Find Me If You Dare (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 2) Read Online Free
Author: Rachel Lucas
words.
Chapter Six
The briefing room was a large, open room with chairs in a few rows facing the front of the room. There were two portable dry-erase boards next to a desk up front. At the desk there was a computer and a multi-line phone. There were a series of windows high up on the wall, enough to let in natural light but without making the room too bright.
Logan had directed me to a chair close to the desk. He tossed his still dusty jacket over the nearest chair and took a seat before the computer. He quickly logged in, pulled up the internet and was searching for the contact information for the St. George Police Department as well as the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.
As he dialed the numbers and asked to speak to the proper officials, he stretched the phone cord out as far as he could while he started organizing places, events and timelines on the dry-erase boards.
The room was eerily quiet with just the tapping of his fingers on the keyboard and the squeaking of the dry-erase markers. His voice, when he spoke to his fellow police officers, was solemn, respectful, sometimes urgent.
I sat there in somewhat of a stunned daze and watched him work. The events of the day were starting to catch up with me. I felt completely exhausted in both body and spirit. A part of me still couldn’t believe everything that had happened.
When I woke up this morning, my life had finally seemed as though it was getting back to normal. For months I had been on a frantic rollercoaster ride, doing everything I could to prove that my childhood best friend, Elizabeth Marshall, Lisbeth as I always thought of her, was innocent of her mother’s murder.
There had been a lot of circumstantial evidence against her. She had also had a very turbulent, confrontational, and sometimes violent history with her mother. The authorities were convinced she had done it and seemed to have the proof to convict her. It didn’t look very hopeful. But she was so insistent on her innocence.
If that wasn’t difficult enough, she was awaiting her trial down at the state mental hospital. Lisbeth had been diagnosed with Disassociate Identity Disorder, or the more common term, Multiple Personality Disorder. As a teenager she had been diagnosed with as many as twenty-seven different personalities. And I was uniquely familiar with almost every one of them.
Just when I’d thought that there was no way to prove that she didn’t kill her mother, I was able to help uncover some very important information with the help of Logan, a detective with the local police department.
We had uncovered what we thought proved that Lisbeth hadn’t committed the crime. Incredibly, the new evidence seemed to point to her mother Barbara killing herself while at the same time framing her daughter for her murder. Before I even had a chance to adjust to this new information, the local DA dropped the charges against Lisbeth.
Within hours, h er doctor at the state hospital had her transferred to another treatment facility because of the publicity. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. He wouldn’t let me see or speak to her because he thought it would interfere with her new treatment and possible recovery.
I thought we were in the clear. I thought I had successfully helped to free an innocent woman. Her doctor was treating her with a new medication, one that was supposedly integrating her various personalities. Although I had my doubts, he was certain she was on the road to recovery and was very capable of living an independent, productive life.
That was my reality until this morning. I thought that I had accomplished something important. I had helped prove her innocence. She was going to have a bright future before her.
That was when we found the metal box under the half-demolished trailer that had
Chapter Six
The briefing room was a large, open room with chairs in a few rows facing the front of the room. There were two portable dry-erase boards next to a desk up front. At the desk there was a computer and a multi-line phone. There were a series of windows high up on the wall, enough to let in natural light but without making the room too bright.
Logan had directed me to a chair close to the desk. He tossed his still dusty jacket over the nearest chair and took a seat before the computer. He quickly logged in, pulled up the internet and was searching for the contact information for the St. George Police Department as well as the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.
As he dialed the numbers and asked to speak to the proper officials, he stretched the phone cord out as far as he could while he started organizing places, events and timelines on the dry-erase boards.
The room was eerily quiet with just the tapping of his fingers on the keyboard and the squeaking of the dry-erase markers. His voice, when he spoke to his fellow police officers, was solemn, respectful, sometimes urgent.
I sat there in somewhat of a stunned daze and watched him work. The events of the day were starting to catch up with me. I felt completely exhausted in both body and spirit. A part of me still couldn’t believe everything that had happened.
When I woke up this morning, my life had finally seemed as though it was getting back to normal. For months I had been on a frantic rollercoaster ride, doing everything I could to prove that my childhood best friend, Elizabeth Marshall, Lisbeth as I always thought of her, was innocent of her mother’s murder.
There had been a lot of circumstantial evidence against her. She had also had a very turbulent, confrontational, and sometimes violent history with her mother. The authorities were convinced she had done it and seemed to have the proof to convict her. It didn’t look very hopeful. But she was so insistent on her innocence.
If that wasn’t difficult enough, she was awaiting her trial down at the state mental hospital. Lisbeth had been diagnosed with Disassociate Identity Disorder, or the more common term, Multiple Personality Disorder. As a teenager she had been diagnosed with as many as twenty-seven different personalities. And I was uniquely familiar with almost every one of them.
Just when I’d thought that there was no way to prove that she didn’t kill her mother, I was able to help uncover some very important information with the help of Logan, a detective with the local police department.
We had uncovered what we thought proved that Lisbeth hadn’t committed the crime. Incredibly, the new evidence seemed to point to her mother Barbara killing herself while at the same time framing her daughter for her murder. Before I even had a chance to adjust to this new information, the local DA dropped the charges against Lisbeth.
Within hours, h er doctor at the state hospital had her transferred to another treatment facility because of the publicity. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. He wouldn’t let me see or speak to her because he thought it would interfere with her new treatment and possible recovery.
I thought we were in the clear. I thought I had successfully helped to free an innocent woman. Her doctor was treating her with a new medication, one that was supposedly integrating her various personalities. Although I had my doubts, he was certain she was on the road to recovery and was very capable of living an independent, productive life.
That was my reality until this morning. I thought that I had accomplished something important. I had helped prove her innocence. She was going to have a bright future before her.
That was when we found the metal box under the half-demolished trailer that had