Page 84 of Ruthless Regret

Zain nods, but doesn’t speak.

My younger self is hunched over, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold herself together. Every few seconds, she wipes at her face with shaking hands, but the tears keep coming. I canfeelthe devastation radiating from the screen.

"I don't remember being this bad. How can I not remember this?"

Zain doesn't respond.

Holson begins his questioning, with Ramsey standing silently in the background. Despite her emotional state, my younger self answers, her voice trembling but her words clear.

"I needed to talk to him," my younger self says on screen. "I th-thought Mom and Dad were fighting. I w-wanted to ask him if he knew w-what was h-happening."

There’s a pang in my chest. The reason I went to Jason's house that night seems so trivial now, in light of everything that happened.

Holson mentions Zain standing over the bodies with a knife, and despite her tears, my younger self firmly states that she didn't see any knife, and my eyes latch onto something odd.

"Stop. Can you rewind that bit?"

Zain complies without a word.

"There." I point at the screen. "Look at Ramsey's face when I say you didn't have a knife."

Zain hits play, and we watch the moment again. Ramsey's expression shifts, just for a second. A flicker of ... something. Frustration? Determination? It's gone so quickly I can't be sure.

I touch Zain’s arm. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah. He didn't like that answer at all."

He presses play again and we continue watching, our attention on Ramsey this time. It happens a few more times. Every time my younger self insists there was no knife, Ramsey's jaw tightens, his eyes narrow. It's subtle, but it's there. All the while, Holson keeps pressing, his questions becoming more leading.

"Are you sure, Ashley?" Holson asks on screen. "This is important. Your brother and Louisa were murdered, in their beds, by someone with a knife. You found Zain Ryder in there. He must have had the knife."

My younger self shakes her head vehemently. "I ... N-no. I didn't s-see any knife."

The first interview ends when the door opens, and another voice informs the detectives that my dad had arrived. Zain pauses the video and looks at me.

“You were gone for at least fifteen minutes, before they started the second interview.”

"I don't understand. I was so upset, so traumatized, but I was still clear about what I saw. Or didn't see, in this case. Play the second one."

Zain does as I ask, and the contrast is immediate and jarring.

My younger self sits straighter, her face tear-stained but composed. My dad is there now, looking worried, angry, and upset.

How was he able to sit there with me, knowing his son had been murdered?

"My daughter is thirteen," he says. "You had no right to question her without a parent present."

I remember that moment clearly—the relief when my dad arrived, thinking it was all over. That he’d make everything better. How wrong I was.

When Holson asks about the knife again, my younger self hesitates, then agrees. The change is startling.

"Stop." Nausea rises in my throat. "Look at Ramsey now."

Zain pauses the video, leaning in closer.

"He looks satisfied," I whisper. "Like he's getting exactly what he wants."

"They wanted an easy win," Zain says, his voice hard. "I was there, you saw me over the bodies. It was an open and shut case. They didn't bother looking any further, not when they had the perfect suspect in custody."

---