Innocent Murderers

Seventeen - The One Where The Room Is Red

Kennedy's PoV
It's been one week.
It's been the most depressing week since my parents died.

Derek is a mess. Penny isn't sarcastic anymore. Jackson isn't playing dumb anymore.
Rose is just silent. And I'm being swallowed up by despair.
We've all been hollowed out by alcohol, consumed every night like anaesthesia.
Life is not okay.
None of us are okay.
All of us miss Lucy. And all of us are adding to our 'Lucy Wall' at every opportunity. It's the giant cork board on the living room wall with a picture of Lucy in the middle.
Every single lead we have to where she is surrounds her smiling face.
Her phone number, last known location, maps of warehouses.
We've already sent Oslo on twenty one missions to search every warehouse.
You'd think that Adam would tell him at least where she is.
He didn't.
And we don't even know if she's still in America.
-
I have my lightbulb moment three days later, sat on the balcony wall, legs dangling 20 metres in the air.

Lucy might not even be in America.

Lucy isn't in America.
Lucy is in England.

In my house, there was a trapdoor underneath my bed. It was locked from the inside and the one time I asked my parents what it was for they said they couldn't say.
They said they had no idea. Because they didn't.

Adam has taken Lucy to my old house because he knows it's the one place nobody will think to look.

It's a risk.

A huge risk.

I have no evidence to prove I'm right.
They have no evidence to prove me wrong.

I jump off of the wall and run into the apartment. Derek is standing in front of the Lucy Wall.
I walk over, and pull out a picture of my and my parents standing in front of my house from my pocket.
I pin it to the board. Derek jumps and looks at me.
I take a pen and circle the basement window with it.
"She's there." I say.
Derek runs a finger over it.
"How do you know?" He asks.
"I don't. But think about it. Someone from Adams gang burnt down my house. Why would they do it? Other than the fact that they knew damn well who my parents were. Derek don't you see? There was a trapdoor under my bed and my bedroom was the least burnt room. They knew it was there and they knew nobody would ever look there for anything.
Or anyone." I explain.
He looks at me, his brown eyes glimmering with a tiny bit of hope.
"Okay. So, let's go."
We turn, together and stride towards the door. I scribble a note for the others and swing open the door.

My house is just like I remember it. Piles of Ash, only partially cleared away. Police tape, abandoned in limp strings around the front garden.
We duck under them, and walk to where the trapdoor still lay, unscathed. I turn to Derek.
"Ready?"
He nods.
We're unarmed except for kitchen knives purchased by Derek along with a chopping board and carrots to avoid suspicion. He digs his knife into the crack where a part of the wood has burned away from the door and leaves it open.
Light falls through the gap and into a room.
We jump down, me first.
The room is painted red, and what I see shocks me.
The walls are covered in pictures of me, and my parents and Oslo.
Oslo and I cant be over five, and we are smiling and hugging in almost every picture.
My fake IDs are plastered over a table. Oslo's real IDs are plastered over mine.
Derek gasps.
Throws his knife to the ground.
"She's not here." He says.
"Don't worry. This is a lead," I say, referring to a list of numbers lying on the table.
I have no idea why there are pictures of memories, holidays I don't remember on the walls.
I also have no idea why a blonde girl is in one.
I pull it from the wall, and flip it over.
August 2008, Lucy and Kennedy.
I gulp.
I knew Lucy? Why don't I remember. It's then that I notice the cupboard in the corner. Swinging it open, my knees weaken as I see the pile of photos and documents.
Lucy and Kennedy
Lucy and Kennedy
Is written on the backs of all of them. I turn them over one by one.
I recognise Lucy's trademark freckle on the back of her hand in some of them and I almost collapse.
Behind me, Derek is crying at a picture of Lucy and I, taken at a club a few weeks ago.
"Why didn't you tell any of us you knew Lucy?" He asks.
I shake my head.
"I have no idea. I didn't know her. Or so I thought." I say, shutting the cupboard after taking pictures of the picture and their backs.
I take pictures of the whole room, the guns lining the walls and the pictures of me.

A stark white, dust free document catches my eye on the table.
There are two pictures. One of my mother, ginger hair piled into her trademark messy bun, and one of my father, bright blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair.
Next to their pictures are two names.
Agent Blaise Mcallister
Agent Joseph Harper
Those aren't my parents names.
I suddenly have a headache.
My parents are both unemployed.
An FBI logo at the top of the piece of paper catches my eye.
No.
"Derek. You gotta come see this." I say.
He was at the funeral.
He knows their names.
"But why? Why would they lie to you?" He asks.
My finger hovers over a box near the bottom.
"Maybe because of this."
Undercover for sixteen years.
Operation Hereditary.

-
Oooooh. Things are getting spicy.
Short chapter but double updatttteee.
Love you my beautiful people.
Xx