy at the desk looked up. "Who are you?"
"A family friend," I replied.
"He's on duty," the guy told me.
I smiled sweetly. "It'll be quick."
"I'll page him," he said, picking up the phone on his desk. "But he might not come."
"That's fine, thank you." I leaned against the desk, waiting. A couple moments later, Shawn walked through one of the doors. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, he cut me off. "Wait; don't tell me, Ashton Sinclair, right?"
I nodded.
"You know I'm not on that case and can't give you any info, right?" Shawn said.
"Kaden's coming but he wants me wait for him in your office," I told him.
Shawn sighed, then turned and entered the pin for the door behind him. All the doors in the police station had pins and locks so people could only enter or leave with someone who knew the code or had the key. Of course, the only people who were supposed to know we're the officers and detectives.
I followed Shawn through the maze of hallways. He stopped in front of the door with his name on it and entered the pin. "I have to get back to work now. No snooping, alright?"
I nodded. He flicked on the light and looked around with a slightly uneasy expression, before shutting the door and walking away. I paced back and forth in his office for the next couple of minutes, unable to sit still.
Why would the police all of a sudden suspect Ashton? They had been going for Keira for the past week, with her confession and video footage. Ashton couldn't have been on the video as well, they would've taken him with Keira. What else could it have been that made him look guilty?
I froze.
The syringe in his car.
Except, how would they have found that? It wasn't like someone could've passed his car and just happened to see it, then call the police, the syringe had been hidden, and while a syringe was suspicious, it wouldn't cause someone to immediately call the police. Someone could've found it like I did, but I was pretty sure the only people Ashton drove around were his friends and they wouldn't try to get him arrested.
Or would they?
The police couldn't have found it all on their own, they would need a search warrant to search Ashton's car, and to get a search warrant they would need have a very strong lead pointing in his direction. An anonymous tip probably wouldn't be enough for that, especially not when Keira had been such a strong suspect, so that ruled out the person-seeing-it-and-calling-the-police theory.
The only thing that made sense was if someone in the Elite had turned him in after finding the syringe. But who would do that?
The first person that came to mind was, of course, Jacen. He had enough motives- he didn't like Ashton at all, and it was possible if the police starting focusing on Ashton as a suspect, they'd let Keira go. It was like a win-win for him. And while it may not be completely related, he did admit that he would be the one to kill me, so it wasn't like he wouldn't have the guts to do it.
Nathan and Skylar had probably ridden in his car as well, but I wasn't sure what to think about them, since they were both a little bit more uninvolved. Nathan was trying to figure out what was going, yeah, and his girlfriend was in jail, but I don't think he'd throw his brother under the bus to get him out.
And Skylar seemed even more uninvolved than Ashton. I knew she had ridden in Ashton's car, at least, since she had said that before we went dress shopping yesterday, but if she had found the syringe, would she really go to the police? Ashton was her best friend; she'd confront him first, wouldn't she?
Vanessa, I don't think would have ridden in Ashton's car, so I doubt she had the chance to find the syringe, same with Keira, who had apparently been held at the police station for most of the week. If either of them had been the one to turn him in, then they would've had to know about the syringe being there already.
But I had no idea how long the syringe had been there for.
I had found it last week, but Olivia had been killed way before that. So who knew how long Ashton could've had the syringe for?
I jumped when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to reveal Kaden, but Shawn wasn't behind him. "How'd you get in?" I asked curiously.
"I've worked with the police here before," he said. "People recognize me."
Right, internationally powerful lawyer and all that. "Do you know what's going on?"
He nodded. "I talked to Detective Fallon."
"What happened?" I asked. There was a pretty likely chance that he wouldn't tell me, but I asked anyway in the slight chance that he would. If he didn't, I could ask Nathan, though I had a feeling Kaden would know more than him, or at least know what was truly important in the information.
Thankfully, Kaden wasn't in a 'keep-everything-from-Elena' kind of mood. "Keira supposedly confessed that she had gone into the hospital that day because Ashton had threatened her with Jacen."
"Supposedly?" I repeated.
He set his hands on Shawn's desk, careful not to disturb any of the scattered documents and leaned back. "Keira's now claiming she never said that."
I blinked. "Aren't interrogations filmed or something?"
"They're supposed to be," he said. "But this one wasn't, it wasn't scheduled."
"So what she decided to blurt it out to some random police officer or something?" I suggested, raising an eyebrow.
To my surprise, he nodded. "The officer was new; he went into her room to give her food and water. Apparently while he was there, she confessed that it was Ashton who made her go to the hospital and take the syringe. They wanted to get it formally, but she then refused. Still, it was enough that they went to the Sinclairs to look around. While they were there, one of the officers saw the syringe."
