Last Seen Alive

Chapter Thirteen

PhoenixAqua another one for you! Thanks for playing >3

Michael left the security room sleep-deprived, annoyed, and ready to punch a wall until it came down. He'd just started to trust Kelsey not to mess up and then she'd gone and done...whatever it was she'd done.

A small part of him didn't want to admit he'd been wrong to give her the benefit of the doubt, so he went back and checked the footage from before she'd gone into the lab and after, hoping he could find someone else to blame the mess on.

No one else had gone in, which didn't really help her case. The only interesting thing he'd found was that Lydia had left a few minutes after Kelsey had arrived and she hadn't come back, even after Kelsey left. The door was locked and no one else had gone in, so Kelsey was the last one in the room.

Pam and some other guys from IT were still working on the door, so his only options were to sit and watch them for hours, or go to Kelsey's and Lydia's and bang down their doors, demanding an explanation.

None of those options were appealing, so he went to his office and made some calls to have everyone they'd captured in the drug bust held in other precincts until he got the mess sorted. He did all the paperwork for the transfers, hoping the mundane task would distract him enough to tamper the anger he was feeling.

While he was working, someone knocked at his door. He was tempted to ignore it but then he thought it might be an update on the lab door. When he called for whoever it was to enter, Naomi walked in.

"I didn't know you were still here," he said.

"I had a little preparing to do," she replied. "One of my cases is going to trial tomorrow."

"The woman who killed her six-year-old son, right?"

She blinked, taken aback. "Yeah, that's the one. I'm surprised you keep track."

"It's my job to keep track of cases." He shrugged and went back to focusing on his paperwork.

"Well, I came to let you know I was leaving and to give you this."

When he looked up, she held out a makeshift ice-pack to him, wrapped in a damp cloth.

"It should help with the bruise on your face," she explained when he just stared at it.

He finally took it and thanked her, then she left and he was alone again with his ice-pack and a mountain of paperwork.

By the time he was done and the prisoners were ready to go, it was almost 7 am and Pam finally had the door open. The early birds of the day shift were already trickling in, all hanging around near the lab to see what was going on.

"Wanna do the honors?" Pam asked, gesturing to the door.

She looked as tired as he felt and all the glam from her late-night date was gone. Her shoes were lying forgotten in the hallway next to her bag and the hair that had looked so elegant a few hours ago was now tied up into a clumsy bun at the top of her head.

He pushed the door open and immediately wanted to close it again. It didn't seem possible for the smell to get worse, but it was and it did.

Pam covered her mouth and ran off, and the other guys who were with her stepped back as far into the hallway as they could, watching Michael from a distance.

He covered his nose with his sleeve and went into the lab. To his dismay and surprise, the supply closet with all the masks and protective clothing was locked. The smell assaulted him, getting worse with each step he took until he could even feel it in his eyes.