Ace Attorney: Secrets beneath Secrets

Turnabout Betrayal, Part 3

April 21

Detention Center

4:45 PM

Chrysalis Starr

When we finally arrived at the detention center, Prosecutor Cruz and Ms. Cruz weren't there yet. I frowned to myself but walked into the visiting room regardless, fiddling nervously with my black gloves. It was a bad habit to get into, but I couldn't help it. The Oracle project really made messing with my gloves a prominent issue.

I grabbed a seat from up against the wall and pushed it to the area near the glass. Cotoli did the same before we both sat down. We didn't say much of anything, instead just watching silently. I hoped we didn't scare our client out of her mind with this. She was from another nation and was likely scared and alone, and Cotoli and I were friendly regularly, but we could be a bit serious overall. I could see pretty easily how it could frighten someone who wasn't used to us, especially someone from another country.

A girl walked into the room soon after we arrived. She was pale and lanky with long chestnut hair. Small teal sections of her hair framing her face were tied into braids. She wore a pastel green shirt underneath denim overalls with short sleeves and legs. She had tall pale blue socks on with white shoes. Her cheeks were dotted with freckles, and her eyes were a bright turquoise color.

"Um... Hello," I greeted simply, waving to her gently as soon as she sat down. I wasn't sure if she could understand me, but I figured I would reach out to her and be kind. That transcends spoken words, you know?

The girl on the other side, who I assumed was Ms. Lira Giuseppe, stared at me nervously. She responded to my wave with a wave of her own. That was some form of communication, but the fact remained that I still didn't know any Italian, so we would be stuck just waving our arms around until our translators arrived.

Ms. Giuseppe began to murmur something under her breath, toying around with her fingers as she stared down at the ground. She dared not to meet my eyes, and I couldn't blame her. I wanted to try and comfort her, even if I didn't know how to. The glass was making sure I couldn't do anything to help her feel better, which was aggravating, but there wasn't much we could do about it in this current situation.

Cotoli looked to me, frowning himself, before focusing his attention back on Ms. Giuseppe. Unless we wanted to search up an Italian translator on the internet, we were stuck. Besides, those were said to be awful when trying to translate things, and I didn't want to alienate her more by speaking in a way that was definitely insulting to her mother tongue. Instead, I just decided to stammer gibberish under my breath, my cheeks pink at the thought of messing up everything by looking up Italian on the internet. It was a ridiculous thought, but I needed something to keep me entertained while we waited for our pair of translators.

"Sorry we're late," I heard a voice say from the door. I turned to see Prosecutor Cruz and Ms. Cruz walking into the visiting room. They both pulled up chairs before sitting down at my side. I could see Ms. Cruz's eyes were red and puffy, and I knew for sure she had been crying. I reached out and touched her hand with my own before squeezing gently. Ms. Cruz returned the gesture, tears appearing in her eyes, and I made a mental note to give her a hug before we went our separate ways for the day. I would be seeing her again tomorrow, yes, but she seemed to need it now.

"It's alright. We just got here ourselves," Cotoli replied. "This is our girl, huh?"

Ms. Cruz focused on Ms. Giuseppe and began to speak in a language I definitely didn't understand. I looked back and forth between the two, not knowing what they were saying specifically, but knowing what they were generally discussing. It had to be about the case.