I didn't do it

Heartbroken and confused, Odelia rushed out of her hiding place and ran through the crowd of people, making her way out of the venue with tears streaming down her face, ruining her makeup and making her look like a mess. She was a far cry from the fairy-like woman who had entered those same gates a few minutes ago. 

Odelia's heart hurt; she felt like her heart was being squeezed and torn apart into a million pieces. She was inconsolable. 

She was just a few steps from reaching her car so that she could enter it and escape to somewhere alone and forget about everything when a flock of reporters gathered around her. Flashing their cameras and throwing her one question after the other. 

"Your employees have come clean and admitted you were the one who gave them the wrong ingredients for cooking. How do you feel knowing people are lying in the hospital fighting for their lives because of you?" one reporter asked. 

"Did CEO Adam Gray break his engagement with you and did not show up because he found out you were such a wicked and vicious woman?" Another reporter asked. 

"Most of your recipes are stolen from your employees whom you take credit from without acknowledging their efforts, correct?" A short reporter who had a potbelly asked this time around.

"You fired a chef from your restaurant because he complained about the bad ingredients. What do you have to say about that?" One bold reporter asked, nearly shoving his microphone into her face. 

Odelia stood there in a daze with confusion written all over her face. What were they talking about? She had used bad ingredients for her food, and people who consumed it are suffering from food poisoning and are in the hospital fighting for their lives? 

The most confusing part was that her employees testified against her and said she was the mastermind? Her mind was buzzing with a thousand questions as she searched for a reason why all this was happening. 

"Get out of my way," she said. She had meant for it to sound strong and confident like it always was when she spoke, but it came out weakly. She had no choice but to push the reporters out of the way. 

Her hands had barely touched one reporter when she fell to the ground and began to yell in pain. "You vicious woman! Since your plot to commit mass murder and poison people to their deaths didn't work, are you planning on killing me?" The reporter yelled, her voice shrill. 

Odelia looked on in a daze, tongue-tied, as she felt the world crumbling under her feet. As if that was not enough, some police officers arrived at the scene. One policeman who looked like the officer in charge came forward and asked, 

"Who is Odelia Graham?" 

Silence. You could hear a pin drop, and then, as if everyone finally came back to their senses, they pointed at the lone woman who stood in the middle of the crowd. 

Her face looked pale, with messy hair and makeup smudged on several parts of her face. Her wedding dress looked crumbled from the continuous clenching of her fingers as she held her dress. Her shoulders, which were usually straight with her chin raised in confidence as she gazed at people as if she were looking down on them, looked sagged as if there were no bones in them. She looked like an abandoned puppy who was not wanted by their owner and had been left in the cold.

In front of her were the reporters who were questioning her as if they were prosecutors and she were some criminal in court, and behind her were the wedding guests who had come out after hearing the commotion. 

Some of them held a smile on their faces as they saw the arrogant woman who used to raise her head high as if she were the sun, high in the skies, so bright and untouchable, finally fall down to their level.

Others also looked at her with scorn; her luck had finally run out; did she think she would always have it all? Serves her right for being too rigid and arrogant, not even lending them a helping hand when she was at the top. 

A few people looked at her with pity; it was sad that a young lady who had such great potential and was meant to soar the skies and spread her wings had fallen. They blamed her parents for not warning her about how cold and lonely it was at the top and how it was best to surround yourself with loyal people. 

Only one or two wise observers could tell that this was surely a huge conspiracy against Odelia. She had herself to blame for surrounding herself with vipers and scorpions who had bitten and stung her so badly that it seemed an antidote was not in sight. 

The police walked to her. "Odelia Graham, you are under arrest for intent to cause harm and attempted murder through food poisoning. Anything you do or say would be used against you in the court of law," the policeman said as he stood in front of Odelia. 

"No, I didn't do it; please believe me." Tears flowed down Odelia's face as she shook her head to vehemently deny what they were saying, but it was of no use. Even her employees had testified against her. 

"Please cooperate with us, and don't make our work difficult for us." The policeman said when he saw that Odelia wanted to resist arrest. "Odelia, just go with them; I will contact a lawyer and follow after you soon," Phillip Smith, who had just arrived at the scene and had gotten a gist of what was happening, said, consoling Odelia. 

Philip was Odelia's friend from when she was in the countryside. Even though the Smith family was not poor and could be considered to be aristocrats in Manhattan, due to Philip's weak constitution when he was a child, he was raised in the countryside so that the fresh air in the countryside would help him rid his body of the toxins that were ailing him, and the famous miracle traditional doctor was also there to nurture him and treat his illness. 

He had been Odelia's friend ever since they were children, and they had reconnected when they met again in the capital. Odelia nodded reluctantly, finally seeing a ray of hope, and left with the police. 

~~~ 

About 20 minutes later, Odelia arrived at the police station and was ushered into the interrogation room. Since all evidence was pointing to Odelia, they only needed her admission to the crime so that she would be sent to prison. 

Odelia's interrogation began almost immediately after she arrived. Luckily for her, she had calmed down on her way to the police station and was clear-headed enough to not give them self-incriminating answers. 

The police officers left her alone when they realized she was repeating the same answer. It was either "I didn't do it" or "I had no idea." 

Philip arrived at the police station about 2 hours later, when Odelia was almost going crazy with worry. During these 2 hours, she had called her parents, but her father told her he was busy and couldn't come. 

She had wanted to call her mother; maybe she would come to her aid and use the connections of the Graham family to get her out of here. She had carried her in her belly for nine months after all; even if they were not so close, every mother loved their offspring, right? 

But the police had refused, stating that she was only entitled to make one phone call and that she had already exhausted that right. After pleading and pleading, they eventually relented and allowed her to call her mother, but as soon as the call connected and her mother realized it was her, she didn't even console her. 

She just went on to say how she regretted finding out she was her biological daughter. She should have left her in the countryside and not have brought her home to be such a disgrace to her and the Graham family and hung up on her after she had said her piece. 

Odelia's heart trembled in pain after hearing such words. Could a mother really say such hurtful things to her own daughter? 

Would her mother be happy if she was finally dead? She remembered when she had studied hard, barely slept, and became the top scorer in her class, but her mother never applauded her or ever said well done. All her attention would be focused on her substitute Anna, showering her with praises because she played the piano well and buying her one gift after the other for ridiculous reasons, but she never noticed that her own biological daughter was also lonely and craved the warmth of family. 

Odelia had been sitting in the interrogation room, feeling numb with a lot of thoughts running through her mind at all the changes that had occurred to her in just a single day when Philip finally arrived. 

He was late because most of the lawyers had declined when they heard it was Odelia's food poisoning case. And it did not take a genius to know that it was Adam Gray and her sister Anna who were behind this. They were really trying to push her into a corner so that it would be difficult for her to stand back up. 

The Smith family did not have so much power like the Gray family, so it was quite difficult for Philip. But luckily, Philip was able to contact his college friend Michael Brown, who was a lawyer and was also very known in his field. 

Due to an old debt he owed Philip, he reluctantly agreed to take on the case. After the attorney, Michael Brown, arrived, he requested privacy to speak to his client alone, which was granted. 

Michael went straight to the point when he was left alone with Odelia. "After studying the case, I have arrived at a conclusion. It would be best and faster for you to get out of here if the victims were spoken to and agreed to settle so that you pay them compensation. Or we go through the normal procedure and investigate the food and the people involved and let the judge give his statement. We must also take into consideration and think of all possible scenarios that may affect the investigation. It would also depend on how fast the investigation will take and what kind of results will come out after all the needed tests are run. It might take a couple of months or even years for your name to be cleared, so decide." 

.