Every Second Counts

“Dylan Case,” I stated as I walked into the crime lab. Reed and Parker looked up at me, wondering what I was talking about. “I need to find out anything and everything on him.”

“Who is he?” Reed questioned, staring up at me.

“He’s the new security guard working at my apartment complex. He started working last week while the normal security guard was on vacation. We couldn’t figure out how this person got into my apartment,” I reminded them. “He might be the reason,” I told them.

“You think this new guy, Dylan or whatever his name was, let the person up into your place?” Parker asked, trying to put everything together.

I nodded my head. “It makes sense, Parker. That building is secure. We’ve never had problems before. I talked to the normal security guard, Jerry, yesterday, and he told me that he was on vacation last week and this new kid, Dylan, took over for him while he was gone. The regular woman was still there during the day. It just all fits together too perfectly. He has to be involved somehow,” I claimed.

“Wait a second,” Reed spoke up, and Parker and I gave our attention to him. “Your building, does it have security cameras?” he asked, and I nodded my head, realizing we had overlooked something that could give us all the answers we were looking for.

“Why didn’t I think of that earlier?” I questioned, feeling stupid.

“There’s a problem with that,” Parker spoke up, ending my internal celebration.

“What’s that?”

“Mar, we don’t know when this guy broke into your apartment. We’ve got a weeklong time frame. Are we really going to go through all this footage trying to find someone who we don’t have any information on at all?” he asked. I knew he was just trying to be reasonable, but he was still irritating me. Some random person had broken into my apartment for God knows what reason, and Parker thought it was too time consuming to go through video, even if it could answer all our questions?

“I’m sorry, Parker,” I began with attitude in my voice. “I’m sorry that you don’t think it’s important enough to figure out who broke into my apartment or that it’s too time consuming. I’m sorry that someone broke into my apartment and not yours. I’m sorry that I’m scared to go into my place now because I think some crazy guy’s going to be in there. I’m sorry that I almost freaking pull a gun on my own boyfriend because he comes to my place to surprise me. I’m sorry that you’re not going through all of this,” I said, getting angrier and louder with each sentence. Parker took a step backwards, realizing how upset I was.

“Mara,” he began.

“No, let me finish,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “I’m sorry that you don’t think it’s important enough or worth our time. And, maybe it’s not to you. But, it sure as hell is to me!” I screamed at the end, spinning around on my heel and walking out of the room. I could feel tears stinging the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“Mara!” I heard both Parker and Reed yell after me, but I didn’t slow down nor turn around, just wanting to get away from the both of them. Unfortunately, I was still on duty, and I couldn’t go too far, so I went to the only place I could think of: the locker room. I knew it was only a matter of minutes before either Parker or Reed or both of them came in and checked on me, but I was hoping that they’d at least give me a few minutes to myself.

I knew that Parker wasn’t trying to be mean or to pick on me or anything. He was simply trying to be realistic, but it still hurt. I was expecting him to be on my side, no questions asked, and that simply wasn’t happening. And, that wasn’t the only thing that was bothering me at this point. I was still nervous about being around Kris’s mom again. She may have picked the most inopportune time to come for another visit. That on top of whoever had broken into my apartment plus Parker questioning me simply got to me, and I finally snapped, which was why I was now sitting in the locker room with tears streaming down my face, which I was fervently trying to wipe away.

I sat on the bench in front of the lockers, hoping that no one was going to walk in on me. I hardly ever cried, and whenever I did, I always made sure that I was alone. I never wanted to be perceived as weak, and that’s exactly how I thought people would think of me if they saw me crying. Unfortunately, I was not having any luck lately, and I heard the door to the locker room open and close.

I put the palm of my hand up to my eyes and tried to wipe away all of the tears, though I knew it would still be obvious that I had just cried, as my eyes were likely to be red. I slowly lifted my head to see who had just walked in to see Reed standing there, leaning against the side of the lockers. “We’ve got a call. Feel like going with me?” he asked, ignoring the fact that I had been crying.

