Hunted

Chapter 8

As we walk into the station, it's basically deserted. The room is full with desks, papers everywhere, and only two people at their stations.
"Where is everybody?" I ask one of the officers. She looks up from the paper in front of her.
"The chief is in his office, everyone else is out in the field taking care of a case." I'm about to head to the chief's office when her voice rings out.
"You can't go in there." I look back at her.
"And why is that?" I reply.
"He doesn't except people intruding his space. Even if he is in there." Her attention is pulled to Jane. Jane waves and comes closer to her desk.
"Sorry about my niece, she's just excited to look at her parents files." By the end of her sentence, she's grinding her teeth. The officer looks her once more with wide eyes.
"I need her to sign this." She hands me a clipboard and a pen, pointing to one of the seats outside the office. I take the items and drag Jane over to the space with me.
I whisper in her ear, "Distract her while I sneak into his office." Jane nods and heads over to the desk, already in the ladies face.
I put the clipboard on the chair and look over at the desk before turning the knob to the office and squeezing through the tiny gap. While entering the room I can hear the officer call out to me but I don't listen.
"What are you doing in here! No one is allowed in here!" The chief exclaims.
"I would've thought that you would consider me." I say, turning to face him.
"Hero? What are you doing here?" He exclaims.
"Jane and I came to look at those files she brought a few years back." I shrug. He sighs, getting up from his comfy chair.
"Right this way," He says, walking out into the open, empty, area where Jane and the officer are yelling in each others faces.
"Officer Short, what is going on?!" The chief bellows, placing his hands on his hips. The officer turns toward the doorway with wide eyes and the face as red as a tomato.
"Chief Brock," She stutters out. "I didn't see you there."
"Obviously. Now what in carnation is going on?!" He takes a stride toward her.
"Well these two ladies came in, requesting to see you. So I told them about you being busy but they insisted so I gave her the paperwork but, instead of doing the work her Aunt came up and started blabbering on to distract me so she could sneak into your office." He nods.
"Officer Short, did they tell you their names?"
"No Chief."
"Did you ask?"
"No Chief." She says, a little less confident.
"Officer Short, what is Protocol 681?"
"Always request names from anonymous people." She whispers.
"And what didn't you do?!" Officer Short straightens from his authoritative boom.
"Follow the Protocol, Sir!" Officer Short yells.
"Now get out of my face!" The Chief swats the air motioning her to leave.
"Sir, yes sir!" She screams and goes back behind her desk, focusing on the papers in front of her once again.
"Follow me." The chief stated. We both quickly obeyed his orders.
"Chief Brock?" I ask.
"Please, call me Tedd." Chief replies. I nod.
"Okay, Tedd, why couldn't you tell me that you had these files sooner? I mean Cara or Brett could've taken custody of the papers." I state. I hear him sigh ahead of me. He turns a sharp left down a long hallway and opens a door to a large, bland room.
"These aren't even supposed to exist, Hero. Your parents dying breathe went to that young Josh but, before that they told us not to let you open it unless you came, either with or without your Aunt." My eyebrows furrow questioningly.
"Why?" Tedd shrugs.
"They were dying, I didn't want to ask." I nod. Good point.
We walk in and through tons of rows filled to the brim with evidence boxes. Finally the chief stops at one, all alone, on the tall, metal shelf. He reaches out and lugs the box off the shelf and carries it out to a table not far away from the shelf and drops it, dust flying everywhere. I wave my hand in front of my face and cough out the small specks of dust that flew into my mouth.
"How long has it been since this place has been used?" Jane asks. Tedd lifts off the arenaceous lid of the evidence box and turns to Jane.
"Maybe two to three years. We haven't really had reason to come in here and go through all of the bins or use this table, but most of the older cases have been covered with residue so if there's some dust or something on these cases don't freak out." He nods to both of us before leaving us to the box.
"Are you ready?" Jane wonders. I never move my gaze from the now open box as reach in and take out an adoption certificate.