21 Murders | Harry Styles AU (discontinued)

XI. Reminisce

reminisce (verb): to indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events

Harry's POV

My fingers intensely grip the large folder in hand, my other running through my hair and disregarding my lack of uniform as I march my way down the hall and burst into the computer lab. Noelle follows quickly behind, stumbling through the door and letting it shut tightly.

"Where is she?" I order, looking to Royce for an answer. His glasses rest on the top of his head and he quickly types on a computer, probably trying to piece together information with the news. My heart pounds out of my chest the whole time awaiting his answer, adrenaline pushes through my veins at a fierce pace. "Royce,'' I snap, his head jotting to finally notice me.

"She's in the extended questioning room on this floor,'' he replies, swirling around in his chair and bringing a laptop to set on the large, touch-screen counter top. "Before you go, check this out,'' he motions for me to follow him to the counter and I anxiously press my hands to hunch over the sixteen inch screen.

With a sigh and a slight nod of confirmation that I am paying attention, he focuses his eyes to the screen and double clicks on some tabs, bringing up pictures of the crime scene. "This was pulled from the corner store that she robbed from and Mendy hasn't spoken to any of us about her accomplice. From what we can see, he is a male, but other than that the picture isn't HD enough to pick up any facial recognition in the system."

"What about the footage?" I raise an eyebrow, waiting as patiently as possible for another tab to be brought into light. A click later, the screen turns into a loading sign and a sketchy video of outside the corner store plays, two figures entering into the glass doors marked with black clothing.

"He only managed to get away with minimal items, Mendy won't tell us what the intended target was or who this man that she helped is." Royce shakes his head. "You  can see here,'' his finger points to the monitor, action coming once again as they run out of the store. "That he pushes Mendy to the side when she tries to enter the car and then he drives off."

"There!" I yell, ''Stop the footage!"

With my command, Royce presses pause and the screen freezes. The blurry letters of an old license plate come into view and as Royce recognizes my intention, he zooms in onto the letters. "Caption this plate and run it through every vehicle owned in the state of New York. This is the vehicle that Tracey mentioned and if she was correct, then this is the car Noelle was kidnapped in." I breathily speak, voice thick with anticipation and rasp.

"Got it,'' Royce nods, grabbing the laptop and stalking back over to his desk. The whole room seems to buzz with an anonymous vibe as I let out a sigh and push past other workers to get to the door.

"Noelle,'' I speak loud enough to stop her actions of scratching her forearm nervously. The cerulean blue color in her eyes sparks toward my voice and I gently grasp her forearm in my hand, bringing her out of the room with me. "We found the car,'' I speak.

"Wait, what? The car Tracey told us about?" Her eyebrows raise in suspicion and she tags along in my footsteps as I walk to our more profound questioning room down the hall.

"I think so, it fit the description and Royce is putting it through our systems recognition right now." I huff out, nodding at an officer as I pass by my father's office. Usually he'd be out and helping put together this case, but when I told him this was my responsibility, he must've decided to put me to the test and work on my leadership.

"That is great!" Noelle shouts, a smile falling onto her lips at the information.

"Don't get too excited,'' I warn her. "This could be a spoof and this killer is still out there. The last thing we want to do is let our guard down enough for him to get away with something." My nerves are hyper with this news as much as hers, but the gnawing in the back of my mind says this to be too easy for it to be true.