"What are you doing in here?" A voice I knew all too familiar startles me and I drop the book.

"Nothing." I bend down to pick it up off of the dusty floor, and then I place it gently onto the table in front of me. I stand up straight - and I can hear by back bones cracking as I do so - before spinning on my heel, stopping to face the person who belonged to the voice.

I'm definitely in trouble now.

The police chief sighs as he rubs his temples with his right thumb and pointer finger. I could tell he was fed up with me. But I also know he secretly likes me, I might remind him of himself when he was my age. I don't know though.

"What am I going to do with you, Ryan?" He places his free hand against his hip of his left side.

"Give me a promotion and some actual cases to take on?" I reply back with a goofy grin, even though I know that that's not what he was meaning. But, if he didn't want a sarcastic reply from me, he shouldn't have left it open like that.

"Your parents call us asking about your whereabouts. Not because we're the police, but because you're most likely to be in our custody."

"Or it's because you all just love me too much that you can't get enough of me." I give him a toothy grin and his eyes roll back into his head.

"Uh Huh." He shakes his head and sighs, before he outstretches his right arm and wiggles his pointer finger of that hand at me. "Come on now." He says with annoyance in his voice, "we're leaving."

"Leaving?" I try to act dumb, while I tilt my head a bit to the left and raise one corner of my mouth higher than the other. "Where are we going?" My voice squeaks at the end of the phrase, and my tongue attempts to peek out through my lips.

"We're going to the station. I have a few questions for you to answer." He grumbles and walks out into the hallway. I take this brief moment to tear out a page from the book I dropped, and then I stuff it into one of my pockets before scurrying into the hallway in hopes of avoiding suspicion.

"Is it for a test?" I ask coyly, "you know I'm not that good with tests." I run my right hand through my scarlet dyed hair, curling a bunch of strands around my finger.

"It's not a test. Just simple questions." I can hear him sigh as he opens the front door of the old School house and waits for me to exit out first.

"Alright. But is there a chance that I could fail this not a test set of questions thing?" I look up at him as I pass through the doorway and out of the school. I turn to face him and begin to walk backwards. His eyes look at me with such disappointment I can almost feel it. He steps out from the building, turning around briefly to close the door behind him, and then faces back around.

"Just get in the car." He raises his left arm and points to his squat car behind me.

"Are you going to tell my parents?" I roll my head back and then spin on my heels to face forward. "Is the door unlocked?" I ask as I reach for the back seat door's handle.

"It should be." He replies, walking to the drivers door and grips his right hand upon the handle.

Click

Both doors open and swing out wide enough for us to slip in.

"And I have to," the police chief slips onto his seat and then he closes his door soon after.

If he didn't know where I lived, if I didn't have angry parents waiting back home for me, and I had somewhere else I could go that he didn't know about; I would have high tailed it out of there. He closed his door already and probably put his seat belt on too, it would have probably taken him a few minutes to realize and then another few to get started. By then I probably would have been out of his sight.

But he knows where I live, I have angry parents waiting for me at home, and currently there is no place I can go that he nor anyone on the police force don't know about. And so, I stay.

I plop myself down onto the back seat of the police car and close the door behind me.

"Any juicy details on the questions I should know about first? You know, so I can prep?" I lean in close to the glass that separates the front seats from the back seats, and I try to project my voice through the small-ish air holes. Or so I call them.

"No." He thrusts the key into the key hole and starts the ignition.

"Harsh." I slump back into my seat before turning my head to look out the window.

"That's life." I feel the car begin to move and the scenery outside the window begins to roll back as though a movie were playing on the glass.

"Life stinks." I close my eyes and try to forget what anger is about to come my way.

***

I open my eyes and lean my elbows upon the cold metal table. My head rests snuggly in my hands and I stare emptily into the black one way mirror.

"Are you listening?" The investigator calls out to me, sounding a bit annoyed. I slowly blink my eyes before moving my head even slower to face him.

"Uh huh." I mumble my reply, my lower jaw barely moving as it is pressed closed by my hands.

"So are you going to answer the question?" He clasps his hands together and lays them out in front of himself.

"Can you please repeat the question?" I look into his eyes and try to appear like a typical dumb blonde, except my hair isn't blonde so it doesn't always work. "I have a short memory and don't really remember a lot." I lie and bat my eye lashes at him.

His dead and soulless eyes stare back at me with a I'm not amused and that act of yours is not working expression.

I suck the inside of my cheek inwards and bite down gently on the clump I had sucked in. My tongue sways around it as our eyes remain locked in what has become a staring contest now.

"Fine." He blinks and looks down, probably disappointed in himself. He reshuffles his paper in search of the correct document and then lays it out in front of me. "Do you know this woman?" He asks, tapping his finger against the sheet of paper he laid down in front of me.

My eyes glance down at the page and at first all seems fine. I slide the paper closer to me so that I can get a closer look.

"No. I do not know this woman." I half lied. The woman in the image was the one I found dead by the old abandoned school house, I know who she is, but I do not know her personally.

"Are you sure?" He asks, leaning in closer to me.

"I'm sure." I reply with no intent on changing my answer.

"Have you ever met this woman before? Even just in passing?" The interrogator sighs, trying to rephrase his question. But I'm smart enough to know when someone is trying to trick me.

"No. I have never met the woman before in my entire life. If it was in passing, I definitely don't remember it." I lean my chin solely on the palm of my left hand and then I drop my right hand down gently upon the cool metal table. "I don't remember faces that well either." I lied. I remember faces quite well, probably even better than names.

"Are you sure?" I curl my fingers inwards with a slight annoyance. I've been cooperative for the past fifteen minutes, stop treating me like an idiot. I scrunch my face up with slight disgust, I'm bad at hiding my emotions. Very bad.

"I am one hundred and ninety nine, point nine, nine percent sure that I have never once met that woman before." I harshly tap my right pointer finger against the paper that he had slid in front of me from the last question.

"That's not possible. It is scientifically not possible to go above one hundred percent." He lowers his head and then shakes it slowly with disappointment.

"Well, if you're so smart, why don't you tell me the real reason I'm here other than you wasting my time with stupid questions!" I speak in a loud voice at the man before me.

"Well, you see..."