That doesn't make any sense. It wasn't like the syringe had just been lying in plain sight; it had been hidden under the passenger seat. I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't had to crouch down to hide from Kaden.
"It was enough for them to be able to break into his car and get it tested for Methanonel. The report came back positive an hour ago," Kaden finished.
"Don't they have any cameras to prove whether or not Keira confessed?" I asked.
He shook his head. "She was held in a private room. Her family requested there to be no video footage of her in police custody." I hadn't considered the idea that Keira being arrested was being kept secret, though I guess it made sense since the school hadn't been talking about it. At least, as far as I knew, they hadn't. I hadn't been paying much attention to gossip recently.
"It can't stick though, can it? If they don't have proof that she confessed?" Were they allowed to investigate without a solid lead? Was it, possibly, by some stretch, some kind of broken rule if they couldn't prove it?
Kaden shook his head again. "It was the syringe that was incriminating. They could've discovered it if they had gone to his house to interview him and saw it."
Well, damn.
"Anything you want to add to the story?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at me slightly.
What? I blinked and shook my head, a little sluggishly. What did he mean by that?
Before either of us could speak again, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my clutch and glanced at the screen. It was a text from Nathan. Don't know where you went, but Ash can see ppl now.
I glanced up. "Nathan just texted me-"
"You have his friends as contacts?" Kaden asked.
"You and Ashton text, so it's not that weird," I shot back. "But they're letting Ashton talk to peopl-" I started towards the door, but before I could get very far, Kaden grabbed my arm.
"You're not going to talk to him," he ordered.
I gave him an incredulous look. "What? Why?"
"It's not safe," he said.
Not this again.
"We're at a police station!" I exclaimed. "Nothing's going to happen."
"Everything could happen!" he exploded. "You could very easily get arrested if you talk to him and say too much!"
"What?" I had been with Ashton at the dance, and it wasn't unknown that I was hanging out with the Elite, but why me? Wouldn't they have to take Nathan, and Skylar, and everyone else, too, if it was just because I had been seen with him.
"They think you're involved, Elena," he told me.
"How? Why?"
He gave me a hard look. "I think you know."
What? I had been with Ashton at the dance, and it wasn't unknown that I was hanging out with the Elite, but why me? Wouldn't they have to take Nathan, and Skylar, and everyone else, too, if it was just because I had been seen with him. And unless someone had said something, there wasn't anyt-
I froze.
I touched the syringe.
I had totally forgotten about that up until now.
Kaden read my expression. "Why didn't you tell me you found it?"
Shit, shit, shit. That was the dumbest thing you could've done, Lena. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It wasn't Kaden finding out that I was mad at myself for, he probably would've eventually, but since it had been taken as evidence, very serious evidence, and my fingerprints were on it...
Fuck.
I'm such an idiot.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Kaden repeated.
"Because I didn't think it was important," I said weakly. Not exactly. I had convinced myself that maybe Ashton had just been holding it for Kaden, even though Kaden would never let someone else carry a piece of evidence like that around. I had pushed the idea out of my head, stupid as that was.
Instead of the glare I thought I would receive for the horrible response, his expression softened. "I can't help you if you lie to me, you know."
"It's not a lie. Not really." I gulped. "I told myself he was holding for you-"
He raised an eyebrow. "You know I wouldn't do that."
"I know, but-" I cut myself off. Why hadn't I just told him? Or at least confronted Ashton about it to make sure he knew? Keeping it quiet was the stupidest thing I could've done.
"But you didn't want him to be guilty," Kaden finished.
I glanced up at him. "What?"
"I'll admit," he said quietly. "If I had found something like that in Raine's car, I wouldn't want to say anything either."
I blinked. "But that's different, you love Raine-" I stopped. "I don't- it's not like that."
Kaden shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I wouldn't want to say anything if I found it Kallie's car, or Brett's."
I stared at him, not quite understanding what he was trying to say.
He sighed. "It just means that sometime, you started trusting Ashton enough that you didn't want to believe he would do something."
♡ the trouble with love ♡
"Where are we going?" I asked, ducking under a low beach as I trailed after Vanessa. We were in her backyard... Somewhere. I wasn't quite sure where, since it was pretty much twice as big as her house -mansion, really- which was already huge to start with. We were past the pool and a little into the small bit of forestry in her backyard.
It was Saturday afternoon, a day after the whole dance and arrest thing had happened. The entire town -and world, basically- was buzzing about what had happened. It wasn't often, never actually, that anyone from the Elite has gotten arrested, not that they knew of, at least.
