Getting Home

Part 8

A petite, skinny women in a long, white lab coat stepped away from one of the benches. She had long red hair, pulled up high and back in a pony-tail. Her black, tall heels offset her lab coat quite aesthetically.

She was the only one in the room.

"Sean, this is Sophia Adler," Malloy said. "Adler, meet Officer Sean Mather."

She had big, round black-framed glasses that complimented her heart-shaped face. As she came over to them, her dark hazel eyes suddenly locked onto Sean's.

She stumbled.

Sean was quick—he caught her before either one of them even realized what was happening. He helped her straighten up, but lingered holding her, completely unaware.

"Oh, Officer Mather, I'm so sorry, I—"

"Are you okay, Ms. Adler? I hope I didn't—"

God, she smells soooo good.

"If we could?" Malloy said.

It took Sean a moment to get his bearings, running his hand through his parted hair and smoothing his uniform. "Oh. Yeah, sorry."

"No, no, it was my fault," Adler said quickly, stumbling over her words. "And please, call me Sophia—er, I mean, if you want to, it's no problem if you don't, I—"

Malloy loudly cleared his throat.

"Ahem," Sophia said, her pale cheeks burning red... but her eyes were still transfixed on Sean's. "I was able to recover the footage you requested, Officer Malloy."

Sean couldn't drop his eyes from Sophia's either—in fact, he barely heard what she said.

Actually, he'd forgotten pretty much everything.

Nobody moved.

Malloy said, "Well?"

"Oh, s-sorry," Sophia stammered, finally pulling her eyes from Sean's. "Um, yeah, right this way, please."

Sean watched her walk to one of the lab benches. Her defined calves popped from under the hem of her labcoat with each step, sculpted to perfection down to her slender ankles.

"Ow!" Sean was snapped out of his reverie by Malloy elbowing him painfully in the ribs.

"Hurry up, Romeo," Malloy grunted.

There was a flat screen monitor on the bench next to desktop computer and keyboard. She started typing on the keyboard.

"It took quite a bit of work to reconstruct the footage," Sophia said. "It was pretty trashed."

"Why?" Sean said.

Theireyes met again—she froze in the middle adjusting her glasses. "Oh, I... it, er—"

She cleared her throat.

"Pardon me. The footage is digital, but it was scrambled... by something similar to an electromagnetic field disruption. Almost like a pulse, but... it wasn't. I'm not sure exactly what scrambled it, but it was very similar."

Sean barely caught any of it. He tried to look away from her.

And failed.

"That's impressive," Sean said, even though he had no idea what any of it meant.

Sophia blushed again, but her smile was huge.

Her lips are so beautiful, I wonder what it would—

"It's nothing, really," she said, glancing down shyly. "Anything to help. First, I ran the video through an algorithm that converted—"

"If we could, please," Malloy pleaded.

The video started playing on the monitor. It was a low angle, and dark—the time-code read 12:14 AM.

The camera was pointed towards a dark alley.

"Well?" Malloy said.

"Just give it a few seconds," Sophia said.

It didn't take a few seconds—the video suddenly flashed, distortion and artifacts covering the screen. It cleared up a bit, but still overlaid everything. The video zoomed in closer.

Somebody came running out.

"That's it," Malloy said eagerly, leaning forward. "That's the son of a bitch. We got his face?"

Sophia tapped a button to pause the video.

"Alright, print it out," Malloy said. "Let's go run it. Come on, Mather."

Sean was staring at the screen, jaw dropped wide open.

"Mather?" Malloy repeated.

Sean couldn't formulate any words. His stomach dropped like an elevator slamming down to the ground floor—his body felt numb, completely frozen.

It was the boy who had been in Ava's car.