Guts, Rearranged {INCOMPLETE}

Chapter 14 =Security Removal=

Rockwell watches as the tech operative they hired disconnects and unscrews the camera outside of the Bakery door, hidden at the back of a shelf. Their plan had gone smoothly, Thom had been rushed without any problems. The day before their scheduled rush, they caught footage of him on the phone with an investor, thankfully he had been stupid enough to dial in the number manually in full view of the lenses. Once this camera was down, all she had to do was go over the spots she and Ian had agreed they set their cameras to explicitly show him that they had been effectively removed, as per their written agreement.

Something in the footage had obviously caught her eye however, relating to Thom's fumbled phone call. They had followed the number just fine, had a man contacting the phone company to track down the callers location at the time. However, once the call had finished, Thom's phone had exited out to his home screen in which a photo of him and a woman were displayed. While the photo wasn't exactly "tasteful", it was a clear match to the woman they had wailing in their interrogation room a few days ago.

Rockwell was sure her ears were still ringing from how loud she became, Haper often remarked the same, claiming he had a headache ever since. She had been so violent and uncooperative that it was impossible to ask her anything. She'd injured an officer who had attempted to gather DNA and fingerprints without issue, the officers had to admit that the tweeker was strong. When she had stopped screaming, it was all at once.

Their security footage had picked up her entire stay, including when she swallowed the officer's fingertip. In the footage, she begins screaming louder, it became guttural as if she were heaving something out of her body. Sure enough, she had done so enough that she vomited yellow onto her legs. After that she went silent by choice, if only for a moment. The footage was terrifying. She had been slumped down, staring at the yellow in her lap. No noise anywhere, no movements, just slumped staring. An Officer is seen peering into the window of the door and soon more officers had come in to take photos to add to Thom's case.

When they went in to check on her, the sudden silence scared everybody in the building and there had been a joint feeling that something was off. She wasn't simply slumped over after vomiting yellow, something corroded. She'd gone in the room herself to check out the body and from the woman's mouth, two wires dangled with a metallic hook at the end. The hook had appeared to have been rusted a long time ago, the force of her vomit had torn it from her flesh, the hook still having a pink and bloody chunk hanging onto its sharp spike.

The woman had been a good "friend" to Thom, being a sex worker, he often hired in exchange for his product, she had somehow been idiotic enough to land herself in debt with him. He kept her around, instructed her to do dirty work that had ended with her being his downfall. During their interrogation of Thom, they showed him a photo of the device and the man had grown pale and dry-heaved at the image coming from her. He swore up and down that he had no clue what it was, after admitting for everything they put in front of him and more, they were inclined to believe him. He was a prideful man who knew that he had run out of luck, he told them that it was inevitable that he finishes his life in prison or "by the syringe" so he wasn't going to let anyone take credit for how he had worked.

Their people were working currently at analysing the body, Rockwell had been told that they were outwardly baffled by her arrival, having never seen something like it. Truthfully Rockwell was also excited to get their findings back, the curiosity of the wires had her bested now that she could relax with Thom's case practically closed. It had been a good rush, she kept reminding herself of that, her doubts had been placed on Ian's capability of keeping things quiet but overall he had impressed her. She couldn't be out of the store sooner and thankfully Ian had just nosed his head around the corner to finish things up.

"Justine-"

"Detective Rockwell." She's quick to shut down his attempt at a first name basis.

"Detective Rockwell, everything go as planned?" He asks, watching as the technician sits on the ladder and messes around with the wires of the freshly uninstalled camera.

"It did indeed, Mr Waters, thank you for your cooperation." She watches as the technician descends the ladder and picks up the clipboard he had left on the ground. She cringes as she hears him scoff next to her in a comedic fashion.

"Please, you're the one that brought him to my attention. I'm more than happy to get that monster out of the store." He waves his hand as if it were a light course of action for him despite Rockwell and her team doing all the work while he simply told his employees to not show up.

The technician writes on the clipboard and hands it to her, giving her a subtle look in regard to Ian, she simply takes it and gives a thankful nod to the man. As she goes through the list of installed cameras, she can feel Ian still hovering around her.

"I take it you'll be busy for a while with complaints as you find a new bakery manager? I don't doubt the elderly get antsy about bread." She says, making Ian think. The realisation of finding somebody to replace Thom hadn't occurred to him until now, he had plenty of employees requesting to shift departments all the time, it's safe to assume somebody would be interested in the position given the pay increase.

"There's always a problem with something around here according to those kooks." He says unintentionally spiteful in tone.

Rockwell takes out a pen and signs a couple places, rereading where necessary.

"Officer Haper and I saw one of your customers getting out of hand with a checkout operator when we first visited, is that a common occurrence?" She asks, faintly recalling the angry encounter at the mention of poor behaviour in customers. Ian nods, not bothering trying to paint his store as an only positive experience given who she had just taken off the streets.

"You can implement all you want in customer service to try help it but some things just don't change entitlement." He says, rather disappointed in her seeing that.

"I know that all to well, Mr Waters." She sympathises, handing him the clipboard.

He takes it and looks over it with a frown.

"This is a list of all the places he installed the cameras, with your supervision of course. It's just detailing when we've been in the store, what we've installed, who was present, all the finer details so you can rest easy on any possible foul play as well as us." He nods at her explanation, taking in everything at his own pace. He goes over everything twice, ensuring he remembers all their visits and all their equipment.

"Would you like to count the cameras we've taken down?" She asks, gesturing to the box the technician was standing next to, mindlessly looking around the room.

Ian shakes his head and hands her back the paperwork, stress from the whole organisation leaving him slowly.

"No, thank you. I think you'd both rather get home to your families, long shifts and such." The technician laughs at his statement.

"You have no idea, buddy." He remarks, making Rockwell smile. She holds her hand out to Ian and the technician picks up the heavy box of security with ease. Ian gladly shakes her hand.

"Thank you again for cooperating with us, Mr Waters. I hope to never see you in the back of one of our cars." She says with a smile, letting up her professional disposition towards him now that everything was over. He simply nods with a tight smile. The technician nods to Ian as well as they pass him to leave.