My Brother's Keeper

Chapter Three

I watched as my ex-best friend, Hailey, walked past me. I rolled my eyes while turning my music up a little bit louder. I hate seeing her around. I mean, her sister was Vanessa and she refused to talk to me ever since the police made it seem like Danny killed her sister.

I felt someone tap my shoulder. I looked over at my newest friend, Justine. She stared at me and pointed to my headphones. I took one out of my ear.

"What's going on with you?"

"Nothing."

"You look sick."

"Nice to see you too, Justine."

"When's the last time you ate?"

"Who are you my mother?" I sat up and looked at Justine. "Since you wanna know, I ate last night." I lied. She stared at me then pulled out a granola bar from out her bookbag.

"Eat this." she forcefully.

"I'm not hungry." she rolled her eyes sitting next to me. "So, I have some news." She looked at me. "I'm going to look into Danny's case." She raised an eyebrow.

"Man, what?"

"I'm going to get my brother out of jail."

"How you gonna do that?" she asked taking a sip out of her water bottle.

"Well for starters, I'm going to look into all the facts that the police collected and then I'm going to try to find everybody that was at that party and get their version of what happened. Since the police never talked to them." She looked over at me and nodded.

"But what if they won't talk to you because you're Danny's sister and everyone's convinced now that he did it."

"Do you think he did it?" I asked her. She shook her head.

"Even though me and your brother never had a conversation face to face, I can kind of tell that he'll never hurt a fly."

"And that's what I'm going to have to try to push to everyone that I'm going to interview slash interrogate."

"Well good luck." I saw people start to walk into school. She stood up.

"Thank you love." I stood up and looked over at her. "Now into this hell hole."

I was walking home from school when I saw the car from the other day. I looked over as the window rolled down. Jermaine motioned for me to come to the car. I sighed and walked over to the car.

"Here." he handed me an envelope.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Don't ask questions. Open it when you get home and follow what it says."

"Why can't yo-"
"Go home Victoria." he said. I stared at him for a second then nodded.

"Yeah. OK." I rolled my eyes and walked home. Once I got home, I ran up to my room and opened the envelope. There was a piece of paper folded up neatly inside. I opened it.

Find Jake Friar and befriend him

This confused me because this was the only thing on the paper. No other instructions. No numbers, no pictures, no nothing. Just a sentence telling me to befriend someone I never heard of before.

"Who's Jake Friar?" I asked aloud. After a while I opened Google on my laptop and search his name. Almost immediately, his name pops up with a link to the PWPD website. I click on it and looked at the facts about him that came up on the page.

Jake is a second generation police officer. His father John Friar, worked for the PWPD for 40 years before his retirement.

Jake has been working for the PWPD since he was 18. He's now 21 and has been doing a great job. No incidents, nothing. His record is squeaky clean.

I heard a knock on my door. "Come in." I said. I looked over as my mother walked in.

"Hey, sweetheart." she sat on my bed. I looked over at her.

"Hey, mama."

"How was school?" I looked back down at my laptop and quickly switched over to the other tab where I was doing my homework.
"It was good I guess."

"Well, I wanted to see if you wanted to go out to eat for dinner? I wanted to go to that new restaurant down East that Auntie Julianna was raving about."

"Uh, yeah. That sounds like fun." I said. She smiled.

"And, I wanted you to meet the new man I started dating." she said. I bit the inside of my cheek.

"What?"

"Devin is a great man, Vickie. I know that you'll like him. I promise. Please?" I looked away for a second then nodded slowly.

"Alright, be ready by 5." she kissed my forehead and walked out the room. I sighed lightly then clicked back over to the other tab and continued my research on Mr. Jake Friar.

I also found out was that he is single and is looking to date. Which might be my way into getting the information I need.

I ended up finding some of his social media. I found out that he is usually stationed by a park that I walk by everyday to go to school and to come back home. I also found out that he is interested in art and he loves dogs.

Around 4:30 I started getting ready to go to the restaurant. I put on a light colored pair of jeans, a maroon colored sweater and a white pair of converses. My mother knocked on my door after I was finished getting dressed and looked at me.

"You know that this restaurant is a dress up restaurant, right?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't have gotten dressed like this." I said quietly. I could tell that she was upset. "You want me to change? I'll be quick." She looked down at her watch and sighed.

"We won't get there on time, Victoria."

"Mommy, all I have to do is change into that dress that wore to Homecoming. It'll be perfect and I know exactly where it is."

"No, Victoria!" she yelled. I stared at her for a second. "You always mess something up. I'll order pizza for dinner."

"Mom!"

"Victoria! It's too late." She started to walk away. "I'm starting to think that you did this on purpose."

"What are you talking about?"

"If you didn't want to meet Devin right now, you could've told me instead of making seem like you wanted to meet him."

"M-" I stopped myself. "I'm going to go the library. I have to go get this book for school." I lied. I put my laptop in my bookbag. "I should be back later."

"Little girl, I never gave you permission to leave." she called out after me. I opened the front door starting to walk out when I heard her say, "If you leave, don't come back." I rolled my eyes while closing the door.