The air in the office was cold, sterile. The ticking of the clock on the wall felt louder than it should have, each second dragging her deeper into doubt. Roselle sat with her hands clasped tightly on her lap, fingers twisting over each other as she stared at the polished desk in front of her.
“Reopen the case?” The man sitting across from her, Attorney Darren Malik, leaned back in his chair, eyes scanning the documents she had brought. He had an air of quiet confidence, the kind of man who had seen too many cases and too many people begging for a different truth.
“Yes,” she said, swallowing hard. “I want to know what really happened that night. I want to.” She hesitated. “I need to know if my father was truly guilty.”
Darren exhaled, his fingers tapping against the desk. “Roselle, this case is nearly two decades old. Your father confessed. The evidence was stacked against him, blood on his hands, the murder weapon, the alcohol in his system.”
Her stomach churned, but she forced herself to speak. “I know. But what if there’s more to it? What if something was overlooked?” She leaned forward. “My father never drank. Not once in his life. Why would he suddenly get drunk that night? It doesn’t make sense.”
Darren studied her, his gaze unreadable. “And you believe there’s a chance he was framed?”
Roselle hesitated. She wanted to believe it, wanted somethinga. Anything to explain away the nightmare that had become her reality. But was it truly about proving her father’s innocence? Or was she just grasping for an excuse to keep him in her life?
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I can’t move forward unless I find out.”
Darren nodded slowly, then reached for a folder from a stack behind him. “Reopening a closed case isn’t easy. We’ll need new evidence, something compelling enough to convince the courts that there’s reason to doubt the original verdict.”
Roselle nodded, her heart pounding. “What do I need to do?”
“For starters,” Darren said, flipping through a few papers, “we should look at the original police reports, the forensic analysis, and any witness statements. If there are inconsistencies, we might have a chance.” He met her gaze. “But be prepared, Roselle. Sometimes the truth isn’t what we want it to be.”
She already knew that. But she had come too far to turn back now.
_____
Here’s the continuation of the chapter:
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Roselle left the law firm with a storm raging in her mind. The truth. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? Or was she only chasing ghosts, hoping to rewrite the past into something she could live with?
The streets felt suffocating, too many people, too much noise. Her thoughts churned violently as she clutched the folder of legal documents Darren had given her. It contained copies of the original case details—her mother’s autopsy report, witness statements, and police records.
Back at her grandparent's house, she sat at the dining table, staring at the stack of papers before her. The words blurred together, her hands trembling as she turned the pages.
Victim Name: Katelyn Everlyn
Cause of Death: Blunt force trauma to the skull
Time of Death: 11.45 pm.
Suspect: Muhammad Aish Faizal
Roselle inhaled sharply. Her father’s name, written in bold ink, struck her like a dagger to the chest.
She flipped through the witness statements. A neighbor had reported hearing a heated argument that night, followed by the sound of glass shattering. Another claimed to have seen her father stumbling outside, incoherent and reeking of alcohol. The police found him minutes later, blood on his shirt, his hands shaking.
Her heart clenched.
None of this made sense.
Her father never drank. The man who raised her had never so much as touched a bottle of liquor. The memories of her childhood of him praying, of him teaching her right from wrong, contradicted everything these reports claimed.
Was she fooling herself?
She hesitated, then grabbed her phone and dialed Darren. He picked up after the second ring.
“Roselle?”
“I—I read the reports. But something isn’t right.”
He sighed. “What stood out?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “The alcohol. My father never drank. There was something in his system that night that made him lose control. What if he was drugged? What if—” Her voice broke.
Darren was silent for a moment. “If you believe something was off, we’ll need to check the toxicology report from the autopsy. See if anything unusual was in his system.”
“Wouldn’t the police have caught that?”
“They should have,” he admitted. “But forensic analysis was different back then. Things get overlooked.”
Hope flickered inside her.
“I’ll file a request for the case files from the police archive,” Darren continued. “But Roselle, if we do this, you need to prepare yourself. We might find something that proves his innocence… or we might find something that confirms his guilt.”
Roselle tightened her grip on the phone.
“I just need to know the truth.”
She hung up and exhaled shakily.
If her father truly was guilty… if he really had killed her mother in a drunken haze…
Could she still look him in the eye?
Could she still call him father?