Riverwood

Chapter 16

Detective Brock takes my statement for the second time after who I presume is a rookie officer. The way his hands were shaking as I gave him the gory details of what I had seen and how the incident took place, looks like it's not just me who's not getting any sleep tonight.

"Can I see my friends now?" I ask, glancing at their direction where Jake is crying in Brea's arms while she's trying to swallow her own tears. Diego, Nolan, Aubrey and Randy are trying to comfort them, but there's nothing in the world anyone could do to make this better. They all arrived after Diego called the police then them. Jake screamed and yelled and wouldn't let the coroner take Woody's body away, I don't remember a day that has gone by and I hadn't seen the two of them together. They were like brothers, Jake is an only child and his parents aren't very attentive of him. Woody and Brea are his only family. And now all he's got left is, Brea.

"Yeah go ahead." Detective Brock nods his head.

But before I walk away I see the rookie about to vomit, walking back and forth. "Is he okay?" I nod my head towards him and detective Brock lets out a small laugh.

"That's Henry, he's fine. He started yesterday and this was his first call. The kid hasn't seen anything yet and his first job is another unsolvable murder case."

"What a first day." I say, expressionless.

"Hannah, we're doing the best we can." He says.

"I know. So am I." I say and join my friends.

After seeing what happened today, I'm gonna do my best to prevent it from happening again. This psycho can torment me all he wants, but I'm not gonna let anyone else, especially my friends, get hurt because of me.

"I'm so sorry." Is all I say as my boice breaks.

Jake looks up at me, his eyes red and puffy and tears still streaming down uncontrollably. Brea is also sporting a similar look. They both nod but remain silent.

"Maybe we shouldn't stay alone tonight, we can all stay together if you want." I suggest, not knowing what else to say.

"Just let it go Hannah." Brea says letting out a short sob. "This isn't a movie, stop trying to play detective and let the actual detectives do their jobs. You can't stop him, you're not superman." She says.

"Brea I am sorry, I lost-" I swallow a tear. "I lost Woody too, this hurts me too, but it is not my fault, I did all I can to stop him."

"I know. We both do and we don't blame you. But maybe we should stay away from each other for a while." She says.

"I lost my brother today. You could've stopped it and so could I, we were both late." Jake says with gritted teeth and walks away, Brea following him.

"I'm always gonna be late aren't I?" I say as Diego pulls me in for a hug.

***

I'm sitting at Woody's house, watching as friends and family members sniffle and pay their repsect to his parents. Everyone is wearing black and I feel like the room is closing in on me.

"Okay I know this isn't the time, but we don't have that. We need to act fast." Aubrey whispers.

"Aubrey come on." Randy says.

"No she's right." I say. "And I think I know where to start. But it's a bit risky."

"How?" Nolan asks.

"Okay, so if the killer is always watching us then he knew that we were gonna go see Paisley. What if he went there before us?"

"Oh my God." Nolan says in realisation. "That's actually a very good possibility, I mean it did sound like everything she said was rehearsed."

"How do we find out?" Aubrey asks.

"That's a job for a journalist." Randy smirks. "We need to find out when there are no guards around so we can sneak in and check the visitor's list."

"It's prison, there are always guards." She says.

"Yeah but not as much as there are during the day. There's usually one guard at the reception, all we have to do is distract them." I say.

"Aubrey and I will distract the guard and you three sneak in and check whoever signed in to see Paisley before us. Or any other day since she was arrested." Nolan says.

We pay our respects and go home to change into something more comfortable for the mission. We simply wave and sympathetically smile at Jake and Brea since they said they want to stay away from us.

We park the car a little far from the gates so that no one would see that we're there. The gates are locked but there are no guards there.

"If we climb the walls I'm pretty sure there's a security alarm." Randy whispers.

"I can pick the lock." Diego suggests.

"Diego we already are at prison, you do that and it's not gonna be hard to throw your ass in jail." I whisper yell at him.

"So that's a no?" He says.

"No of course not, do it." I say giving him a bobby pin.

Diego picks the lock and we all walk in through the small space we only cracked the gate and leave it open for our plan. Diego, Randy and I hide outside of the office as Nolan and Aubrey casually walk in.

"Excuse me." Nolan says as we watch from the edge of the window. Thankfully it's dark and we can't be seen.

"Whoa, what are you two doing here? How did you get in?" The police officer stands up.

"Well, that's why we're here." Nolan says raising up his hands in innocence. "We were walking by and thought it'd be fun to mess around but then we saw that the gate is actually open."

"We were afraid that somebody might've broken in, that's why we thought we'd alert you." Aubrey says.

"You did the right thing." The woman says and walks from her desk and runs outside as we duck. Nolan and Aubrey send us a look as they run after her to further distract her.

"We're up." I say as we slowly tiptoe inside and Randy immediately plops onto the chair behind the computer and Diego and I flip through the sign in sheets in the file cabinets.

"We have to hurry up." Diego says as footsteps approach from outside. We hear Nolan and Aubrey trying to stop the guard from coming into the room.

"You guys, oh my God." Randy suddenly whispers and we run to his side. "Look who visited Paisley a day before we did."

"No, no way. This can't be right." I say as my eyes stay glued on the name.

"It's right there Hannah." Diego says.

"You know what this means right?" Randy says. "Jake might be the killer."