The Crime in Callahan's Morrow - being rewritten

Chapter 4: New evidence leads to a witness

"The evidence can make or break your case. You need to have the knowledge to solve it. For heaven's sake, go and investigate, that evidence you need won't serve itself on a damn silver platter. Now shoo!"

~Jackal Smorotori, former criminal investigator, inventor, and a vampire; 
a lecture to some of his former bullheaded minions

IV.

Nicole didn't like mornings, particularly those mornings on which a drumming ringtone woke her up. After retrieving her mobile phone from a deep-walnut colored veneer nightstand, the first thing she did was looking at the time, it was 5 AM. Next, she noticed the name on its screen – Adrian was calling.

She decided to take a call. Consider him lucky, but mornings were the time of the day when her metaphorical inner demon came out. This time she decided to ignore the annoyance and answer the phone politely.

"Hi." She could hear sleepiness warping her voice into grumble as she ignored the tremor in the hand holding the phone.

Adrian was energized as always. "Yo, wake up! Need you at the Monroe Station ASAP. We have a witness."

Click! 

Oh, right I'm totally prepared. The sarcasm in her thoughts was almost palpable as she got out of the single bed and trotted to the bathroom. A quick shower didn't make her feel refreshed, but a cup of coffee seemed god-given and stripped a layer of sleep plaguing her.

Nicole exited her kitchen slash living room, passing a batch of shelves on the wall that held her picture, stubbornly keeping her eyes from straying to it and strolled down the hall. 

She knew that today she wouldn't be able to deal with it, flashes of nightmares that had plagued her during the night still too fresh to mourn the sister of choice in front of the frame that held the only thing that was left of the woman. Yes, Nicole needed time until scenes from her nightmares became just distinct pictures she frowned upon. Compartmentalization isn't really the best way, but it was only one she had to cope so now those bits of grief were slowly fading away.

Nicole scowled at her gun lying on the bed, trying to get her mind back on deciding whether to take the holster or put the gun in her bag. Holster it was - easier to reach for it.

The memory long locked into the back of her mind almost overpowered her and she had to take slow deep breaths to fight off a panic attack. It was all Giuseppe's fault, his and his fangs'. Goddammit! If he hadn't approached her that day, she wouldn't have had this reaction.

Sometimes her memory got triggered, and it took some time for her dysfunctional mind to go ballistic. Like right now. A full week passed since she had seen that vampire, and only now her mind dug up old memories, whispers of fear, pain and sadness mingling right beside the rational thought.

She took another three deep breaths, shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind and concentrated on getting clothed.

Looking around the room, her gaze stopped on the big, worn-out closet, almost antique in its design. It held lots of stuff, from clothes to miscellaneous things she didn't know what to do with. All in all, it served the purpose of a storeroom considering the size of it. Good thing was that the closet was divided into four parts and Nicole was pretty sure she knew which things were put into which part otherwise she would always be late. The only problem was that those parts moved.

She still remembered the day she got it. She needed a wardrobe when she had moved into this apartment, and after circling pricey stores she decided on used furniture, everything else was too expensive even after getting a pretty good job. Fixing and decorating whatever she found would be easy.