I nodded my head. “Yeah,” I said, standing up and grabbing my coat out of my locker. “What do we got?” I asked.

“Basic murder on Kedzie. Landlord found a twenty-seven year old man dead in his kitchen when he followed up on a call from a neighbor who said they hadn’t seen the guy in a week,” Reed quickly filled me in while we made our way to the police car.

“So, how long has he been dead for?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re going there to figure out,” Reed replied, unlocking the doors as both of us jumped in.

“So,” Reed began after we sat in silence for a few minutes. “Do you want to talk? About anything?” he asked, and I knew he was trying to lightly tread around my small breakdown in the lab earlier.

“I’m fine,” I told him, not wanting to talk about it at the moment.

“I just have one question,” Reed said, and I looked over at him, waiting on him to continue. “Is this all because of what Parker said this morning or is there more to it?” he asked, glancing over at me before returning his eyes to the road as we continued to speed down the road.

“It wasn’t just Parker,” I assured him. “That was just the thing that made me snap,” I mumbled, staring out the window.

“Mara, you know—” he began before I cut him off.

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

“I’m here to talk if you want,” he finished.

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth once again. As we sat in silence once again, I thought about what Reed had just said to me. “I’m sorry,” I apologized as I realized how rude I was being with him. “I know you’re just trying to help. It’s just, I have a lot of stuff going on right now. Besides someone breaking into my place, Kris’s mom is coming back in town,” I said, getting everything off my chest.

Reed looked at me from the corner of his eye. “So, now we get to the root of the problem,” he smiled at me. “But, come on, Mar, how bad could it possibly be? Besides, Kris already made it clear that he’s staying with you for the long haul, no matter what his mom thinks,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” I sighed, knowing he was right. “I think I’m just worrying for no reason,” I said as he pulled over in front of an apartment building that already had a couple of other cop cars there. We both got out of the car and grabbed our kits as we walked up the stairs to the correct door and underneath the police tape into the apartment. Reed and I walked into the kitchen to see the victim lying face down on the floor, a pool of blood surrounding his head.

The detective walked up behind us, giving us a brief rundown of what they knew so far. Reed grabbed the camera and began taking pictures while I looked around, trying to see if I could find anything that could lead us to the perpetrator.

A few hours later, we were walking back into the crime lab, having collected all of the evidence that we were going to find at the crime scene. The victim’s body was already being sent to the medical examiner, and now we just needed to find out who had killed the guy.

I looked around the crime lab, but I didn’t see Parker anywhere. “Hmm,” I hummed, sitting down in one of the swivel chairs. “Parker must have gotten called in somewhere,” I spoke aloud.

Reed shrugged his shoulders. “Probably. Do you think there’s any way that we can ask the people of Chicago to give up on the killing even for just one day?” he asked. “I’d just like one day off where there isn’t a murder.”

“Sadly, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I told him as the door to the crime lab opened and Parker stepped through. “Get called into a crime scene?” I asked him.

Parker shook his head. “Nope,” he said, not going into any further details of his whereabouts. “Listen, Mara, I just wanted to apologize about earlier,” he began.

“It’s fine, Parker,” I told him, having had the day to cool off, and I was no longer mad at him.

“No,” Parker interrupted me. “I’m sorry that it didn’t seem like I was on your side or that I cared about what’s going on in your life. That’s not true. You know that I care and worry about you. You’re practically my sister,” he told me.

“Thanks, Parker,” I smiled up at him.

“And, hopefully this will make up for this morning,” he said, setting a stack of papers on the table in front of me.

“What is this?” I asked, looking up at him, taking the papers in my hand.

“It’s ever piece of information I could find on Dylan Case.”

I looked up at Parker, wide-eyed. “You are the best!” I exclaimed before beginning to sift through the papers, trying to learn more about this new security guard.