7 | What's All The Yelling About?

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13 February 2022 - Sunday

The forensic artist's hand flew over the page as I described what the two men looked like, the events from earlier on replay in my head. 

What would have happened if they caught me? Would they do to me what they did to Lt. Cobbet — throw my unconscious body in a river, waiting for me to drown? Or would they have killed me on the spot, leaving my body there to rot among the dead leaves?

''Is this what they looked like?'' The forensic artist, Dean, I think his name was, asked me, holding out his sketchpad for me to see. I glanced at his drawing, grateful that he brought me out of my head and away from my 'what if' thoughts. 

Dean was new to the job, and town since he was employed in Delta, but he was brought here since Fort Oakley PD didn't have a forensic artist. He was nervous, but I would be too if Diego Andino, Jacey's father and another Lieutenant at our police department was looking at me like I killed his dog. Dean was a good sketcher, an excellent one really, but no matter how many details I gave him, he wasn't managing to produce the picture of the men I saw. It was normal — he was new and didn't really have experience drawing people from someone else's description.

''Hey, go take a break. I can do this,'' I whispered to him, taking his sketchpad from him. Dean shot me a grateful look, keeping his head down as he fled. Lt. Andino shot me a look a couldn't decipher and returned to his work.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my hands as I began to sketch. Drawing and painting had always been a refuge for me, a way to escape and express myself. Now, it was a tool to help bring justice to Lt. Cobbet. 

Fort Oakley PD was the busiest it had ever been, with dozens of police members rushing around. Everyone had been called in, and several officers who had been working with Lt. Cobbet on his case in Delta were here too. They were all giving each other information about the case - information Lt. Cobbet had gathered on the case, his location before he went missing, and possible suspects.

Lt. Cobbet was in stable condition the last time Sheriff Lucien gave me an update, and his doctors were positive that he would make a full recovery. The number of times officers had told me that he wouldn't be alive if not for me was enough to drive me crazy.

It was true, I knew that, but I had processed it the moment Sheriff Lucien told me I saved an officer's life, and I wanted to put everything that had happened behind me, even if I knew I wasn't going to be able to.

A brand new pair of socks landed on my lap, and I looked up at Sheriff Lucien, who dropped a pair of flip-flops on the ground beside my chair. ''Put them on. The shoes belong to Officer Sanders. She's the only person who has the same foot size as you, and they're the only shoes she had in her locker. They're fairly new, but she doesn't mind.''

When the paramedics arrived at the river, they wanted to take me to the hospital with Lt. Cobbet, but I insisted I was fine, so they gave me a thermal blanket, not having the time to argue with me since Lt. Cobbet had been in critical condition. Sheriff Lucien brought me back to the station, where he gave me clean, dry, police-issued clothes to change into. 

I wasn't cold anymore, but the look on his face as he stood beside me was enough for me to pull on the new sock and slide my feet into the flip-flops. It looked ridiculous, but I couldn't care less after what happened today.

I held out the sketchpad for him to take. ''That's what they looked like. The notes on the side describe how tall they are, how they moved, and stuff like that. When I get home, I can do a quick painting if you'd like, and I'll be able to bring them by tomorrow. It'll be more detailed, almost like the video I could've shown you if they hadn't taken my phone.'' 

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