Last Seen Alive

Chapter Fourteen

Song: The World We Made by Ruelle (her music is criminally underrated!)

@the_dreamweaver This one's for you! Thanks for playing >3

After the disturbing revelation, Michael immediately went into police chief mode and started barking out orders. He asked Luke, Terence, and Kelsey not to share anything that they'd found out, then dismissed the two men and headed to his office with Kelsey.

From there, he made some calls to the units stationed at Lydia's house and her son's school and asked for footage from the cameras on the city's toll gate from the previous day. All through his calls, Kelsey sat quietly, looking numb and lost.

"When did Lydia call you and what did she say?" he finally asked her when he put the phone down.

"I was on my way here when her call came in, so I guess it was around five. She asked if I was coming to the station. When I told her I had training with you, she asked if I could stop by the lab for a few minutes and help her with something minor and I said okay."

"And then?" 

"And then I went to the lab and she showed me the machine and said I should switch it off after ten minutes because she had to leave for an emergency at her son's school."

"Did she seem stressed or under duress?"

"Well, yeah."

"And you didn't think that was odd?"

"There was an emergency concerning her son," Kelsey said, exasperated. "Of course it wasn't odd that she seemed stressed."

He ignored her hostility and went on. "Did she say anything else?"

"Just that she'd set the door to lock automatically in fifteen minutes, so as soon as I switched off the machine, I'd have to get out before I got locked in."

"What did she take with her when she left?"

Kelsey groaned. "I've had enough of the quid, quid, quid. When do we get to the quo part of this?"

"Excuse me?"

"You promised me a quid pro quo back at Lydia's house, but all you've been doing since then is asking questions. This is starting to feel like an interrogation."

"We're just talking, Harris"

"Could have fooled me," she said, cocking an eyebrow. "All that's missing here is some bright lights and a camera and we've got ourselves an interrogation."

"That sounds more like the making of a film."

"I never said anything about a call for action."

Michael smirked and leaned back in his seat, resting his head on the back. The lack of sleep was finally catching up to him and making his head pound.

"Are you okay?"

"You've got bigger things to worry about than me," he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"I know, but unlike you, I care about the people around me and you're not looking so well."

"I'm fine, Harris." He sighed and moved his neck from side to side, rubbing the back.

"I don't understand what I could have done to make Lydia hate me so much that she'd set me up like this."

"That's your take away from this?" Michael scoffed. 

"What else am I supposed to think?"

He started counting things off for her on his fingers. "We just lost the one thing that could have helped us identify our victim and lead us to the murderer. The way it happened means Lydia is either not as clean as I thought and she did this for some big payday. Or, someone forced her to do this."