Elysium Dreams

Sixteen

With the new serial killer and mass murder laws in place, the police served warrants on our seventeen suspects. They could be detained for forty-eight hours without being charged. During that time, they would be interviewed and while they were in their cells, their behavior monitored.

Xavier and I were sitting at the desk in my motel room. Michael had patched us into the feeds coming from the police station. Lucas and Gabriel were currently interviewing the third suspect on the list.

Suspects one and two had been about as useful as a nun in a swearing contest. Three wasn't turning up anything useful either. Xavier and I listened to the audio and watched the interview in silence. Xavier was munching popcorn. It smelled really good, but I also knew that chewing popcorn while listening to the audio was nearly impossible. The chewing and crunching noises inside my head would be louder than the speakers on the computer.

"I think finding Bigfoot would be easier," Gabriel said as suspect three left the interview room.

"Agreed," I said into the little microphone on the table. It fed into earpieces that Gabriel and Lucas were wearing.

"What is that noise?" Lucas asked.

"Xavier chewing popcorn," I answered.

"What did you think of that one?" Gabriel asked.

"He should remove his online dating profile before his wife finds out," I answered.

"We're taking a quick break and will then start on number four. Why doesn't Xavier finish his popcorn, it's distracting as hell, and you get twenty minutes of sleep?" Gabriel told us.

"A whole twenty minutes?" I smiled.

"Well, maybe fifteen by the time you get out of that chair and into bed," Gabriel took out his ear piece and put it on the table.

"I can give you something," Xavier mumbled through the popcorn.

"Thanks, but I think I will just go wash up," I told him, brushing chewed popcorn bits off my jeans.

The harsh lights in the bathroom did nothing to improve my looks. I looked rough. My eyes were blood shot and had dark circles under them. My cheeks looked sallow and sunken in. The visit to the stylist some weeks earlier was wearing off, exposing grey patches of hair. The shorter pieces of hair were jutting out at all angles from my scalp, making me look unkempt and possibly deranged.

When we got back, Trevor would probably insist on making me an emergency appointment to get my hair done. If he found out about the migraine, he'd also insist on a day of homeopathy. He'd put cucumbers over my eyes, make me soak in a bathtub, and he'd hire someone to come in and give me a massage. All the things you'd do to rejuvenate your living doll. Of course, a massage sounded like an excellent idea and I could stomach the other crap to get it.

I ran hot water in the sink and used one of the scratchy washcloths to wash my face. I pulled the hair down from the bun. It was getting long, well past my shoulders. Fake curls flowed around my face from where the hair had been twisted and put up. There was a visible line where the curls started.

Using the washcloth, I wet the hair and started pulling it back.

"Leave it down for a while. You aren't at a crime scene," Xavier said, tossing his popcorn bag into the trash.

"But I could be," I told him.

"So, run a brush through it now, and if we get called you can spin it up then," Xavier shrugged and left the bathroom doorway.

I considered it and left it down. I picked up the brush and roughly yanked through the tangled curls. It took a few minutes, but I finally got my hair brushed.