To Whom It May Concern

Chapter 30

JUAN'S POV

There my friend lay, lifeless, a knife chin her chest and car tire prints over crushed parts of her body. Tess was there. Wailing and shouting.

"No, not you!" She continued to scream as she sat on the ground and pulled Kat's lifeless body repeatedly.

I knelt there, motionless. My limbs couldn't move, I tried to speak but the words weren't making it out. Tears run down my face uncontrollably, I didn't hear the crowd around me disperse till I was tapped to reality. It was our principal.

"You guys need to leave. Go to your rooms!"

My eyes remained on Kat's body as I saw our security pull Tess away from it. I finally looked away and saw Collins not too far from my left side. He had listened to our principal immediately, gotten up, and walked up to me. There were so many things I wasn't processing at that time. I wanted to run up to Tess and hit her till she confessed to anything but the grief couldn't let me open my mouth let alone raise my hand. As Collins streams tears, he reaches out his hand to me, I looked up and saw his bloodshot eyes. The staff came to clear us away from the scene and as I let Collins pick me up, I dropped all my weight on him and sobbed.

"How!?" Is all I had questioned repeatedly till we got to our room.

We got into our room and we remained silent. So many unspoken thoughts and questions but nothing was said. My mind drifted off to Tess' performance in front of the hall. Many things stopped me from yelling "killer" before the whole school. I was going to ask her to tell me the truth for friendship's sake with other people being in the know of my confrontation. Also, her dad had been falsely accused and thrown under the bus, I owed her more than that. I could make believe I still thought about friendship when all the evidence pointed to her and I was sure of it.

"I left her backstage with you before the play. How was she out here?" I finally let my voice quake out.

"She told the other violinist she couldn't play. Her hands were trembling so I told them to leave her and cover up. She said she was going to stay with you," Collins explained and we just stared at each other.

I was certain we silently blamed each other for letting either of us out of sight. I couldn't help the wave of emotions that overwhelmed me. We had to think of the next step forward than continue to waste all the time we had.

"We should do something, C. We should," I muttered between trickles of tears.

"Like what? Confront Tess and probably get killed?"

"She wouldn't do that! I saw her in the hall when the screams started!"

"Are you still supporting her after what just happened?"

"I'm giving her the benefit of doubt. She didn't do it herself. There has to be an explanation. We can start by informing the principal."

"I don't like this plan one bit," Collins admitted.

I didn't like it either but that was our best shot. I knew we were right but we could display all our facts and end up being wrong. I didn't like the uncertainty of that. Besides we didn't have any concrete proof to link Tess to it and as such we could just end up making her hate us. That night, while the entire school board, staff, and security stayed around we walked up to them and requested to see our principal alone.

The board members with her hesitated, asking us to address all of them as it was no time for games but we insisted. Finally, they let us and we went into her office with her. We confessed everything we knew about the murders to her and began to explain in detail the theories and evidence we had put together and how they had all come about. She listened to us keenly without interrupting at any point. We continued to tell her all we knew about Tess and how we could connect her to the murders by providing motive and opportunity. The part about Jack had been narrated but with modifications made to it. The only other person that could have been greatly affected, Kat, was dead so we tactically omitted all the parts Collins had to play in Jack's death. Neither did we pin the driving of his body into the river on Tess. When we were done, the principal thanked us and asked us to leave all our papers of evidence behind. We had expected that so we took pictures of every single page before we brought it forward.

The following day there was little to no activity in school. Class had been suspended until further notice pending completion of the police investigation and parents had been advised to carry their wards. Collins and I were summoned to the principal's office to recount what we had shared. The detectives listened to us with even more details and took notes every step of the way. I voiced out Collins' fear of being next and they assured us they were on top of the matter now and would have security around us for a while. I was glad to hear that. As we stood up to leave, I remembered one other thing, I hesitated then finally asked.

"What about Tess? Do you guys already have her? What's going to happen to her?"

"So many questions at once, son," the detective said and chuckled. "We don't have her yet and we don't know anything about what will happen because we do not know anything."

I looked at him unsure of how to respond as he had reduced all we had recounted to him to just hearsay. I understood why he did that, they would need to conduct their own investigation but he didn't need to let us hear that. I glanced over at Collins, my eyes watery and I offered a painful smile. He held my gaze, moved over to me and we walked out of that room together. I felt the safest. He knew how much it broke me that this involved Tess.

That was reassurance.