THE SOUTHSIDE TAPES (RIVERDALE 2)

the locked room - 04

"To put targets on our backs. Probably because we were already circling the truth so he gave you guys a new challenge: to commit the perfect murder against us and be awarded the contract.""
"So, the million dollar question is: who was going to kill my cousin and Jughead? And how"
"So which one of you heartless motherfucking bastards killed us?"
"It was actually Mr. DuPont who gave me a clue when I asked who had rewritten our Baxter Brothers novel you told me..."

"Well actually, all of your classmates collaborated on it."

"And that suggested to me that each of you had a hand in our murders."
"Donna kept Betty and the Starlet busy..."
"Bret, you led me deeper into the woods. Where I took off the bunny mask and put on my beanie."
"And was it Starlet's pearls and my beanie that stopped her neck from being broken or my head from being completely cracked opened when Joan crept up behind us and hit us with two different rocks."
"Well, how do you know it was me? It could have been Jonathan?"
"I don't recall Jonathan wearing your perfume."
"Aha! But, Joan, where, pray tell, is Jonathan the plagiarist?"
Donna was quick on her feet as usual, "Food poisoning. He got food poisoning. He still has food poisoning."
Betty approached the three of us as we formed a quartet, "Does he? Or did you kill him for starting to develop a conscience."
Silence.
"Jonathan aside," Betty continued, "You had a foolproof plan with airtight alibis. It all should have worked so perfectly. But it didn't. Why?"
"Because you didn't kill us! In all your planning, lurid conspiring, and brilliance you didn't kill us." jughead gloated.
"That night after Joan hit both Jughead and the Starlet over the head with a rock, leaving Betty over their corpses with a rock in the Starlet's hand framed as a suicide, you left us dead.
Only we weren't really dead." I added, as I'd just finished another one of the old books on DuPont's desk.
"Whose job was it to check our pulses?" Jug smirked.
"Jonathan." Joan slipped up. Jug pointed a finger toward her, "You Einsteins. All you had to do was hit us hard enough with a couple of rocks. You failed, spectacularly."
"Yeah." Betty agreed, "Meanwhile, Betty was blowing Devil's breath in my cousin and I's faces to set us up as the ultimate fall girls in case she woke up."
"Devil's breath, really?"
"Yeah, technically it's scopolamine but it leaves a person highly suggestive and in a drunken state which is why I don't remember when Donna led me to the clearig where Jughead's body was and placed the rocks in our hands leaving us literally redhanded with a murder weapon and a presumed method of suicide. After which the four of you returned to the party and ran into Archie and Veronica. And directed them to where they'd find me standing over the corpses."
"One, Archie and Veronica could turn me in. two, they could help cover up the murder-suicide I committed. Either way we were damned if we did and damned if we didn't, right Starlet?"
"And you guys could have gotten away with it too if it weren't for us meddling kids."
"Except, also, again, you guys didn't kill us."
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"Betty what happened?" Archie asked. The blonde ran up to her cousin and boyfriend who were on the ground, "She still has a pulse. But Jug... Alright, um... start pounding on his chest right now. Okay, V, used the beanie to stop the bleeding. Okay... one" She was frantic, counting to three as Archie performed compressions on Jughead. She herself gave him a kiss of life. He woke up as did her cousin who was lying beside him.
"Star... Jug... hey, hey, stay awake. We're gonna take you to a hospital."
"No, hospitals."
"Vee, don't tell Daddy. I can't..."
"Hey." Veronica slapped me, "Stay awake. You aren't dying on me now."
"Though I didn't regain consciousness for another 36 hours."
"The worst 36 hours of my life."
"Why would you say that, Jones? Why would you not want to go to the hospital."
"I honestly don't know. Maybe I wanted Betty to have a fighting chance."
"I'm calling Charles. We can trust him." Betty rambled, "Charles, I'm in the woods with Arechie and Veronica. Jughead and Nicolette.. .they're hurt really badly. She's conscious but he's... we need help, please."
-
Meanwhile, MacKayla Carmichael frantically knocked of the door to Charles' FBI headquarters, screaming for help.
"MacKayla? I just got a call from Betty. Is this anything to do with..."
"Yes. Jughead and Nicolette were there. I saw the whole thing, Agent Smith and I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I'm a witness and we have to save them now."
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"We carried Jughead and the Starlet through the woods to the old postal road where my brother Charles was waiting for us with an FBI med van."
"And by that time, I was completely conscious and was told the situation as they patched up my neck which had to be reset and put into an ugly ass brace."
-
And so, MacKayla Carmichael arrived with Charles Smith just in time. "What happened to them, Betty?"
"A head wound and a neck wound. We did CPR, compressions, and reset her neck."
"You think they're gonna make it?"
"Given that Nicolette is completely conscious and functioning relatively normal after the reset she will need witness protection until we figure this out. For jughead, we'll do the best we can."
"What about us?" Archie asked.
"Clean the scene. Make absolutely certain you don't leave anything behind. Also your clothes are covered with blood. You need to get rid of those and get washed up. Let's go Star..."
"No." I said, "I'm staying with Cousin Betty. I'll be careful and text you to pick me up after."
"Take care of her, Betty."
"I always do."
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