I Never Imagined ✔️

Chapter 34: Body Linguistics

 Have you ever gotten the feeling where you're excited about something, but scared about the outcome at the same time? That's exactly how I felt when I was driving over to the police station. I didn't know what to expect, because all my expectations had been defied for so long. 

But I knew not to get too excited. Just because they had something at the police station doesn't mean that it was a good thing. Hell, Randy could've been the one that caused my accident. Anything was possible in this situation. And I mean anything. We never knew what could happen.

 I finally get to the police station and head inside immediately. Sophia's sitting in a chair, with her eyes glued to her phone screen. When she sees me come inside, she looks up. 

"Ray," she says, getting up. I walk closer and put my hands on her shoulders. 

"Sophia. What did you guys find?" I ask. Sophia looks down. 

"I'm horrible at delivering bad news. I'll leave my dad to do that," she says, and the minute she says that, her dad walks in. He stops when he sees me. He kind of has a weird look on his face. It's a look that's a mix of, "I've got bad news,", "Do you want to hear this?", and "We tried our best." I sigh. 

I don't know what I should be scared of: Sophia's dad or the news he's about to give me. 

"Good morning, Mr. Smith. Is everything ok?" I ask. Mr. Smith sighs. 

"No, not really, Raymond. You see, we got a phone call two nights ago, and it was a promising lead. Someone saw the license plates of one of the cars that was there. They called to report the license plate since they remembered it. We traced the license plate back to the car owner, and after some research, we were shocked to find out who owned the car," he says. I raise an eyebrow. 

"Well, let's show you," Mr. Smith says, and leads us to a room with a glass window. 

"Look inside," Mr. Smith says. I look in, and there's a woman there. She's sitting at the table, with her arms crossed. She has a semi-dead, yet angry look on her face. She's staring straight at the table, like she's reviewing and regretting all her past life choices. Her blonde hair falls softly to her shoulders. She looks really familiar. And then the thought hits me. 

"Oh my gosh. Is that...?" I ask, in disbelief. Mr. Smith nods. 

"Christine Lerman. The mother of the incarcerated Roman Lerman," he says. I feel mortified all of a sudden. Standing less than 5 feet away is the person who birthed a complete monster. The one who raised Roman to be an attempted murderer. Oh my gosh. It's her. 

"We've been trying to get some information out of her, but it's just not working. She's as dead as stone, and a background check on her came up with nothing. It's like it was wiped clean completely. I don't know what else to do, Raymond. Everything else has failed," Mr. Smith says, clearly agitated. I sigh. This isn't going to be easy. Then, Sophia speaks up. 

"Dad?" she says. Scott looks at her, curious. 

"Yes, love?" he asks. Sophia sighs.

 "I'll go inside and I'll talk to her," she says. Mr. Smith looks like his daughter just said that she had a twin she just found out about. 

"Sophia, you're not going in there. I don't know what she can do to you, and you're too young to be going in there-," he starts, but Sophia cuts him off. 

"Dad, I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm almost 18 years old. You're acting like I'm 5 years old again. I'm not that 5 year old anymore. I want to have this case solved for Ray. I want to get some answers. And plus, your team will be here, monitoring me so that nothing goes wrong," she says boldly. Mr. Smith sighs. At this moment, I think he realizes that Sophia needs to be given a chance, and that he's being totally unfair.