Free Deception by April Isabelle Ordonez

He'd stay clean for a bit, but it never lasts long. It caused a lot of stress for my parents. It was a never-ending cycle. Each time he'd fall back into his old ways, I could see my mom place guilt on herself. She always felt guilty for his bad decisions. I never really understood why." He clears his throat, looking away. I can see the sadness on his face build up.
    "Would you like a glass of water?" He shakes his head. My cell phone rings again. "Sorry about that," I say, my phone chiming again. "Let me turn that off," I add, getting up and sauntering over to my desk.
    Before pressing the power button, I see a text from Rich: Why aren't you answering your phone?
    I text back: Stop calling. I'm at work and busy .
    While I want to chuck the phone across the room, I quickly remember that Travis is sitting not five feet away from me, and I already scared him off yesterday. I press the power button―quite hard―to power it down, and then shove it into the bottom of my purse. I huff loudly, returning to the table.
    "Was your brother living with your parents at the time of their death?" I continue.
    "Yes. He just came out of rehab the week prior," Travis says in a slow, controlled voice, that I'm now realizing he's had the entire time he's been here.
    "And you and your family live in Half Moon as well?"
    "No. I live and work in Pescadero." I nod, not ever having been to Pescadero, or even knowing where it is.
    "All right, so now I need to know, in detail, what you did on Friday. I’ll need for you to try to remember everything, including the time that you did it, from the moment you woke up to the moment you went to bed. If you can't recall something, we can skip over it for now. But I really need for you to try to remember as much as possible. I’ll make a timeline while you tell me the details."
    “Okay,” he responds, shifting in his chair. I note that this is the first time he's done this since he sat down.
    "So run through your day, starting with the time you woke up."
    "I woke up at six-fifteen, and got Amanda up at six-thirty. I cooked her breakfast, and then dropped her off at school at seven-forty-five. I drove to work, and was there until two o’clock. Amanda stayed after school for computer club, so I drove to the school to pick her up at two-fifteen. We then went to the bakery down the street to pick up a cake for my parents. It was my parents’ thirty-seventh wedding anniversary. After, we drove to Half Moon and stopped at a local florist. Amanda wanted to get her grandma some flowers. We also picked up some take-out from my parent's favorite restaurant."
    "What time did you get to Half Moon?" I interrupt.
    He shrugs. "I think it was around three o’clock, or so."
    "Okay. Continue," I instruct, putting my pen back to the paper.
    "So, we went over to my parents’ house. My mom had just gotten home from work. My dad was in the garage, working on a car. And Brian was out somewhere. I texted him to see if he was going to join us, and he texted back saying he'd be over in fifteen minutes. When he got there, we all sat down and ate. Amanda was going over to a friend’s house for a sleepover, so we left."
    "What time was that?"
    He pauses in thought, and then he presses his lips together and lightly shakes his head. "I think it was around four-thirty."
    "All right."
    "Brian wanted to go out, so he asked me for a ride. He had me drop him off at a friend’s house about three or so miles away. Then Amanda and I drove back home. She packed an overnight bag, and I drove her to her friend's house."
    "Do you recall what time you dropped her off?"
    "I remember it was just before five o’clock, because her friend's parents asked me if I wanted to stay for dinner. I recall looking at the time. I couldn't stay because I had to return to work."
    "So, you went straight to work after dropping your daughter off at her friend's house?"
    He looks down at his hands. "No, actually, I went home for a bit. I needed to