THE THIRTEENTH DAY - BOOK 1

Questions and answers

The ambulance and the police showed up just a five minutes after the 911 call was made. The number of people that were at the party halved once news spread about the dead girl in the pool. Cassie, Caleb and all her friends remained, along with a few others who were too nosy to leave, or the drunk and confused few who could not.

 "Cassidy Meyer?" a police officer asked, pulling Cassie out of a trance.

"Yes?" she shook, and observed the officer's face. He was tall and skinny, like a pencil, he had really thin lips and a pointed nose, looked like someone that a French accent would suit. She quickly averted her gaze from him and looked at her exposed feet.

"I understand that you were the one who found the body?" He asked with a pen curled up in his left hand and a notebook in his right, ready to write down whatever Cassie would share with him. Cassie was scared because she had never had any reason to be involved with the police before. It was at that moment that she truly understood what Sydney was talking about earlier in the day. She knew she was innocent but all the questions made her feel like she was a prime suspect for murder, and that feeling terrified her.

"Yes," she replied, looking at anything but the intimidating police officer who was almost towering over her.  She did not want to see the way he looked at her, she did not want to see if she was being looked at like she was a criminal.

"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" She drifted off once she heard his question. She looked around the scene and she caught sight of her friends in a similar situation to her, the only difference was that they didn't have personal interrogations, they were asked questions as a group. Hers was different because she was the one who discovered the body. She looked towards the pool area which was now surrounded by yellow tape and officers taking samples from the scene to use as evidence. The body had been taken away but she felt as though she could still see her there, dead yet somehow beautiful.

 "Miss, I asked you a question," the police officer said waving his left hand in front of her face, as he leaned forward a bit. He impatiently tapped his pen on his notebook and bore his eyes into hers.

"Oh yeah, sure, erm I'm sorry what was the question?" She asked, uninterested.

"I said could you explain to me how you found her," he repeated himself with a hint of irritation laced in his tone. 

"Yeah right, err . . . " She racked her brain trying to remember everything that happened that night to a tee. "I walked out of the house for some fresh air and went to the pool house to wash my face," she said, pointing at the pool house which was also surrounded by officers. "After that, I decided to rest by the pool and that's when I found the body.  At first, I didn't notice the body but I eventually saw it and then I . . . I screamed," she said with widened eyes, wide from shock, disbelief of what she had witnessed, wide from fear.

"What made you go to the pool house to wash your face, why couldn't you just do it inside?" he leaned even more forward.

"Am I a suspect or something, aren't my parents or a lawyer supposed to be present during an interrogation like this anyways?" she spat out angrily.

"I'm just doing my job, the quicker I'm done with this the better for the both of us," he clicked his pen repeatedly. 

"Well like I told you, I came out for fresh air, going inside to wash my face would have defeated my aim now don't you think?" She replied sharply, already fed up with the manner in which he questioned her.

He eyed her suspiciously "One last question, did you know the victim, had you seen her before, or do you know anyone who might have known her?" With that question, she froze. She didn't know her personally but she knew someone who did, and she had definitely seen her before. She couldn't say that her brother knew her and was out with her throughout the party, that would make him a prime suspect.