Past Tense (editing)

Thirty five// The confession

"So, Jacqueline," Mr. Ortiz started "I have here that you and Elaine Jenkins were best friends?"

"Yes, we are." Jacqueline answered, making herself comfortable on the chair right in front of Mr. Ortiz's desk.

"Alright, so let me get this. You, Don and the two kids that are missing were all super close and best friends but you don't know where they are?" he asked again.

This was making Jacqueline feel uncomfortable. "I already told you, I really don't know where Elaine and Tim are, Tim and I had a figh-"

"What about Elaine then?" Mr. Ortiz pushed again "You said that you, Don and Timothy fought because of an issue with Elaine, isn't that true, Jacqueline?"

"Yeah, but-"

"What was the issue, Jacqueline?"

"I can't say, this is Elaine's and ours privacy!" Jacqueline defended.

Mr. Ortiz opened the door and motioned for some other officer to come inside. "You were right, she's not willing to talk, I guess you have to take this, for now."

The other officer smiled,, and Jacqueline could have sworn that she saw an evil glimpse in his eye. "Ms. Lawson," he started "I will ask you one more time. What was the issue Elaine Jenkins had, and it was so important it ended up, splitting four very good friends?"

"As I already told Mr. Ortiz, this is a private matter and it has nothing to do with her disappearance or Tim's disappearance." Jacqueline was getting sick of this.

"Alright then, since you're not willing to talk," the other officer said "please take Ms. Lawson to the penitentiary."

"Wait, what? No you can't do that! I'm not even eighteen yet!" Jacqueline protested as two officers took her and started leading her somewhere unknown for Jacqueline.

"We sure can Ms. Lawson," the officer from before said following them "if you are not willing to cooperate with us, we shall as well make you to."

"You're going to make you tell my best friends secret, even if it is not that important."

"It is the only thing we don't know and we have no leads to anything so it could be the only lead we can have. And since you are afraid to tell us about this, it must be important. Even pinky promises can be broken when you are about to go to jail. You can call me whenever you're ready to talk." he said and left.

Jacqueline was put inside some kind of prison cell but in front of her was some bored, fat officer that was just about to fall asleep on the chair he was sitting on.

Jacqueline sat on one of the benches and waited.

Was it the right thing, telling the police that she and her best friend were actually involved with a drug dealer and they couldn't get out of it?

That Elaine was locked in a house with him and an another drug dealer?

That Tim was dead because of him?

That he was abusing Elaine?

~

Hours passed and no one even bothered to go and check on her, she was starting to think that she should talk about this with an officer or something.

"Jacque!" Don called and came as near as he could. "What happened? Why are you here?"

"They are also looking for  Elaine now, and they want me to tell that about the issue Elaine had." she explained.

"Oh." was all Don could say.

"Well, this is a nice change of scenery." he finally said.

"--------, I'm in a prison cell." Jacqueline sighed.

"I was being sarcastic." Don laughed "You know what Jacque, why don't tell them and be free while they do their jobs, huh?"

"I don't know what to do anymore , Don." Jacqueline said and started crying.

This whole thing was so exhausting for her. "Can you call Mr. Ortiz I'll tell him everything."

Don nodded and left quickly to find Mr. Ortiz and after some minutes, Jacqueline was sitting in front of the very well known desk.

Mr. Ortiz and the other officer were looking at her. "It all started when we were at school/ education trip thing with school in Ibiza. One night, they decided to let us do whatever we want so we decided to go to a club near by with almost all the kids from our class. Elaine met a guy there, he is 23 years old and his name is Douglas Stevens-"

"Douglas Stevens? The drug dealer? We've been looking for him for ages!" the other officer said.

Jacqueline was still crying remembering that story. "We didn't know he was a drug dealer!"

"Continue, Jacqueline."

"Well, she met Douglas and she fell in love with him, she was like crazy. Anyways, the next night Douglas invited Elaine to a restaurant near that club like at 1 am in the morning, because she could sneak out of the hotel the school was staying, she didn't want to go alone so I went with her, Don and Tim were against this, but they couldn't stop us. Tim was really really like telling us to be careful because he might be dangerous. We didn't listen, that night we had so much fun and Douglas was such a gentleman, he actually told us he lives in New York, what a coincidence, just like us so we could see him here too. When we came back here, We were going out with Douglas and Elaine, but after some time I stopped going with because they were a couple and I didn't want to get in the middle."

"After months of this happening, Elaine finds out the guy is a drug dealer and then I find out and then Don and then we said Tim and that's why we had that fight. He was pissed because he was telling us from the beginning that he was dangerous and to be careful. But it was too late for Elaine, he was so blinded by her love to Douglas that she completely trusted him and moved in with him. One night she called us from an unknown number and told us that Douglas had killed Tim and we had to find his body, that he buried him somewhere in the forest, we did it and followed Douglas into the forest where he was checking on something, we found Tim and left him there, cause we couldn't bare the thought of him being dead. we later on searched for Mark Peterson, one of Tim's friends who was with him the day he died, according to Elaine, and he said that he saw Douglas forcing Elaine to take drugs and he ran away while Tim stayed there to help her and got himself killed."

"After that, all we needed to know was where Elaine was, but we don't, all we know is that she is somewhere near that restaurant, just outside the town called BJ's and that she is locked in Douglas' basement with Jack Murphy, an another guy, I barely know."

Jacqueline felt so relieved to say all of this out loud. Maybe it was the right thing to do, after all.

But now, remembering everything, she couldn't believe how stupid she was, trusting a guy she barely knew. And she couldn't hold back her tears.

"Thank you, Jacqueline. For that detailed story. You can go home now."

Hi luvs!

What's up? I'm here with a new chapter and to tell you that we only have 5 more chapters until the finale of this part of the book, because as I said in one of the previous chapters, there is a part two!

I don't know if it is going to be a Sequel, brand new book or a part two on this book, but I will tell you all the details on the last chapter!

Have a great day or night and I'll see you very soon with chapter 36!

xxx frufraki