Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter 11

    At 3:23 p.m the next day, the house phone rang. I picked up the receiver and pressed 'talk'.

    "Hello?"

    "Hello, who's this?" said a deep voice.

    "This is Abbie Pearson..." I replied hesitantly.

    "Hello Abbie. This is chief Michael Paxton. I discovered a few things in your older sister's room, and I wanted to make sure it was a good time for me to come over and discuss these findings with yourself and your family."

    "Oh sure. We're not doing anything," I said this in a somewhat unsure tone.

    "Alright, I'll be over in twenty minutes," he told me in a firm tone, then ended the call.

    Just then, my mom came into the kitchen, holding a basket overflowing with dirty laundry.

    "I was just going to do some laundry," my mom explained. "Who was on the phone?"

    "Chief Michael Paxton. He discovered some things in mariah's room, so he's comig over in twenty minnutes to discuss them with us. I told him it was okay. I finished with a hopeful smile.

    My mom's face fell slightly at the mention of Mariah's name, but regained herself quickly.

     "Alright, I'll start brewing some coffee. Should I set out some snacks too, or no?"

    "Ummm, no. I don't think we need to."

    Twenty minutes later, everyone - myself, mom, dad, and chief Paxton - were gathered around the table. Everyone had coffee, - even me - which happens on rare occasions. Spread out amongst one end of the table were a few papers, a camera that had been taken apart, and a cellphone that had also been taken apart.

    "Now, I'm going to try and make this as quick as possible, because I don't want to waste your day. Now, the user of this phone, which everyone at the office guess was Mariah when I told the story, she didn't get this phone registered or programmed. Basically it's a stolen phone, but somehow, Mariah had figured out how to program it. When we tried to trace the phone, nothing came up, obviously. So if Mariah - or anybdy - tried to send texts or make calls, the receiver would get it as a blocked number.

    "We looked through everything basic on this phone. Calls, texts, pictures, all of that. There were no messages or past calls available, because clearly, Mariah had deleted them. We were able to take the phone's SIM card out, and uncovered a lot of stuff. We found old text messages, which we later, after tracing the number they were sent to, discovered they were sent to you, Abbie. The most recent one was 'Let the games begin'. We also discovered old calls were made to a company who sells clothing. That's where Mariah must have gotten the sweater. And then on the camera, there were a ton of pictures, mostly of Zach, a few of you, Abbie, and then some normal things like animals and nature. It's possible she was trying to make it seem normal with those pictures? We also uncovered a lot of finger prints on the phone, the sweater, and the camera. They belonged to Mariah. But there was one other's finger prints on there, and we are still tracing them. Clearly, Mariah thought she was good enough to never get caught, but she knew what she was up against.... Well, if that's all. I'll be on my way. Good day to you three."

    With that, Michael left, leaving me with a million questions, my dad in anger, and my mom in tears.