Beginnings (The Trifectus Series - Book One) Read Online Free PDF

said.  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?”
    “No,” I said.  “I didn’t hear anybody at school talking about it.”
    “Well, you see, someone there did a composite sketch of the girl in question,” he said while flipping on the television.
    It was me on the screen.  There it was, a picture, on the television.  The sketch looked a bit off, but I knew the picture was of me.  I started panicking.  While I knew it was of me, it didn’t look totally like me.  You know those composite sketches; they never look like the person.  They had weird shading that made me look like I had a mustache.
    “The girl in the sketch somewhat resembles you, wouldn’t you say?” he said.
    “I don’t really see it,” I said, trying to pull his attention away from the picture.
    “Didn’t you come home last night a little later than you normally did?”
    “Yeah,” I said, trying to stay calm.  “Mr. Quigley had me stay after to clean his classroom,” I said nonchalantly.
    “What about on your way home?” he asked.  “Did you happen to do anything interesting?”
    “Oh, no,” I said.  “Just left the school and came right home.”
    As he looked at me, I knew he knew I was lying.  He had done dozens of interrogations in his career.  He knew what to look for and how to get the answers he wanted.
    “All right then,” he said.  “Why don’t you go do some homework before your mother is done with dinner.”
    “Yes sir,” I said as I quickly went up to my room.
    How was it that easy?  How did I get out of that situation with no struggle?  Did he really believe me, or was he testing me?  As I pulled out my books, I couldn’t stop evaluating the situation.  Who turned me in?  Who gave the sketch?  Were there more people there that I didn’t see?  I knew those thugs wouldn’t be stupid enough to go this far.  After all, I thought, they were the ones trying to hurt me.  They wouldn’t be stupid enough to incriminate themselves like that. 
    I knew I was going to get caught.  I wasn’t a great liar.  I couldn’t even tell my mother I didn’t take a cookie before dinner when I really did. 
    “Honey, time for dinner,” my mother exclaimed from the bottom of the stairs.
    “Coming!” I yelled back.
    This was it.  I started getting knots and butterflies in my stomach.  How was I going to face them both now?  I wasn’t ready; I wasn’t prepared. 
    As I went down the stairs, I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down.
    “What’s for dinner?” I asked.
    “Chicken and mashed potatoes, your favorite,” my mother said smiling.
    Were they trying to butter me up?  I could see it now.  They were going to fatten me up with my favorite foods so that I would feel so guilty I would spill the beans.  No, I thought.  I won’t tell them: I won’t risk James.
    I sat down with a sense of pride.  They weren’t going to get anything out of me, not no way, nohow.
    As dinner progressed, I noticed something: it was quiet.  Mother asked father about his day.  Father told mother about new procedures and plans he was working on.  It was a typical dinner.  There was no interrogation or questions.  They didn’t tie me up to a chair with a hot lamp over my head asking me questions.  It was just normal. 
    Near the end of dinner, the phone rang.  As my father got up to answer it, I started feeling nervous.  Who would even be calling at this time? 
    “Hello?” he said. “Are you sure the girl in the picture is her?”
    As he said this, my heart stopped.  Did he know?  Was there some kind of camera footage placing me there?  I knew he knew and had to try to play it like I just didn’t know anything.  As he hung up the phone, he came and sat back down at the table and looked at my mother and me.
    “Well, they found the girl from the sketch,” he said.
    “Oh really, who was it?” my mother asked.
    “Her name is Ashley Cornington.  Apparently she’s the