It’s clearly a man from the height and build, a man I recognize to be Colby. I watch as he rushes across the room and stops in front of Addison’s lifeless body before looking over her as if wondering what to do.
My stomach rolls, knowing what’s coming next, and a tear falls from my eye.
Colby pauses, his hands hovering over her and then in a flash like lightning, he grabs the tubes coming from her throat and tears them out. An alarm sounds and I watch as he panics before racing out of the room. “Is the person in this video you, Miss Ashford?”
My eyes bug out of my head. “Excuse me?”
“Is this you?”
“Absolutely not,” I say, flying to my feet. “That’s Colby Jacobs. How can you be so dense to assume that could possibly be a woman in that video? That guy is over six foot and packed with muscle. I’m barely five foot four.”
He lets out a heavy breath and places the tablet down, letting the screen go blank. He glances toward the two-way mirror and raises his brow before turning back to me. “Sit down, Miss Ashford. We are not nearly done with you.”
“Pray tell,” I scoff, taking my seat. “What other bullshit evidence do you want to try and pin on me?”
Jones thumbs through more of his papers before finding a photograph and sliding it across the table. “Is this you?” he questions.
My gaze drops to the image to find myself and Erica sitting in a gutter, and the very first thing I notice is that I’m wearing the same maroon dress from his earlier photo. Not only that, there’s a small bag of pills clutched in my hand that I've never seen before.
Erica and I were drunk as skunks, laughing as I smoked pot for the first and only time. I threw up immediately after this and regretted it straight away. “Yes,” I say slowly, not understanding what this has to do with anything. “This is me, but I've never seen that bag of pills a day in my life. This was taken the first weekend of the summer, weeks before that party.”
“The timestamp on that photograph would suggest otherwise.”
My gaze drops again, and I take in the numbers along the bottom and read the date. My brows furrow and I shake my head, trying to do the math. “No, this isn’t right,” I tell him, my panic only getting worse. “This photo was taken weeks before. Check my phone. I have it stored in my gallery, but it’s different. This photo has been messed with.”
“Are you telling me the evidence is lying? That the camera is lying?” he questions, his voice slowly raising. “This photo was taken on the night Addison Morgan was attacked and we have photo evidence of you holding the drugs which put the victim into a coma.”
“NO, THAT’S NOT—”
“You drugged her, ensured she was attacked, and then left her there.”
“No, I didn’t, I—”
He grabs his tablet and brings up another video, flipping it around and showing me the screen with the volume turned up. “It was all Brielle’s idea,” Erica sobs, sitting in a room similar to this. “She’s been jealous of Addison for as long as I can remember, and when she showed up at the party, she just … I tried to tell her to stop, but there’s no stopping Brielle when she’s out for blood. She slipped the pills into her drink and dragged her into the room. Her and Colby … they … he would do anything she asked of him. He was in love with her, and when she told him to hurt Addison, he did, no questions asked. The poor girl … I tried to stop them, I swear.” She drops her head into her hands as ugly heaving sobs tear from her chest, tears falling down her face. “By the time I got into the room, it was already too late. Addison was on the ground, naked. They raped her and just left her for dead. She was having a seizure and I … I was scared I was going to get in trouble, so I ran.”
My heart shatters into a million pieces. Thirteen years of friendship gone in a matter of seconds.
How could she do that to me? After everything we’ve been through.
I shake my head, tears streaming down my face. “She’s lying,” I cry, my voice barely audible. “I was out enjoying the party. I didn’t do drugs that night, and I sure as hell didn’t concoct some brutal attack plan with Colby. That photo is fabricated. There wasn’t even a bag of pills. That joint was the first one I’d ever had and the only. I swear to you, this wasn’t me. Colby and Erica did this, and they’re trying to make me take the fall. I’ll do whatever you want. A lie detector test, I’ll wear a wire. Whatever it takes, just please … you’re going to let them get away.”