Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [54]
They drive me to the station and put me in this room to wait for my parents. They also bring me some chicken noodle soup. It comes in a paper cup out of a machine, so it’s pretty gross, but I don’t care. Right now it tastes good.
Officers Maloney and Brant sit around and keep me company. Once they found out they’d got a missing person, they started acting different.
I guess that means I’m not going to jail. I don’t feel like chatting, though. I just want to have my soup and be by myself. “You don’t need to babysit me.”
They don’t take the hint. Instead, they make small talk. I guess they figure this is a chance to stay inside and get warm. I decide to tune out. I pretend I’m in physics. We wait forever for Mom and Dad, but when they walk in it feels like no time’s passed at all.
I was afraid they’d be mad. But they aren’t. They’re serious. So serious nobody’d know they actually hate each other’s guts.
Somebody else is with them. This woman in a navy dress suit. Maloney and Brant get up.
Mom doesn’t wait for introductions. She comes over and hugs me. Then she and Dad shake hands with Maloney and Brant, and I get introduced to the new person, Detective Constable Sylvia Kissoon. She tells me to call her Sylvia. I don’t really look at her, not to be rude or anything, but because I’m nervous.
“I’ll take it from here,” Sylvia says to Maloney and Brant. She asks my parents to wait while she talks to me privately in the room next door. I follow her over. We sit opposite each other with a table between us. Time goes so slow it’s almost in reverse. Sylvia turns on a pocket recorder.
“Try to ignore this,” she says.
Right. My palms are sweating. So are my feet. There’s no air. I can’t breathe. Sylvia catches my eye and holds it. She’s smiling, friendly, but firm and controlled, like my old swimming instructor the first time I did the dog paddle across the pool.
Once I’m settled, she asks a few questions. Ordinary questions about how I am and can she get me anything, stuff like that, but I know where things are headed. I mean, she’s not paid to be nice. This is to loosen me up so I’ll let something slip.
I know all this, but even so, when the real questions come, I just answer. What’s the point of hiding now? If she doesn’t want to believe me, fine.
But it’s not like she doesn’t believe me. She keeps nodding, concentrating so hard it’s like she’s pulling the words out of me with her eyes.
I get scared. I say, “It’s not like it’s Mom’s fault or anything. You’re not going to give Dad custody or anything, are you?”
Sylvia shakes her head. “No, of course not.” Then she smiles again and asks another question. I wonder if she’s married. Or has kids. I wonder if she has problems with them, like Mom with me. And now I see she’s staring at me waiting for an answer.
I talk and talk and talk. I talk about earlier, when me and Jason met and how the hitting started. And then she asks about Jason and sex.
I freeze. Sylvia keeps eye contact and waits.
“Look, if you really want to know, just read my journal.”
“Your journal?”
Suddenly the world goes red alert.
Thirty-Eight
“Your journal will be evidence—key evidence—if Jason goes to trial,” Sylvia says.
But the cops won’t lay charges unless I cooperate. Court will be tough. Jason’s lawyer will try to make me look like a liar. Even if Jason’s found guilty, he won’t get much time. He’s barely eighteen, comes from a “good family” and hasn’t been in trouble before. So for me to get dragged through crap seems pointless, especially when it could all be for nothing.
Sylvia and I talk about the other girls I saw on the porn files. She shows me photos of missing kids, but I don’t recognize them. If only I hadn’t destroyed the memory card!
“It wouldn’t have changed much,” Sylvia comforts. “The card isn’t proof he took the shots. His lawyer could say he downloaded them when he was underage. What we need are the girls themselves. And