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Chapters 1-4 can be found in Part 1 - Caught

Chapters 5-6 can be found in Part 2 - Accused

Chapters 7-12 can be found in Part 3 - Investigation

CHAPTER 13

Corbett sat at his desk in the squad room, going over the notes that he'd made on his tablet during his interview with the Kincaid girl. There was so much information that the girl had given him that he couldn't look into. His mind kept going back to the vision of her staring into his eyes, and he could still feel the fear and the sadness that he saw behind her eyes when they'd met his.

She'd known that Amanda Brighton was among the dead and when he told her, the pain that crossed her face had been very real. If he was working this case the way he was supposed to be, he'd be looking at all the angles, including the senator's son.

His eyes crossed back and forth across the case file that he still hadn't uploaded to the system, reading the same line over and over again as his brain traveled different paths down which he could find no answers. He had to figure out a way to upload the notes from his interview in a way that wouldn't implicate any of Senator Lewis' family, but he couldn't push himself to actually delete the notes or alter the recording.

He could simply lose the recording. That part was easy, but in all his years as a police officer and then an inspector, he'd never once tampered with evidence or filed something that he didn't fully endorse as his own word. His career had been impeccable, and everyone knew that he stood by his word. It had gained him trust and appreciation from the prosecutors and also from the magistrates, and even on, on rare occasions, from the defenders that sometimes worked the cases. They all recognized that he didn't have some sort of motive to seeing their clients where they were, just that he was scrupulously honest and fair, and if he put something on paper, then it happened that way.

And here he was, thinking about throwing that all down the tubes. And not just for a traffic ticket or some disturbing the peace charge. No, this was a capital case that would have the country watching the outcome. Already the news cameras and vans had set up a makeshift camp outside the department, all clamoring on about the girl who'd killed seven of her friends in a house in the hills. Hell, he thought, they don't even care if she's guilty or not, they just want someone to put on the front page and as the lead story.

He'd learned long ago not to watch the news about a case he was working on. Most of the time, they got the facts wrong or distorted, and about half the time they said or did something that almost made him lose his cool. The man who trained him as an inspector had given him that piece of advice and every time that he went against it, he always felt sorry for doing so. This case was no different. He'd avoided turning on the television over the last few days, so all he had in front of him were the facts on his tablet, and his mind wasn't filled with wild speculation and rumor that the television stations all seemed to spew out.

He read the line in his case report again, for what might have been the twentieth time, but he still couldn't get past it. His fingers tapped on the desk as he considered and pondered. Lewis had said that his chief would be his backup and his shield, and by that little comment, Corbett knew that the Senator had gotten to the chief. If he went along with the senator, then there probably wouldn't be any professional repercussions, and the chief would shield him from any ethics probes or investigations, but that didn't change the fact that he would still have violated what he thought was the most important thing, his personal integrity.

Once again, his eyes skimmed the same line and he finally put the tablet on the desk with a frustrated grunt. This wasn't getting him anywhere. How could he just give up what he worked so hard to earn? There wasn't a person in the office, he was sure, that wouldn't do what Lewis asked if their family's lives were at stake.

His eyes drifted across the desk to the little framed picture of his daughter that sat in the corner. It was a picture of his little girl taken at her last birthday party and her smiling face beamed out of the frame at him. He'd been so happy that day, watching the little girl at her party with all her friends. She'd been happy and playful and the drama of teenage years was still a long way off. She still thought that having your dad show arrange for the police force silent drill team to perform at the party was the best thing ever. She'd sat with wide eyes watching the precision movements and the amazing choreography in amazement.

Corbett sat at the desk, memory casting back to that day. He sat behind his daughter watching the same performance with a swelling of pride that he belonged to this professional and important piece of society. In his mind's eye, his daughter turned around to face him, smile on her face. But wait, she wasn't smiling and that wasn't his daughter. Instead the Kincaid girl's face stared back at him with that sad and terrified look.

He blinked once, then again, and the memory faded, leaving him in the squad room again, still with no answers. He leaned back in his chair and sighed, covering his face with his hands.

"Everything all right, Inspector?" said the wolf at the desk off to his right. Corbett tried to remember the man's name. After a second it came to him. It was Sylvester. The wolf was younger, and still ambitious. He reminded Corbett of a younger him. The chief had put him at that desk so that he might learn something from the grizzled older wolf, but Corbett hadn't had time to really sit down and talk to the kid.

"Yeah," Corbett said, "just stuck on a case."

"Well, you want another set of eyes?" Sylvester asked.

Corbett shook his head. "No, but thanks. I'm just tired and I think it's all just floating around in my head too much. Need some more coffee."

Sylvester nodded and turned back to his own desk and soon the sound of typing resumed, blending in to the background of sounds that filled the room. Corbett listened to the background noise for a few minutes before he sighed again, and then picked up his tablet and slid it into its holster. Maybe he would go see about a cup of coffee. He hadn't had one since this morning, and it looked like it was going to be a long afternoon and evening.

As he walked down the hall to the cafeteria, he started to think about everything that he'd figured out so far. From what he could piece together, the Brighton girl had a party and invited a number of her friends from school. Kincaid was Brighton's best friend, and so, of course, she'd be there. There were the other kids that he'd talked to over the last day, and then there were the deceased. The information that he got from the official reports all pointed to Kincaid, but after his visit with the doctor and then with Lewis, it was clear that if he could dig down deep enough, he'd find that nothing matched up.

As to what really happened, he couldn't find a motive for Hunter killing the other kids. The kid went to the party, drugged his ex-girlfriend, and then...murders everyone. Something just didn't fit in with the timeline. Hunter must be the one with the C in his system, but Corbett still couldn't find a reason for him to take it when he did. Why didn't he take it earlier? Or later? Why drug the Kincaid girl? Too many unanswered questions.