TW: mentions of human trafficking
"But dad you don't even know why I did it-"
"I don't want to hear it, Rowena."
"But she deserved it, dad, she-"
"I don't want to hear it. We agreed that things would be different at this school, did we not? You're supposed to be staying out of trouble, punching a girl in their nose is not staying out of trouble."
"I know. But-"
"No."
"It could have been an accident you know," I argued.
"How do you accidentally punch someone in the face, Rowena?"
"My hand could have... slipped... in an aggressive manner..." He did not look amused.
"You're grounded. That's final."
I huffed out a breath in annoyance, but he wasn't done there.
"And you're coming with me to work on Saturday."
"I have work on Saturday. At the diner."
"Not this Saturday you don't. I just thought of a different job for you. You can come to my office and organize my files," He gave me a sarcastic smile at that and his decision was final.
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I was grateful that my manager Risa actually liked me. I don't know how many other managers would have let me off the hook with a "I can't come into work today, my dad says I'm grounded."
I would have rather been at the diner than here anyway. Dad's desk was an absolute train wreck. He gave me the day to get it organized.
At least all his case files were all put together, but that served a purpose. I'm not allowed to look through his case files, those were his private investigations, "police business only."
Police business only my ass, he should have asked Uncle Lio to organize his shit then. I rolled my eyes at the thought but decided to get my work done instead of complaining. Maybe if I get this done quickly and efficiently, he would unground me earlier.
Besides dad was here in the office with me most of the day, it's not like I could sneak a few looks into his files anyway.
So half of the day of boredom went by excruciatingly slow.
"Hey kid," Uncle Lio knocked on the open doorway before peeking his head in.
"Hey, Uncle Lio."
"Where's your dad?"
"He went to get another cup of coffee," I replied dully.
"Heard you were grounded."
"You know me," I said with a sarcastic smile. "Can't stay out of trouble for too long."
"That's like the only thing I know about you." I flipped him off and went back to the folders I was organizing. Uncle Lio was either a hard ass or a 12 year old boy, there was usually no in between.
"What do you got for me, Lio?" Dad asked when he got back with a steaming mug in his hands.
"I know what you got. A disrespectful daughter who's giving me the finger."
I had meant to hide it when he got back, but as it turns out my middle finger was still silently attacking Uncle Lio. Dad gave a blank glance at me and then looked back at him.
"Then stop bothering my daughter." See, dad was cool sometimes. I made a face at Uncle Lio and then he mocked my face and gave me the finger too.
"Aurelio, focus, please. What was the follow-up on the noise complaint I asked you to check on?
"Oh, no worries on that. Just a couple of middle school kids setting off some firecrackers. Davis and I took care of it."
Dad nodded his head in response. He snapped his fingers as he remembered something. "I need to run you on some new details for the robbery case." He glanced at me for a moment. "We can talk about it in the conference room."
"Oh come on dad, I'm bored, give me something," I complained.
"Here," He said handing me a short stack of new folders. "This should keep you busy." He knew that's not what I meant.
"Happy stacking," Uncle Lio grinned out the door.
I grumbled to myself as I kept organizing. It was about ten minutes into it when I had accidentally knocked over a folder from the edge of the desk.
I cursed as I bent down to pick up the fallen papers. As I reached for a stack, I momentarily. This was a red file folder, I knew what red meant. Dad only used red folders for special cases that had his attention but kept them to himself for when he could gather enough evidence to bring it to the rest of the force.
I was bored, so obviously I snooped. You try ignoring a whole ass case file that's been spilled open and the details were staring at you in the face.
It was a thin file, only a few printed papers inside. With the papers labeling information were a few pictures of a man at from different angles. I could tell from the first picture that he had dark short trimmed hair. He looked tall.
In the second picture, he was on the phone standing next to a car. It was a little closer at this angle and I noticed his hair was sprinkled with white strands.
The last picture was almost head-on. His face was in focus and I was able to see that he had green eyes. He also had obvious stubble growing on his jaw and starting on his cheeks. That wasn't the most obvious thing about him though, It was the scar he had on the side of his face. It went from the edge of his eyebrow and down to the side of his jaw.
I skipped over the pictures and flipped to the information my dad was targeting him for. Some of it was hard to read. These weren't printed notes, this was my dad's chicken scratch of handwriting.
I was able to pick up small things here and there.
Name: Giovani Bruno
Description: late 40's. Six foot two, give or take a few inches. Green eyes. Long scar on right side of face. Brown hair.
Wanted? Possible Human Trafficker.
Scribbled to the side and written at an angle was: May have heard about him from three counties over.
Usual victims: Mainly women, younger age group (18-25?)
More info with official case file. Waiting on Fairfall County.
The name of FairFall County was familiar. Dad was complaining about it one night. He said they had been going through weather outages. This meant that dad would have to wait for the files the old-fashioned way of paper mail instead of a quick fax over.
I heard footsteps from down the hall. It gave me a jump start to stuff the papers back into his file. I was just putting it back with the other files when dad came through the door again.
I gave him a quick smile before throwing myself back into my work, pretending like I hadn't been reading through his stuff.
Thinking back over it though, I had the strangest feeling about it. I couldn't shake the sense that something about that man was almost ... familiar.
A/N:
I promise for Rowlan moments next update ;)
(Update 6/7/22):
Now I know you guys have seen the new season of Stranger Things... that is why the only acceptable face claim for Rowena's dad is Enzo... AKA Tom Wlaschiha