I wasn't quite sure what was going on, I still hadn't been able to talk to Ashton, but I had heard that Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were flying back early from their business trip, which might hopefully somehow help things.
"Dad brought some woman home with him yesterday and I don't want to be around them," Vanessa said as I followed her through a particularly thick clump of trees. "So I've been staying here."
I stared. "You have another house?" Granted, it wasn't as big as the main mansion, but it was still the size of a medium-ish house. It was mostly just grass and trees around the house, but there seemed to be a bit of a garden as well.
"It's our guesthouse," she replied with a shrug. She unlocked the door and pushed it open. "It's not very much, but it's better than staying at the house."
Vanessa gave me a quick tour. It was definitely smaller than the big house -the tour only took a couple minutes, while a tour of her mansion probably would've taken several hours. It was only one story, and pretty simple. A master bedroom and three smaller ones, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room. Nothing grand like an indoor swimming pool or games room, but it was still pretty nice.
We ended up in one of the bedrooms, where Vanessa was staying. There were clothes on the bed and a couple books and papers on the desk, but other than that, it still looked pretty empty.
I noticed a series of college applications on her desk as I sat down in her desk chair. Which was kind of strange, since most universities required applications to be submitted by the first of January, at the latest, and that had been weeks ago.
"Do you know where you're going for university?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
She shook her head, collapsing onto the bed. "No idea."
I raised an eyebrow. "At all?"
She shook her head again. "Everyone else has known what University they want to go to since we started high school and I have absolutely no idea what I want to be."
"You still have time," I said.
She rolled into her back, looking away from me. "Not when I haven't submitted any applications yet."
I wasn't sure what to respond with. It was pretty bad that she hadn't submitted anything and it was almost February. I did believe that she'd probably be fine though. Vanessa wasn't stupid, maybe a little oblivious and naïve at times, but I was almost certain she still got at the very least, decent marks in class. Around the seventies, probably, so about average.
"It seems so easy, everyone has it figured out," Vanessa continued when I didn't reply. "Nate's going to take over his family's company so it's Harvard, or Yale, or Wharton for Business. Skylar's going oversees to Cambridge to study Social Sciences. Same with Keira, she's going to Central Saint Martins in London. Ashton's going to Columbia or NYU for Law. "
Huh. I had never really given much thought as to what the Elite had planned for the future. I couldn't really say I was surprised since I hadn't known what to expect, but the careers kind of fit them, I guess. Though if I had taken a guess, I would've thought it would be Vanessa who wanted to go into fashion, not Keira.
She glanced at me. "Where are you going?"
I shrugged. "Columbia's my first choice, I guess. I'm interested in Psychology and Law, and they have both."
"Just like Ashton," she giggled. "You guys are perfect for each other."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
"But see," she said sobering. "You know what you want to be too. I don't even know what I want to major in."
"Well, what do you like?" I asked.
Vanessa rolled onto her stomach, glancing at me. "That's the problem. I don't know what I like and I'm not really good at anything either. My hobbies never stick."
I hesitated. I didn't really know Vanessa well enough for me to be able to tell her what she could major in, what her strengths were. Luckily, she spoke again before the silence stretched too much.
"This is kind of making me depressed," she said, sitting up suddenly and turning to me. "Do you wanna go shopping?"
I blinked. "Uh yeah, sure, I guess." I was used to abrupt subject changed from talking to Ashton, Jacen and even Devon and Kaden sometimes, but not Vanessa.
I stood up as Vanessa grabbed her purse. Before we even stepped out of the room, though, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and checked the screen. "One sec," she said with a wide grin. "It's Nate."
She unlocked her phone, then pressed it to her ear. "Hey!" She turned away slightly, listening for a moment. "Oh, wow, really! That's great!" A pause. "I'm sure it'll be fine."
I glanced at her, wondering why Nathan was saying. Had they let Ashton go, maybe?
"Okay, yeah. Okay. Love you, bye." She hung up, turning to me.
I raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"They let Keira go," she said.
"What?" They let her go? "But that means..."
Vanessa didn't hear my last couple of words since they had slipped out accidentally, in a mutter. "Yeah, I know right? But it's good news, Nate's pretty happy."
I forced a smile. "Yeah, it's great."
I didn't tell her was I was really thinking though. If they had let Keira go...
They really believed Ashton had killed Olivia.
-- ♡ --
Teaser: Gonna stop doing teasers because it's getting really close to the end and I don't want to give stuff away.
QotC: Do you think Ashton did it?