The Things We Couldn't Forget

Chapter 15.

I leave the library feeling the most solidified I have in a long time.

I need to find a way to tip off the police to where I'm sure they can find Jasmine's body, but how?

Gone are the days of pay phones that used to sprinkle every corner of every city. You could slip into one undetected and place a call that could never be traced back to you.

Now there are cameras everywhere, people's eyes always watching, and waiting for you to do something wrong so that they can spill all of your secrets to the next listening set of ears.

I could go into a store and ask to use their phone to make the call, but this town is too small. Too consumed with the doings of others. Surely as soon as the police tracked the call back to that place, there would be a store clerk ready and willing to tell them all about the strange girl who came in earlier asking to use the phone.

It's too dangerous.

I'm already entirely too close to these cases as it is, my own blood runs with the blood of the original terrorist of this town. Even without the evidences they think they already have on me, my presence here alone would set off their suspicions.

But I made Courtney a promise.

I promised to help Jasmine in the way that I had failed Courtney in that alley.

So I could make a call, or deliver a letter, or try some other anonymous attempts at leading the police in the right direction, but all of them would lead back to me.

In the world we live in now, nothing is truly anonymous.

Big bother is watching.

The line from Orwell's novel 1984 rings through my mind. A book I so loved as a teenager, staying up late to write my essays with enthused earnest for the material.

But now, his words aren't so otherworldly. They no longer ring as a tale of fiction but as the life I'm living right this moment.

No matter how I go about it, the line will inevitably lead back to me. I will look even more guilty in their eyes when they discover I'm the one with the tip.

So that leaves me one option.

I have to do whatever it takes to bring an end to this towns suffering and the only way to do that is to come forward with my suspicions, no matter the cost.

I force my thoughts of doubt out of my mind and I make the short walk towards the police station.

Walking inside again is like being in a fever dream. I was just here, but everything seems so different now. The details from before were like tunnel vision, all of the edges blurred out.

Now I see and hear and smell it all.

Phones ring, filing cabinets slam, furious typing across keyboards.

The walls of the lobby are filled with the photos of past officers either retired or fallen.

Stale coffee permeates the air all around me and all of the sensations almost make me turn around and walk back out again.

But I can't.

The female officer sitting behind the long blue front counter is already eying me.

Big brother is watching.

I school my expression, feeling the gaze of the others in the lobby and the tiny camera set up in the corner, tracking my every move. Watching me for signs of guilt.

I wait for the woman in front of me to finish speaking to the officer behind the counter. She turns to walk away, her eyes red and swollen with hours of shed tears.