Archer's Angels

𝟕. 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Investigator Quincy Lord questioned each girl, Anastasia and Bridget giving out vague answers.  Gemma turned in Archer's laptop filled with a bunch of the girls' files. Nikita's is the one he highlighted. In that folder is an exact copy of her IEP, birth certificate, and doctoral notes. 

"What the hell was doing with confidential files?" Quincy muttered as he looked through them all, mostly to himself but Gemma answered him anyway.

"He was the principal in a pretend school for about six years now," Gemma explained, Quincy's head jerking back up to look at her. "When we were in first grade, me and my friends Bridget and Anastasia were the only students that played school with him and my brother Adam, who was pretty geeky back then."

What the hell am I listening to?  Quincy thought as his eyes narrowed and lips parted. 

Gemma noticed his expression and cringed, feeling a sudden rush of embarrassment. "I know...it's a lot. But it doesn't stop from here. The three of us were too boring for Archer, apparently. So one day, when we were at the park, Archer was playing a game with Adam. Nikita, one of our classmates, happened to be on the monkey bars. Doing all kinds of acrobatics. Adam was the one who told me to invite her over. I barely knew her at the time, but we became friends. Once Archer got a hold of her, it was over."

"That's when all the years of abuse started?" Quincy asked with a sagely nod.

"Yes," Gemma answered, mirroring that sage nod back. 

After finishing with Gemma, it was finally Seoyeon's turn. She explained the sexual encounters that Nikita often told Zaria. "At first, she was giggly and boastful about him kissing her since it was an older guy," Quincy nodded for her to continue as he wrote down what she said. "But soon after eighth grade, I noticed Nikita's personality changed. She was no longer happy. It wasn't maturity, either. She stopped bragging about getting hold of Archer's money and kissing. She spent like half her afternoon, every day after school, with him in his room. So there wasn't much to talk about other than what he did. And what the hell did Zaria do? Nothing!"

"Okay, Seoyeon," Quincy told her, gesturing for her to calm down, "no need to scream, we're not outside. What exactly did you hear Nikita tell Zaria about Archer and what he did?"

"He would feel her up, especially since she was more developed than us," Seoyeon answered, lightly cupping her breasts. "She would wipe off a corner of her mouth, have hickeys all over her body, neck, and because the house was soundproofed, we couldn't hear them doing anything."

"Then how was Gemma able to record them?" Quincy asked.

"You had to be extremely close to the door to hear them," Seoyeon responded, twirling her ponytail. "I'm still surprised Adam and Kendall even let her go up there."

Quincy leaned forwards a bit with a narrowed, furrowed eyebrow. "What were Kendall and Adam's roles in the abuse?"

"Kendall was against it, Adam was complicit and so was Bridget and Zaria," Seoyeon answered, "I believe that Gemma and I were the only ones against it."

"What about Stasia?"

"No. She was hardly ever around to even witness anything."

Quincy sat back against his chair, picking up his pen to jot down Adam and Kendall's names. "Okay," he said, putting it back down to look at her again with that piercing cold gaze. "So are they here because Gemma is? If Gemma didn't care about Nikita as much as you do, would they have shown up?"

"Absolutely not," Seoyeon answered flatly, her hands on the table. "they shouldn't have been allowed to answer questions."