Lone Ranger | Jake Fitzgerald

2| Take A Breath

Sarah sat in the black chair ahead of the woman with knotted, curly hair and red lipstick annoyingly on her front teeth. The woman was marking down in her notebook everything Sarah said to her, which wasn't much. Sarah didn't feel grief towards the breakout of Nina Patterson's death. She felt more relief than sadness.

The school had hired grief councillors to speak to student's on behalf of how to deal with being sad about the entire death subject, but if you asked Sarah, it was a waste of a school day. But then again, they had to write everything students said to hand over to authorities in order to find suspects for the crime. Confidentiality wasn't an option at the moment.

"Did you know Nina Patterson?" The woman who earlier introduced herself as Dr. Marla Patrick, asked.

"Yes." Sarah vaguely replied.

"Well?"

"She was the most popular person at school." Sarah stated, but Dr. Patrick had a blank expression on her face, not comprehending the point Sarah was hinting at. "She ignored my existence, or at least she didn't value me enough to confide in me about anything."

"Was she ever hurtful to you or someone you know?" The doctor continued to write, which made Sarah want to yank the pen from her hand and just walk out - but she couldn't do such a thing, at least not if she didn't want to come across as guilty. She wanted to look as innocent as she could, just so she could walk out and act normal now that Nina was dead...but the idea of a murderer in Lakewood made her stomach twist and twirl. Lakewood had a history of devastatingly terrifying events, and so if history repeats itself as it always has, Lakewood had another thing coming.

"If you want me to list them all, it'll take a lot longer than fifteen minutes." Sarah chuckled.

"Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm Ms. Patterson?" Dr. Patrick wondered. It was all scripted, and that was what bugged Sarah. They had to follow the guidelines the cops assisted them with so they had a clue on who would be against Nina. They strategized questions to get students to be honest and maybe accidentally spill a secret. Sarah was too smart to fall into that trap, but too stupid not the play around with it.

"Absolutely everyone in the town hated Nina. If you want to narrow it down, try to find the person most victimized by Nina's wrath and question them." Sarah spat.

"Did you hate Nina?"

"Huh?" Sarah was distracted by her thoughts, and by the knick-knack in the corner. It was a kitty waving at Sarah, or in her direction. She had seen them around quite a lot, and it was still weird how it constantly was waving without any batteries, or any source of energy.

"Did you hate Nina Patterson?" Dr. Patrick asked again.

"Yes. I did." Sarah watched as the doctor's fingers gripped against the pen as she noted that Sarah had openly admitted to hating the deceased girl, which worried Sarah. "I mean, I didn't like how she treated myself or my friends. She had no remorse for what she said or did to others, and I guess someone she really tormented had enough of it. Before you ask, I didn't kill Nina, I don't have it in me. I would never even think about hurting someone in that way...It's eleven-thirty." Sarah ended her little spiel with the time, which meant her fifteen minutes with the doctor was up.

"Please call in Brooke Maddox. Thank you, Miss. Stone for your time. Hope you get over the terrible accident and I genuinely hope you rehabilitate to who you were before the crime commenced. Have a good day." Dr. Patrick said, almost robotically. She had definitely been scripted. Everything she spoke aloud were almost perfectly spoken; no stutters, no pauses, and no branched out questions.

Sarah exited the conference room and stood outside of the door for a few moments until Noah noticed her arrival. She sighed, her hair bunched up in the hood of her hoodie, and her smile tilted as soon as she made eye contact with Jake. They hadn't spoken since she dropped him off last night after they both witnessed Nina's dead corpse from a face-to-corpse aspect. She had spoken to Noah about it, though. He called her later in the night ranting about how shocking yet fascinating this all was. The minute she brought up seeing the crime scene up-close, he nearly passed excitedly out from living vicariously through her.