Embrace This Silence

Chapter 2: The Road Trip

1

Chelsea was in the living room with Sally on her lap. She was curled up in a ball, a little black void in this strange, strange world. Cats were such weird and wonderful creatures, a bright spot in a world filled with misery and cruelty, at least someone domesticated cats. At least someone decided we needed to have weird furry creatures living in our homes.

"Hey." Chelsea said, in a slightly tired and weary voice. "How was Jeffers?"

"He's doing alright. He didn't want us to go to Piercer. He's worried about how dangerous it might be." I said.

Chelsea scoffed. "We'll be fine. We won't do anything serious until we have to and we'll call authorities if we need them. Plain and simple."

"But are you sure we aren't out of our comfort zone here? You aren't even a private investigator. You work in human resources. This isn't your job. What did you even tell your boss you were going to be doing?"

"Vacation. And this is a vacation, isn't it?" She smirked. "We'll be fine. I promise. We won't do anything stupid. We're smart and capable women. We aren't morons." She stood up from the couch and Sally flung from her lap, immediately opting to go to the bowl of dry food once she was down on the floor.

"I hope you're right." I said, as Chelsea went to gather her bag and handed my bag to me. "Thanks."

"No problem. Are you ready to go?" She asked. Was I ready to go? I can't really say that I was. I didn't really feel like this was a particularly smart thing to do, but what else did I have at this point? I have a contract with the police department, who are hardly doing any work at all, I have work I can do, and as of right now, I'm the only one with a real clue about the case. As far as I know, most of the other officers don't really know jack shit about the case and aren't really paying much mind to it, despite the consequences of what happened. This was a small town, sort of near a big city. We were expanding and growing, but the officers didn't really have much in regards to resources and they weren't very capable either. I know our department has been rife with controversy, it's part of the reason I never joined. I couldn't live with myself, and I know that. But I want to have faith. I want to have some level of belief that we can have a justice and police system that works equally for everyone. I'm not sure how that happens or what we can do. But I can at least do the work the police are not doing, and they aren't solving this murder. They aren't on the case. Jeffers was the only one really putting any work in, even trying to do anything of substance. He told me the head of the department was "too busy" to put effort into a murder case. Busy what? Jerking off into a Blue Lives Matter flag? It was unbelievable. Jeffers was second-in-command at the department, but the head of the department ruled with an iron fist. Here I was, taking my Human Resource-working girlfriend on a potentially dangerous trip to solve a murder case. And what were the cops doing? They were sitting on their asses, not paying attention. They hardly knew I existed. Maybe that was for the best. It probably was, otherwise, they might just get in my goddamn way.

"Yeah, I'm ready." I said. I dumped another scoop of cat food in the bowl for Sally and patted her on the head. "You be good. Hold down the fort until we're back." She meowed loudly, rubbed up against my leg, and purred loudly. I would put my head into a vat of acid for this fucking cat.

We walked down the apartment complex stairs, bags in hand. We got into Chelsea's Prius and she went behind the wheel and began to navigate to the address. It would take three hours and five minutes to get there. Suddenly, it started storming, the rain came pouring down and the thunder and lightning buzzed and burned. "Great. Now we gotta drive in this crap." Chelsea said and sighed.