THE CRIMINAL FILES ~ Tragedy at its Finest

E I G H T

/I'm waking up to ash and dust. I wipe my brow, and sweat my rust. I'm breathing in, the chemicals. I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus. This is it, the apocalypse/

I burst through the door, slamming the picture of Maria's dead body on the table. Mrs. Harris' stormy eyes looked at it, and trailed up towards me. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Well, I'm simply showing you what you did. Jogging your memory a bit. Helping you remember," I replied. "You do remember her, don't you?"

She didn't say anything. "She was Jensen's favorite student. She was smart. And respected him." I nodded and put on a tight, smirk.

"Yeah. Except, she was his favorite for other reasons." I leaned down, meeting her gaze once again. "He loved talking about Maria at home. In fact, he talked about Maria more than he did you. And that made you jealous."

"Why would I be jealous of a sixteen year old girl?" Her voice sounded bitter. But so was mine.

"Because she was carrying your husband's child." I said. "At first, you pretended that those thoughts of his didn't exist. And you would've continued letting him pray on them, as long as he didn't touch your sons, right? But, see...when you found out that Maria was six weeks pregnant with your husband's kid, you snapped. She didn't go home the exact same time the students did, because Jensen was...having his time with her. When she was walking home however, you blitz attacked her. You then killed her, brought her out to the woods and dumped her body."

I took a breath, staring at the pane of glass momentarily. "However, you weren't expecting for there to be people walking along the trails in the forest. So, you did what had to be done to hide the body, and you covered her up with the leaves." I leaned against the wall. "I'll admit, Mrs. Harris, you stumped us...but see that's the thing about my team..." I went back to her, making sure she was looking at me. "We don't rest, until the victims of crime's are avenged and people like you are behind bars."

I picked up the picture, placed it back in the file and opened the door. Just as I was about to close it she stopped me. "She wasn't supposed to get pregnant. This wasn't supposed to happen to me."

"Maria wasn't supposed to die. She's the victim, Mrs. Harris...not you."

*****

"Another case, completed!" Jackson cheered, clinking his glass along with Owen, May and my glass.

I sipped at my iced tea, watching Owen and Jackson begin to throw fries at each other. "Stop wasting good food you two!" May scolded, swatting at Owen's hand when he tried to take one of her fries.

The four of us sat in the booth and laughed, munching away on our fries and burgers. Because lets be honest...none of us we're gonna' order a salad.