AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And what time were you up here?” Ruby asked.
“Around seven p.m.” Since this was all about full disclosure, Mia went ahead and spelled things out. “I saw the blood. And the hat. The knife wasn’t there. I took the hat, disposed of it, and went up the street to the library. I didn’t come back until it closed at ten.”
Angel walked closer to the staging and did an adjustment, too. He moved the knife toward the foot of the bed.
“I came in about seven-thirty or so,” he explained. “No hat but the knife was there. I took it and went looking for Mia.”
“Because you thought she’d hurt or killed Kenton,” Ruby said.
Angel nodded. “And she thought I’d murdered him when she saw my hat.”
“But neither of you killed him,” Ruby concluded, typing something into her tablet. “Someone else did and cleaned up the blood. When was your second visit to the room that night?”
“Just before ten,” Angel answered. “I still hadn’t been able to find Mia so I came back here. There was no blood. Someone had cleaned it up.”
“I didn’t know either of you’d been in here that night,” Melanie muttered.
Mia doubted the tears in her eyes now were of the happy sort. No, Melanie was no doubt dealing with her own trauma that night. RJ, too, who had a shell-shocked look on his face.
“What about the three of you?” Ruby asked, volleying glances at Presley, Melanie, and RJ. “How did the room look when you saw it that night?”
“I didn’t see it until the next day,” Presley volunteered. “I was next door with Alisha Carver.”
His then girlfriend. And lover, Mia knew. Because Alisha and she had been friends back in the day.
“I should have been here,” Presley added in a mumble. “I should have been able to stop what Kenton tried to do to Mia.”
“I should have been here,” Angel insisted, and he was even more adamant about that than Presley.
“I hit Kenton, and he was bleeding when he stormed off,” Melanie provided. “I figured he’d go to the cops and report me. I deserved to be reported. He’s the only one of our fosters that I’d ever struck, but I wouldn’t have done it had he not been trying to hurt Mia.”
“Thank you for that,” Mia told her.
Melanie moved in to give her another hug, and the tears weren’t just in her eyes now. They were spilling down her cheeks.
“What time did Kenton assault Mia and how soon afterwards did you hit him?” Ruby asked.
Melanie eased away from Mia, but she didn’t turn to face Ruby. Instead, she looked down at the fake blood. “Around six o’clock. I went up to the girls’ wing to bring back the little vacuum cleaner I’d gotten from their bathroom. The one I normally used was broken, and I’d needed to clean up some flour I had spilled in the kitchen.”
Mia had no trouble recalling Melanie’s arrival that night. Then again, there wasn’t anything about that night she’d managed to shut out.
Melanie swallowed hard. “I saw Kenton and Mia in the hall, and he was trying to push Mia into her bedroom. He had her in a chokehold,” she said, her voice cracking. “I yelled for him to stop, but he didn’t. He told me to back off. Except he cursed and tried to shove me away. That’s when I hit him.”
“And that was around six, you said,” Ruby clarified.
Melanie nodded. “I’d just cooked a pot roast, my usual Saturday night meal, and I could smell it.” She paused. “And smell the alcohol on Kenton’s breath. He’d been drinking, and that’s not allowed.”
Mia had smelled the booze, too, and she suspected Kenton had also been high. He was fond of smoking joints in the little park behind the house.
“What about you?” Ruby continued, turning to RJ. “How soon did you see this room after the incident with Mia and Kenton?”
RJ shook his head, and he seemed to have to pull himself out of a trance before he answered. “Not until much later that night, probably close to midnight. I was at my parents’ house across town. My mom was recovering from cancer surgery, so I was over there most of the evening.”
Because of the reports, Mia knew that both of his parents were now deceased. Which meant there was no one to confirm the exact hours of that visit.
“I took the bus to my folks since I didn’t want to leave Melanie without a car. And after I got home and Melanie told me what happened with Kenton and Mia, I came up here to Kenton’s room,” RJ continued. “I was going to talk to him and tell him that in the morning I would go to CPS and ask that he be moved to another foster family. I didn’t want him here any longer.”
“What happened when you came here?” Ruby prompted when RJ fell silent.
