Arcane Sequence: 1994: Never Stop Running... (WLW)

Chapter Five: West Palm Beach, June 8th, 1994

This chapter contains dark themes.

Berry sat down at her desk in the narcotics task force's office space and grimaced as her chair did that thing again. She kept having to fix the lever that elevated or dropped it constantly and knew it was time to let the thing go. It had followed her from a lower floor of the building up to the third and she desired keeping it with her on her ascent further up the ranks, but knew it had seen better days. Especially considering it had just caused her to spill her coffee over her peach polyester button up.

With a sigh as she heard snickering coming from behind herself, she peeked over her shoulder and found Saul, one of her colleagues, watching her from the makeshift break area in the far left corner of the room. She knew her frown wouldn't work on him, he had known her the longest among their team now aside from her sergeant and that she was not as cross as she appeared to others deep inside, but she still couldn't hide her frustration.

"Ain't got any work to do, Saul? Still in need of orders to make a move?"

His face fell into a hardened scowl and he shook his head as he began toward the exit. "You should lighten up, Marino."

As he disappeared from sight, Berry groaned and leaned back in her chair, then remembered her shirt was filthy as someone else entered the room. "Hey, Berry. I just found something I think you should see." She looked over her shoulder once more and found Ethan jogging over to her with his mobile data terminal, setting it on the corner of her desk. He opened it and signed in, then clicked on a car rental file holding the license picture of a very familiar face. As Berry sat forward, her coffee stained top forgotten, she examined the person and grinned. "That's her, right? Nadia Costa?"

"When did this come in?" Berry stood and began putting on her leather jacket she swiped from the back of her chair. "Where did it come from?"

"That's the thing... I don't know." She looked at Ethan as he closed the portable and drew nearer. "Have you seen the sergeant this morning?"

Now that he mentioned it, Berry couldn't recall seeing his private office lights on when she came into work. She even noted it in the back of her mind, but left it alone as she surmised he must have been in a meeting. However, it wasn't like him to not even tell the others when he had a staff gathering prior to starting the day and it was well past eight in the morning. She walked to the exit, sensing Ethan following closely behind, and made her way to Sergeant Mitchell's office.

Upon nearing it, she smelled the overwhelming unfamiliar scent of potpourri or air fresheners wafting toward them from beneath the door and slowed her trod. Peeking over at Ethan, Berry reached into her jacket and unclasped her holster, pulling her handgun free. She motioned for Ethan to get behind her and spotted Saul returning to their main office over his shoulder. He noticed them and she waved him over, watching him as he got on the other side of the door. He also grabbed his sidearm and nodded at her as she held up her hand in silence.

Mouthing along with her fingers, Berry counted down and burst through the door to find all the lights were out. She clicked on the flashlight at the snout of her gun and nearly vomited as she ran the glare over the room, settling its flicker on one singular person. There sat behind his desk was Sergeant Mitchell with his head tipped back and a deep gash in his neck strewn clean across it. The overhead light clicked on and Ethan stepped in behind them.

"Oh shit!" He ran to the sergeant and Saul followed, but was distracted by the sound of the phone ringing on the desk.

"H-Hello..." Saul stammered as he put the receiver to his ear. He startled, then his face grew even more solemn in an instant and he looked over at Berry. "It's for you."