Changed Time

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"So, let me get this straight." The detective had been at the interrogation for two hours and I was in desperate need to get out of the room. "Michael Torres and his group of friends kidnap you and Sophia Craft, but when Walter James came to save you, Mr. Torres' friends were not to be seen."

I sighed and covered my face with my newly cleaned hands. After the police took a blood sample off of them, they told me that I could wash them. After twenty minutes of scrubbing them until the outer layer of skin had been scrubbed off, they had me go into the plain, gray interrogation room and wait ten more minutes for Detective Randall to finally show up, only to treat me like a criminal for the next two hours.

"As I said before. I don't know where the other guys went. Maybe they saw Walter with the gun and they ran." I was almost ready just to say that I killed someone so that I could get out of the room. "I didn't see where they went, I was tied to a chair."

Randall nodded. "Right."

A knock came at the door and a deputy opened the door.

Randall walked up to him and the deputy whispered something in his ear. The detective's eyes averted to me, telling me that whatever the deputy said, it had something to do with me.

"Thank you, deputy." The deputy nodded and closed the door. Randall glared at me. "Well, your story checked out with Miss Craft's. And according to the other motel residents, there was no way that you or Miss Craft could have collaborated a story in time."

"So am I free to go?" I asked standing up.

Randall slowly nodded his head. "Mr. Holdsman." I stared into his brown eyes. "Why are you in Thorp?" I felt my heartbeat rise and I shoved my hands in my pocket to keep them from forming into fists. "You live in Ashland, not even in Washington. Why are you here?"

I tried to keep my cool, to not give anything away. I took a deep breath and answered as calmly as I could. "We were on our way to Okanogan-Wenatchee. The only way to get there is to go through Thorp, and we decided to stay at a motel."

Randall stared at me and I could tell that he didn't believe the story that we had agreed on well before coming to Thorp.

"Perhaps, you and your friends should go home. It seems that your trip has been ruined."

I clenched my jaw. "Yeah. Thank you, Detective."

As he held the door open for me, I got the sense of his gaze watching me closely.

Detective Randall was going to be a problem. If were were going to catch the murderers, we were going to have to be much more careful, and not just worry about them, but of Randall as well.