C.A.R.M.A

21

"There's nothing here, Thea," Becca says from her position across the coffee table. A mug of tea steaming in her hands. "And you gotta head to the airport. Your flight leaves in 2 hours."

"It's a private plane, it can wait for me", I reply with chipped words, refusing to take my eyes off the files in front of me.

But spread before me, across the coffee table and spilling in a semicircle on the floor next to me, lay files and files and pictures and pictures full of proof that Sloane was the one hurting people at Red Wolfe.

I glanced up at the clock and sigh. I was running out of time to find answers.

"Look, Thea", Becca slams a stack of papers down in front of me. "Here are the transcripts for three people who claimed it as Sloane hurting them. Three."

Her words are filled with enough bite that I look up, only to find her glaring at me.

"What?", I asked defensively.

"I did my job," she cooly replies, standing up and glaring down at me.

Oh, shit. "Becca!," I stood grabbing her hand. "That's not what I meant, I don't doubt you!"

"Then what's the point of all this?," she yanks her hand out of my grip.

"I doubt myself. I think I overlooked something!," I turned my pleading eyes at my friend.

"What? And you're the only one that can spot those things? You're the only one that has such keen eyes?," Becca spat the questions, gesturing wildly at the files and glaring at them with enough heat, I'm surprised they didn't burst into flames.

"Becca -," I started, reaching for her hand again.

"No, don't even start. You think you're the only one who can - holy shit", Becca dropped to her knees and grabbed frantically for one of the pictures.

"What? What is it?," I dropped down next to her.

"Just shut up for a second, let me focus."

I complied, not daring to even look in her direction.

A minute passed, then another, then five before Becca said, "The hand."

"What?", I whispered, my heart pounding frantically in my chest.

"The hand!," she stood and thrusted the picture under my nose, eyes wide.

I staggered back a step, but focused on the picture in front of me. It showed a woman's body bent over in a very intimate, sexual position with her hands tied to the top of the bed and blindfolded, like all the other pictures we had in our evidence folder.

This one had a woman's hand on the victim's ass, with dark purple nail polish.

"The hand?", I repeated, dumbfounded.

"For a prodigy, you can be so stupid," Becca ran a hand through her dark hair and fished around the photos, pulling one out of Sloane.

I grabbed the picture and looked at both, side by side.

And then it clicked.

Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump. My heart fluttered in my throat, mixing with rising bile there.

I fell to my knees and grabbed other evidence pictures, ransacking them to see as many as possible.

All of them showed a petite, feminine hand touching the woman, while Sloane's were broad and callased.

I held up a picture that was shaking so violently in my sweaty grip, "This is not Sloane's hand."

Becca shook her head.