CHAPTER 16

Nate walked next to Benson towards the school entrance. It was only until they started taking the few stairs at the front when they noticed the two men dressed in suits standing by the doors. Their eyes scanned the faces of the students walking in, one of them spotted Nate and Benson and tapped his partner, nodding in Nate's direction. 

"Nate Connor," one of the two called when Nate was just about to enter the building. 

Nate and Benson stopped and turned to the two men. 

"I am detective McKenzie with LAPD and this is my partner detective McLough." McKenzie started. "I don't know if you remember us but we met at that time you went missing."

"Yeah, I remember. What can I do for you detectives?" 

"We would like you to come down to the station and answer a few questions about an investigation we are doing." McLough answered.

"Investigation about what?" Nate wanted to know. 

"I'm afraid we can't disclose that here. We will tell you all about it at the station."

Nate wasn't sure what he should do. He turned to Benson, hoping he would get an answer from him. Benson just shrugged.

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to. We could come back an hour from now with a court order but your compliance right now will be greatly appreciated." McKenzie told him, adding a not so friendly smile. 

"I'll see you later Benny." 

Benson didn't say anything , he turned and walked into the building. Nate walked back down the stairs with the two detectives behind him. 

Students reporting for school couldn't help but gossip about the incident, others going as far as taking photos. In less than ten minutes, more than seventy percent of the school knew about what had happened. 

"Why did they take him?" Bianca asked Benson when he met up with them. 

"No idea, they just said they wanted to ask him some questions about an ongoing investigation. They refused to say what the investigation was." Benson disclosed to the four girls.

"Do you guys think it has anything to do with his disappearance?" Jade asked, shifting her eyes from Benson to the girls.

"Your guess is as good as mine Jade," Bianca answered. "But don't you think they would have also brought in Amanda if it was about his disappearance?" 

They all turned to Amanda, who had been oddly silent. "What do you think?" Benson asked her.

"I don't know, maybe it's about that and maybe it isn't. I honestly hope it's about that because that way at least we can get to know the truth. We have asked him so many times about it and he has blown us off over and over. Maybe he will come clean with the cops and we can finally put all this to bed." 

Soon as she finished talking, the bell rang and the students cleared the hallways, getting into their respective classes. 

*-*-*

At the police station, Nate was led into an interrogation room where he was left alone for a couple of minutes. He stared at his reflection on the large glass on the wall in front of him. His mind going crazy, trying to guess what could they possibly want with him.

The door opened and the two detectives walked in. McKenzie held a clear evidence bag with a tiny piece of mental inside while McLough held a white folder.

The two men sat next to each other facing Nate. "We'll get straight to it." McLough started with a straight face. "Tell us what happened at Nicole Sorrenti's party and your disappearing incident." 

"Umm, I don't understand the question." He drawled, shifting his gaze from one detective to the other.

"Just tell us what happened that night, don't spare any details." McKenzie urged him.

"My friends and I arrived at Nicole's house at around nine, we partied for a while before my girlfriend asked me-"

McLough cut in.

"By your girlfriend you mean Amanda Hall?" He asked picking up his pen and noted it down when Nate confirmed.

"We left her house at around eleven thirty and I was driving her home. We stopped and..." he broke off. The events of that night came rushing in, everything they had done in his truck and everything that happened later that night.

"Come on Nate, just be honest and everything will be okay." McKenzie added a smile that convinced Nate that nothing was going to be okay.

"We made out for a while." He spoke, his voice low, as if embarrassed. The was silence again. Remembering the ordeal that took place behind his truck. He wasn't sure if he should tell them that or keep that to himself. He wasn't sure what the two detectives knew, this made it difficult for him to know what to tell them and what not to tell them. He was just about to speak when the door knob turned and his mother accompanied by a man in a suit and a briefcase walked in. 

His mother went straight to him and the other gentleman walked to the two detectives.

"Good morning detectives, I am Marcus Donotelle , Nate's attorney. That is his mother." He started. "Can I ask why my client was brought in for questioning?"

The two detectives stood, picking up the folder and the evidence bag from the table. "We are investigating a murder of one man and the disappearance of a another and your client is a person of interest. We believe he was involved in both cases." McLough informed the attorney. 

"What!" Nate exclaimed. "I don't know anything abou-" Marcus cut in sharply. 

"Nate I advise you not say anything at this time." Marcus said, looking at the teen then back at the detectives. "Detectives, we are willing to cooperate, but we need more information on this matter." 

The two detectives looked at each other for a moment and they sat back down. Marcus walked to Nate's side of the table and stood on his right, with Nate's mother on the left.

McLough opened up his white folder and removed some photographs. "As earlier mentioned, we are investigating the disappearance of a man." He slid a photo to them. "This is Matthew Lopez; he was reported missing on the 16th of February this year. The same date Mrs. Conner reported her son missing." The detective paused and watched Nate's face as he looked at the photo. 

"That is just a coincidence, what does that have to do with my client?" Marcus asked pushing the photo back. 

"This is Nate's truck," the detective continued pushing another photo. "A few meters back, we found a body. Our medical examiner estimated the time of death to be around the same time Nate was there." He pushed them a photo of the man's dead body lying on the tarmac. 

"Where is this going detectives?" Marcus asked.

McKenzie pushed them the evidence bag with the piece of metal. It was a blood stained bullet.

"This bullet was found next to the dead body. It was examined and the DNA found on it matched that of the blood we found on Nate's truck." McKenzie explained. 

McLough got another photograph from the folder and slid it to them. The photo showed the blood stains on the driver's side of the truck. 

Nate knew all about the photos. First the dead body, he remembered seeing Farian hold the guy by the neck and snapping it. The bullet, he remembered hearing the gunshot, he guessed the dead guy had shot Farian right before Farian snapped his neck. The blood on his truck, he remembered biting Farian's hand when the vampire was attacking him inside his truck. It all made sense to him, but he couldn't disclose any of it to any of them.That would mean that he tells them about Farian and disclose the existence of vampires which they would probably say is a made up story. At that moment, his metal battles began.