WHEN DETECTIVE FAULKNER'S CONTACT glowed on her screen, Scarlet excused herself from the costume group and ran out of the auditorium, heart almost leaping from her chest and out of her mouth. She managed to cry out "Police call!" to Ms. Stanford before she could say anything about her running off and pushed open the auditorium doors into the heat of early May's afternoon.
"Is there anything new?" she rushed out.
Detective Faulkner sighed on the other end. "I wish there was something more substantial to give ya, kid. I'm just calling to let you know that your mother's body is good to be transferred to a funeral home."
"You guys didn't find anything about the killer?" Scarlet chewed on her lip, eyebrows furrowed, and walked along the sidewalks around the auditorium. The constant movement helped get rid of the pent up anxiety rising from within her.
"Unfortunately, we didn't find much. All we got was that the killer used a kitchen knife, and that was about it." Scarlet frowned when Detective Faulkner sipped on a drink, letting that slurp travel to her ears.
"Not even a fingerprint?" she insisted.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Turner, but the killer was good. They knew how to cover their tracks."
Her stomach flipped and knotted all at once. The hope remaining inside diminished even more. Would there ever be justice for her mother? She knew of murder cases that never got resolved before. Hundreds of people that never got justice for the crimes committed against them. Would that be her mother?
"Will you guys ever find this person?" Scarlet asked as she leaned against one of the potted trees.
"Nothing is certain, Ms. Turner," Detective Faulkner said. "But we are doing everything we can to find whoever did this."
Scarlet hunched forward, pressing her free hand over her temple, right over the area where it throbbed. "Alright, well, thank you for letting me know about... the body. Please call me if there's anything new."
"Will do."
Pressing the red button to end the call, Scarlet felt the pressure of a thousand bricks fall over her shoulders. Like Atlas cursed to hold the sky forever, the injustice of her mother's untimely passing fell overhead and she had no other option but to hold it up. She stared down at her phone, wishing Detective Faulkner would call again and tell her they had a lead. Something.
Her phone wallpaper—a solid black background with the words 'why not?' right in the center in a white font—glinted up at her. Her thumb hovered over the screen, and she shut her eyes as she gave in, looking for Sheriff Merlo's contact.
His disappointing reaction to her mother's murder plagued her mind. She knew there was something there, something to hit for him to see reason. She hadn't found it yet. Maybe if she tried hard enough he could see that pursuing her mother's case was a good thing.
"Hello?" his voice came through her phone. Her throat closed up as she fumbled for words. "Who is this?"
Scarlet moistened her lips before clearing her throat. "Sheriff Merlo?"
He sighed. "Ms. Turner?"
"Please," she begged. "Isn't there anything you can do?"
"We don't have much to work with, Scarlet," he said. "Forensics could only find the murder weapon. No one saw anything. Cameras don't show anything either. We're in the dark here. All we can say is that Christine was in her house at the wrong time."
Scarlet swallowed the lump in her throat. "There has to be something, Sheriff. Something that makes sense to all of this. Can't you search?"
Silence.
YOU ARE READING
Forever Crimson
Teen Fiction"The vultures are disguised as humans." Scarlet Turner has her last semester of high school planned out: graduate as best as she can and take care of her sick mother. But when she's told she won't graduate because of the pile of tardies she's collec...
