Chapter Ten: Case Closed

"MrColleano, could you please tell the jury the full story of what happened on the night of Mike's murder?" Courtney requests the next day at the trial when she's gotten Duncan on the stand.

"Of course," Duncan obliges, and he recounts what he told Courtney the night before. When he finishes the story he sighs deeply from nervousness.

"Why is it that you didn't offer this information up earlier?" Courtney asks so that Jones doesn't get a chance to turn the tables.

"I'd completely forgotten that it happened until Shauna said she saw me talking to a redhead," Duncan replies. "I didn't think it would be relevant at the time it happened so it wasn't something that really stuck out in my mind."

"Thank you, Duncan, no further questions," Courtney says. She turns to face Mr Jones.

"Mr Jones, do you have any questions for the defendant?" the judge asks. Jones shakes his head, a small smile on his face as if to say this wasn't enough to get Duncan off the hook.

"MrColleano, you may stand down," the bailiff grants Duncan. Duncan returns to his seat and Courtney smiles at him to say 'good job.'

"If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to ask Miss Zoey Cordwell to the stand one last time," Courtney tells the judge. He nods in approval and the bailiff calls Zoey to the stand. She takes the oath and sits down. "Miss Cordwell, before I ask you any questions and you get the chance to deny what Duncan has just told us, I'd like to play the CCTV footage taken on the night of Mike's murder. The camera is situated at the entrance of the bar, so it shows when everyone entered and exited the bar that night." Zoey's eyes widen as Courtney uses the same projector Jones did on the first day to show the picture of Duncan and Mike. "Here we have my client entering the bar, and if we fast forward a bit we have you and your fiancé entering a few minutes later." Courtney fast forwards some more to when Duncan and Mike come outside.

"As you can see, Ann Maria follows soon after, then Duncan returns inside," Courtney continues. "Zoey exits, then quickly goes back inside, proving she didn't leave straight away, as she said she did. If we go further forward, Ann Maria goes back inside, Zoey comes back out, shortly followed by my client and then Ann Maria once again, which is when she saw Duncan holding the knife." Courtney stops the tape and turns to Zoey.

"How did you get this?" Zoey asks. Courtney smiles smugly at her.

"I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind," she says. "Miss Cordwell, why did you feel the need to lie about when you left the bar?"

"I-I… I didn't know… I mean…" Zoey stutters.

"More importantly, what were you doing in the time between when you re-entered the bar and the second time you exited?" Courtney wonders.

"Well, I can explain, I was…" Zoey tries. Courtney can tell she's making Zoey as uncomfortable as Jones made Duncan on the first day, and it was a good feeling.

"And when you left for the second time, you would have passed Mike and had the opportunity to kill him before running home," Courtney continues. "Not to mention you wouldn't have left any prints on the knife, which you stole when you hugged my client, because you were wearing mittens!" Zoey is starting to cry and Courtney feels kind of bad, but she knows it's for the good of the case.

"Okay, it was me!" Zoey yells, letting her tears fall freely. There's a unanimous gasp throughout the courtroom. "I killed my fiancé and I hate myself every day because of it."

Mike and Duncan leave Zoey in the bar and, feeling very uncomfortable, she orders a drink to take the edge off. She looks around the bar warily, hoping that Mike comes back soon.

She sees Duncan come back inside and figures Mike must be waiting for her outside. Zoey jumps down from her bar stool and goes outside to find him. As she turns the corner she sees him kissing Ann Maria. She stands there in shock for a moment, not fully believing what she's seeing.

Without a word, Zoey runs back inside, tears already forming in her eyes. She looks around for any familiar face, needing some kind of comfort. She feels lost and alone, making her more and more upset by the minute. Finally, she spots Duncan coming out from the bathroom and hurries up to him, remembering that during All-Stars he showed a bit of a soft spot.

"Thank god you're here, I need to talk to someone I know," she sobs.

"Mike's just outside, why don't you go talk to him?" Duncan says. This makes her cry even harder. He clearly doesn't understand the problem.

"It's about Mike!" Zoey cries, trying to brush away the tears and being unsuccessful since she's wearing mittens. "We were friends once, right?"

"I said some things to you that weren't mean, I don't think that makes us friends," Duncan counters. Duncan's rudeness is making Zoey annoyed, and she wraps her arms around Duncan's waist and sobs into his shirt. She gently pulls his knife from his pocket, thinking that if he was going to be rude to her she was going to get him back. He pushes her away and looks around, hoping no one saw them.

"Okay, that's enough," he snaps. "I need a drink." Duncan walks off to the bar and Zoey runs back outside to confront Mike. Ann Maria has gone, to Zoey's relief.

"Mike, how could you?" Zoey demands of Mike. He raises his eyebrows at her in confusion.

"How could I what, babydoll?" he wonders.

"I saw you with Ann Maria," she tells him. Mike smirks.

"Oh yeah, I really scored with that one, huh?" he says. Zoey looks at him in disbelief.

"You're not even going to deny it?" she asks, a new round of tears falling down her cheeks. She doesn't bother trying to wipe them away this time.

"Why would I deny it?" Mike wonders. "She's hot!" Zoey slips off her left mitten and pulls off her ring to show it to Mike.

"Doesn't this mean anything to you?" she whispers, her voice straining.

"Pfft, why should it?" he asks. He snatches the ring and throws it down the street, where it lands a few metres down the footpath. Zoey feels the knife still in her right hand and flicks it open.

"I thought you loved me!" she cries. Mike just laughs at her, and that's the last straw. Zoey rams the knife into Mike's chests and he stumbles backwards. She stabs him a few more times to let out all of her emotions, then takes a couple of steps back in horror.

"What have I done?" she whispers. She looks around to make sure no one saw her and runs off down the street, picking up her ring as she passes it and is well and truly gone from the scene when Ann Maria's blood-curdling scream echoes around the neighbourhood.

Courtney turns back to Duncan with a huge grin on her face. She races up to him and jumps on him, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. He hugs her back with just as much enthusiasm.

"We did it!" she murmurs into his ear.

"No," he whispers back. "You did it." He pulls away from the hug and smiles at her. The rest of the courtroom is going crazy and the judge bangs his gavel down.

"Order! Order in the courtroom!" he shouts over top of everyone. Eventually everyone silences, except for Zoey who is still sobbing uncontrollably. "Miss Zoey Cordwell, you are sentenced to twenty-five years prison with a minimum of seven years before being eligible for parole." He bangs his gavel again and everyone stands to leave. The bailiff removes Duncan's handcuffs and Duncan turns to Courtney again.

"Now that I'm no longer a prisoner, I guess I can show you the good parts of the city, as promised," he says with a grin.

"Okay," Courtney agrees, smiling back.

"Seriously?" Duncan asks, both excited and surprised. Courtney nods.

"Didn't you hear me yesterday?" she says. "That was the last time you ever had to see me leave." She pulls the front of Duncan's jumpsuit towards her and brings his lips to hers. There are a couple of wolf-whistle's and cheers from past Total Drama contestants who had come to watch the trial, but Duncan and Courtney are completely oblivious as they stand in the middle of the courtroom, still kissing. Duncan lifts Courtney up and sits her on the desk.

"No sex in the courtroom!" the bailiff shouts at them. They pull away from each other and laugh.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Courtney asks.

"You know I do," Duncan replies. Courtney takes his hand and they run from the courtroom, laughing like children.

Note: Thanks for reading this story and well done to everyone who guessed it was Zoey! I would've liked to have dragged it out a bit more but I felt there wasn't a lot more that I could add. I hope you enjoyed it anyway!