Lost

Chapter 85: "Interrogations"

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Salma felt her brother throwing dark glances at her from across the room. The other day, she had shrugged him off by letting him know Alex told her to not report Zayn. Asim did not appreciate her answer or her decision to follow Alex's instructions. In fact, he actually looked skeptical of the whole story of the agent dropping by at night. Salma did not argue. She simply did not have any energy to do so. Asim soon stopped badgering her and resorted to throwing dirty looks her way.

Salma was glad she'd kept the real reason to herself. He would not understand and Salma did not feel like explaining. She did, of course worry that Asim might reveal the identity of her assailant to her family and that Salma was covering up for him. Her brother, however, feeling guilty that him getting late that night was one of the reasons why Salma got attacked in first place, decided to keep her secret.

Salma ignored her brother's silent glower and put her shoes on.

"I'm ready," she told Dean quietly.

"Okay," Dean picked the keys, "Let's go,"

Asim had refused to drive her to the campus, where the authorities wanted her to identify the culprit. As a result, Dean accompanied her. Further displeased, Asim stormed out of the room, greatly upset.

Once the interrogation was over, Salma stepped out of the room feeling muddled. It was a weird meeting. To her surprise, Alex was there and Salma felt anxious when the officer kept showing her pictures of men that were found lurking around the block that night. All tall, well built boys with varying shades of brown eyes and dark hair. Quite strangely, Zayn's face was not one of them. Salma looked up at Alex after going through the pile.

Was she the reason behind Zayn's missing picture? Surely the security cameras were not selective in what they captured.

"It's none of these guys, sir," She told the officer. He frowned in disappointment.

"That's just not possible. This is every kid matching your description that entered or left the building that night," He said, "Are you positive? Take another look."

Salma bit the insides of her cheeks, bursting at the seams to just say it was Zayn. Conveniently, Alex started talking at that time.

"If I may, officer," She spoke up, asking his permission to interfere. Barely waiting for his nod, Alex continued, "It is very possible that the person could have entered during working hours in the morning and never left until after the police did a search," She suggested

The officer's frown deepened.

"We did a very thorough search, Agent Wickfield," he replied.

"Even inside the buildings?" Alex quirked a brow, "I don't know officer. A colleague of mine was sitting right under the stairs in the hallways the whole time and he was never bothered. Shouldn't we then think, you may have missed another hiding spot?"

"That's possible," He muttered, looking disgruntled, "But that's talking about hundreds of students that may have entered through the day!"

Skillfully diverting the focus to another aspect of the investigation, Alex kept interfering every time there seemed to be a deadlock all along till the session ended.

Still feeling like puppet whose strings were being pulled, Salma entered the hall. Dean was leaning against the wall in the hallway waiting for her. He stepped away from the wall when he saw her walking over to him.