“Easton? Easton!” My heart dropped into my stomach as I glanced to my left and saw Kobe, my best friend’s little sister, she was standing next to her car just staring at me, her dark brown eyes wide in disbelief. “Easton…”
“Can I talk to her?” I asked the officer holding me.
“Nope.” Was his one word reply.
“Did you do it?” Kobe asked as the officer led me from my house.
I shook my head as a lone tear rolled down my face.
“I believe you.” Her words would stay with me forever.
Had it really been only twenty-one hours since I was arrested? It felt like years. They had gone through the typical procedures when I arrived at the jail, taking my fingerprints, my mugshot, and searching my...everywhere.
How? How had they come up with their conclusion that it was me? There was no way I could be standing next to Jared and be in the car that drove by. Hell, I was skimmed by a bullet, I’m the one who called for help, I was the one who held Jared’s hand praying that this was all a bad nightmare.
I paced my cell all night, back and forth, while cracking my knuckles and facing the fact that I knew who had been in that car which also meant if I snitched it was the same as giving myself a death sentence. I only paused my pacing when an officer brought a tray to my cell.
“Go to the far corner and turn around facing the wall,” the officer ordered.
I did as requested and waited. From the sound of the clicks the officer had opened the slot in my door. I knew why they did this, I’d only been here a short time and had seen other inmates try to throw stuff at the officers including urine and shit even though the only way to hit the officer from here was by pure luck.
The officer relocked my cell door slot and stepped back. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
They had served me some mix of oatmeal for breakfast, but it looked like vomit. I’m sure that there would be a time that I didn’t care about the look but right now, I wasn’t starving so I pushed the tray away from me. A thought hit me, starvation would be a long, slow death. Was there a quicker way?
It wasn’t an hour later when the officer returned. “You have a visitor,” he said through the slot. I peered through. “Turn around and put your hands through the slot,” the officer ordered. I obliged, still trying to figure out who the visitor was. The officer handcuffed me before opening the cell door as though I was so dangerous that I might knock him out the first chance I got, but that didn’t make me a murderer.
I sat on one side of a glass partition, figuring this was going to be the public defender. To my right was an old style phone in vomit green. The twenty-one hours before had meant nothing in comparison to this one moment, seeing the phone on the wall and knowing that would be how I would communicate with everyone I loved for the rest of my life.
Kobe, with her rainbow colored pixie cut plopped down on the stool on the other side of the glass. Not who I was expecting. She picked up the phone quickly, reminding me that I should probably do the same. I reached for the phone in slow motion, it clicked as I took it off the stand. When I pressed it to my ear, she started talking immediately.
“Easton, you didn’t do it, did you?”
I shook my head. How could she doubt me? I was Jared’s best friend, his brother. “No,” I said, reinforcing my shake of the head from the day before. Kobe stared at me, her deep brown eyes indicating that she knew there was something I wasn’t telling her. Well, I couldn’t tell her anything else. She didn’t need to be digging into his death, because it could only lead to trouble for her.
“Do you know who did?” She paused, then continued on, in a rush of just needing to talk to someone. “I can’t let them get away with it. Jared was innocent. He shouldn’t have had to die. He should be here with me, and you shouldn’t be in there.”
I just nodded and let her talk.
“There has to be some clues about what happened. I’m going to talk to the police, and if you didn’t do it, then you shouldn’t be in here. If I can help find out who did it, then you could go free.”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to hope, because hope lost would be worse than never having hope at the beginning. “Kobe, I don’t think you should dig into it. I didn’t do it. I’ll get a lawyer, and they’ll help prove it. I won’t serve time for something I didn’t do.”
Kobe nodded, blinking her eyes several times to control the tears. I wanted to reach through the glass and put an arm around her the way I had just a week ago at the small graveside funeral for Jared.
I was suddenly aware of all the time we had lost. I had always been Jared’s best friend, and I had teased her mercilessly like a kid sister. But she wasn’t a kid sister now. She was beautiful, and it was too late. Maybe my mind was just going crazy as I faced the loss of freedom. But dammit, she had always been so beautiful and now who was going to look out for her?
“Listen to me, let this go. Don’t go trying to be a hero.” I glanced around to see if anyone was listening to me then lowered my voice. “If this was a gang, you can’t put yourself into it.”
“Easton,
