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Ezra stays with me as we move further into the room while Nic and Kai fan out. Nic, who has been suspiciously quiet all morning, doesn’t even say a word to any of us as he goes his own way. I’m not exactly sure what to do myself considering I’ve never even been in the room. I don’t know the layout, or even how things are categorized or maintained. I just do my part of the job and move on. So this leaves me relying on the guys.Again.
A flash of a dimly lit room with rows of boxes and filing cabinets fills my mind, crisp in detail and looking like something from the set of an eighties cop show. I gasp, coming to a stop, my hands slipping from Ezra’s arm. I feel his attention zero in on me at the same time that the vision disappears. My chest constricts as I whip my head side to side, trying to… Well, I don’t really know. I swear I justsawthe damn room.
Maybe I was just imagining it. Conjuring up what I thought the place would look like. I’ve always had a great imagination after all. Right, that has to be it.
But…
I reach my hand out to the left, my fingers graze over the cool metal of one of the shelves, though it’s much higher than where the original picture had it, it’s still exactly where I thought it would be. My throat constricts and I jerk my hand back and tighten it into a fist. Gizmo and Snitch catch on to my unease and start clawing at my jeans, their concerned squeaks pulling me from my thoughts.
“Wicked? Are you okay?” Ezra’s deep voice wraps around me and I turn my face towards him, finding him only a step away from me.
“Yeah. I just…” My eyebrows practically scrunch together into one as I try to understand what the hell just happened, a headache starting to form behind my unseeing eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
I reach my hand towards him and his much larger one grasps it gently before directing my hold to his arm once more. He doesn’t question me any further, and I’m grateful. I don’t even know where to start in explaining what that was all about. It’s a good thing pushing for answers is not Ezra’s style.
“Over here!” Nic’s voice is impatient and annoyed–per usual–as he calls from somewhere further in the room.
Ezra and I head in that direction, Gizmo and Snitch bounding in circles around our feet as we walk. The little fuckers better be glad they’re quick, otherwise Ezra might stride right over them with his massive gait. They’re used to matching my much shorter steps, though Ezra tries his best not to outpace me.
“Dammit! I should have thought about the computer!” Kai practically pouts as we all reach Nic.
“Did you really think the department keeps physical copies ofeverycase that comes through here?”
“Well…no.” Kai scratches at his head like he always does, the rough sound reaching my ears, and my mouth turns down.
“It’s okay, Kai. I didn’t think of electronic records either!” I smile gently at my goofball and his aura brightens.
“Well, it’s good that at least one of us knows how to actually think then, isn’t it?” Nic’s snipe completely misses the mark, because all I feel from his aura is dejection and disappointment. Which, of course, he quickly smothers with a blanket of annoyance.
“You did good, grumps.” He chuffs in response, but his aura evens out in satisfaction before he returns his focus solely to the screen in front of him.
Poor guy probably doesn’t even realize what just happened.
“Okay, let's see. Nothing new here. Nothing here.” He mindlessly mumbles as he continues looking through the digital files, his aura growing in frustration as he finds nothing more that we don’t already know. “Well, it does mention the caller who reported the accident, but they weren’t around to take a statement when police and medics arrived. We have no name. Wait…”
My breath hikes up as Nic starts to practically vibrate in excitement. My palms start to sweat as I wait, pulling them away from Ezra’s arm to wipe them on my pants. Snitch reaches up and begins pulling on my pant leg, so I busy myself crouching down to pick his heavy ass up and cradle him in my arms. Gizmo immediately gets jealous and just pounces on my back to curl around my shoulders and rub his wet nose against my cheek.
“I found the recording of the call.” Nic announces before clicking the mouse a couple more times.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Play it!” Impatience wars with curiosity inside of me, pushing me into near frantic energy as I bounce in place, mindlessly rocking Snitch in my arms as Gizmo grabs my hair.
“Okay, here we go.”
Everyone goes silent, only the faint sound of quiet breathing fills the air before dead static surfaces from the computer speakers.
“911, what’s your emergency?” The male emergency line operator’s voice fills the quiet right before frantic screaming and crying sounds over the line. “Ma’am, I can’t understand you. Please take a deep breath and tell me where you are. What’s happening?”
“Their car! H-he-It just crashed right into them!” The woman’s voice is screechy and filled with panic and fear, barely able to be understood.
“Ma’am, can you tell me where you are? Who crashed into who?”
“Oh my God! Oh my God! You have to hurry! They rolled down the cliff!” My heart rate spikes as flashes of my father’s wide-eyed terror filled face assaults my mind, the ghostly sounds of crunching metal sounding as real as if it were happening right now.
“Alright, ma’am, we’re pulling up your location and we have emergency services on route. Can you tell me if you can see if anyone is hurt?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The line clicks and the recording stops, leaving behind an eerily deep silence that practically drags me under with the weight of it.
I let myself have one moment, maybe two, before I shake off the remnants of my memories of that night. I can’t let myself feel it–succumb to it–when I need to pay attention and see if the recording holds any clues. Anything at all.
