Into the Unknown

Liam

I've been duct taped to this chair for about fifteen minutes now. It's ridiculous. How could I not have known that Nancy of all of people would pull out a gun? That's not like her.

The hum from the air conditioner starts and a cold drafts wafts right over me, chills running through my body and goosebumps forming on my arms, the hairs slowly rising. My fingers start to shake because they're becoming so cold.

"I hope somebody finds me soon," I tell myself as I look into the mirror. It's like I'm a victim or a suspect. Usually I'm the one on the other side of that mirror. Instead I'm here, stuck in my desk chair with nothing to let me free.

For another five minutes I sit here in complete silence. My hands and feet are almost completely numb from lack of movement and frosty air. But then out of nowhere I hear the faint sound of my cellphone ringing from my desk. "Must be Liz," I say as I try to make the chair towards the door. Not a budge. I sigh, give up, purse my lips, and tilt my head back so I look towards the ceiling.

Another ten minutes pass when the doorknob rattles.

"Liam! Are you in there?" a voice speaks from the other side.

"Liz, thank goodness you're here," I shout back "Nancy came, and then there was a gun, and then she taped me to my chair. How ridiculous is that?"

There's a light laugh from outside the interrogation room then the jangling noise of her keys. With a few tries unlocking the door, Liz finally opens it and walks towards me in a couple wide strides and kisses me on the cheek. A little gesture.

"Thanks for coming to save me, Princess," I tease her.

A punch on my shoulder is all I get for that.

"How the heck did you end up like this, honey?" She says it so surprisingly that I was astonished she didn't hear me through the door.

"Well, that's a long story. Wanna get me out of this tape first?"

She pulls out a pocket knife from her back pocket and cuts off the duct tape from around my wrists. The sudden relief of circulation returning to my fingers comes and the color arises. Then she lowers herself and slices the duct tape that was wrapped around my ankles. Within milliseconds of being free from my prison, I jump out of the chair, give my fiancée a big bear hug, run out of the tight little room and into my office. It takes me a couple minutes to find my gun, but eventually I spot it atop my bookshelf behind a dying spider plant that Liz had bought for me about five months ago.

My girl comes into the office behind me saying, "So what are we going to do now?"

"Well, it's probably a good idea if we send out an alert to all the other officers even though they all have the day off today. There are a couple officers that I know are working even though they don't have to. It's Officers James and Theo posted along the highway on the north and south ends, which is where Nancy was headed, I'm assuming. If she wants attention, she'll wanna get out of town. We're going to need a search party of probably twenty or so individuals, and any extra volunteers if they're available."

"So we're just going to drive around and try to find her? What about a license plate we can track or send out an APB?"

"That's a great idea, but we don't have time for it. She could be anywhere by now. It's been nearly forty-five minutes since she left so she could be out of Deckhart county. And if there's any place that someone would want to run away to and hide in, it–"

"It would be London," Liz interrupts.

"Exactly, so we have to be quick or else she could go under the radar."

"Then what are we waiting for exactly?" She asks in such a hurried manner that I almost forget we're in a bit of a race against time.

Liz pulls out her keys and swings them in front of my face, tempting me that we have to get moving.

"I'll alert the other officers about our runaway." Liz pulls out her phone, sending a text alert to everybody, including myself, even though she doesn't have to do that. A crooked smile forms on my face for a second, then reality pulls me back.

"Just be sure to notify them that she's armed and she'll use it if she has to. Nancy almost pulled a warning shot on me." I stash my gun into the holster on my jeans, securing it and together we head out the door to Liz's Mini Cooper, which she picked up from Martin's shop yesterday, leaving my car where it's been parked all morning.

Liz pulls out onto the highway as fellow officers start messaging Liz back saying they'll be on the lookout for Nancy. I make sure to reply back to them when necessary.

The sun in the sky above is peaking through the clouds as we make our way down the road, aware and on the lookout for wherever she could be. There's hundreds of miles between here and London, which means the chance of losing her is highly probable.