1 Destruction

Murder case files. My prized collection. I got into it when I was five years old when my father introduced me to my favorite television show, NCIS. Ever since then, while my father was at work at the police station, I would look through the old case files he had. He hid them in his office at home. He thought I didn't know where they were, but I did. I would search through the filing cabinets and just spend hours looking through them. If I found one I was interested in, I would set it aside and take it upstairs. He didn't know I was looking through them so that made it even more fun. The mystery of them always caught my eye no matter what it was. The fact cases went cold bothered me. It made my stomach turn because someone could get away with murder. It made me want to catch the person who did it, so I would spend hours reviewing the file and try to piece everything together. Maybe I would find something the police didn't. As I got older I started asking him to read through them and he would let me. There was this one that I found really interesting.

This woman allegedly murdered a salesman who gave her a hard time about returning an item. It really caught my eye because I didn't believe that a woman could murder a salesman without other witnesses or leaving something behind at the scene. So I brought that case file up to my room and started reading it over for ours. Laying out all the papers, all the photos, and making little notes to myself about small things I noticed. They always made it look so easy on TV, but in reality it's much more complicated than memorising lines and already knowing the outcome and who did it.

I love going on adventures on my own to visit the places of the murder and where the witnesses or suspects live. I know I'm not supposed to but I get this rush in my body because I know I'm not allowed to be doing this. However I know well enough to not go unarmed. When I was younger my dad would take me to the shooting range and teach me to shoot. I loved the feeling when I pulled the trigger and to see the damage one small bullet could do. It gave me the most satisfying feeling I had ever felt. Though he didn't want me to carry one with me like him, he had a cabinet with some in his office in a safe. He told me the combination incase something ever happened and I needed to protect myself. Little does he know I was in the safe while he was at work and took off with it. I hid it in the lining of my bag that I always carry with me. No one would know it's in there.

I was following up on an old lead from a cold case and went to the suspect's house and claimed I was lost. Laura Reed was her name. She opened the door and invited me in. Her house was very colorful and full of life. I would never imagine her to be capable of murder because she seemed so warm and loving. But in the words of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, "Don't trust people you don't know."

"Can I call someone to come get you?" Laura asked in a calming voice.

"No. I don't have anyone to call." I said with a shy tone.

She looked at me confused, "Well what were you doing out here so late all by yourself?"

"Well I like going on these adventures by myself and I tend to wander and sometimes get myself lost and have to ask for help."

"If you tell me where you live I can help you and bring you back if you'd like" She replied with a sweet and innocent voice. What should I do? Should I get in the car with her and have her drive to the middle of nowhere? Should I actually go to my house? Was this a bad idea? I don't know what to do. I could have her drive me to a park where I could ask her about the murder. Then if something goes wrong I can run. Maybe I should just get it done and over with. She needs to know someone is onto her.

"No. You won't find it. It's in the middle of nowhere." Now I'm scared. My legs start trembling and my hands shake uncontrollably.

She keeps looking at me as if she is catching onto me. "Kid I need to get you home. You can't be here much longer." Something isn't adding up now. I look around the pink painted room and stare at the pictures hanging on the wall. But then something catches my eye. A book on her table. It was labeled "Old friends." Did she not have time to put it away? I need to go. This was a bad idea. But I need to see what's in that book.

"Do you have any water?" I ask.

"Sure do," she said in a hesitant voice. "I'll go grab you some."

While she is in the kitchen I run over and open the book. Inside were photos of crime scenes and bodies and little notes about what happened to them. She came back sooner than I thought and screamed "what are you doing!?"

"I'm sorry I got curious. What is this?"

"It's nothing you need to leave. Now." She hissed. Laura was reaching for something. Then all of a sudden I see a black 45 colt pointed at me. "You've seen too much."

She fired. I pulled out my gun from my bag and aimed back at her. I fired back and bolted out of the house and ran down a dark alley. I stopped once I thought I lost her and called my best friend, Jessica, for a ride home. I waited on the curb in the cold dark alley for her. The air was cool and crisp, and the ground was extremely cold through my tight, blue jeans. I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves over my hands to try and keep warm.

A blue honda civic pulled up next to me. It was her. I got in the car nearly crying and shaking so bad it was obvious. She kept asking me what happened but it was such a blur at the moment that I told her I would tell her later. The rest of the car ride was complete silence. Not even the radio was on. My elbow was on the door of the car and I was leaning against the cold window, staring out into the night. Trying to piece together what happened, but I didn't want to think about it. I slid my hand in my bag and felt my gun. I gripped it and didn't want to let it go. My hand started to hurt from gripping it so hard. About twenty minutes later we pulled into my driveway. She knew something was wrong so she didn't want me to be alone. When I told her I wanted to go to bed and be by myself, she refused to leave. I got nervous at the thought of telling her, but I knew I had to. We went upstairs and I flopped on my bed not realizing the files were out and scattered all over my floor. She walked in and stopped suddenly.

"Sage, what is all this?" she said with hesitation.

I looked at her with a guilty look, "Don't worry about it." I got up and quickly tried to gather all the papers and put them back in the file, but she grabbed my arm and stared at me. Grabbing one of the papers out of my hand, she read the top and realized they were case files.

"Why on earth do you have these cold cases laying around in your room?" she asked with an angry tone.

I wanted to just make up a story but I knew she would find out eventually. So I just told her. "I collect these. I collect old cold cases."

"But why? There's no reason to unless," she paused and stared at me with a scared facial expression that quickly turned back to anger. "Do you have something to do with these?"

My stomach dropped. Did my best friend just really accuse me of murder? "What? No. I don-" she cut me off.

"Sage I can't believe you. How could you do this? You are a monster. How many innocent people have you killed?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing come out of her mouth. My best friend. Accusing me of murder. No matter what I told her, she wouldn't believe me and wouldn't listen to the truth. "Is this what you were doing tonight? Tying up loose ends from cases?" All I could do was stare at her. It turned into a fight that lasted for an hour. Finally I had enough.

"Get out. I'm done with you and your false accusations. I can't believe you would think that low of me. I don't want to talk to you ever again." Holding the door wide open, tears streaming down my face, I watched her storm out. After she left I laid down on my bed and cried myself to sleep. It hurt me that I told her to get out of my life, but she accused me of murder. I can't just stay friends with her if she is going to think of me like that. I just couldn't.

The next morning I wake up to my dad screaming my name. "Sage come down here!"

I got downstairs and saw him sitting at the table sipping his coffee and reading the paper. He glanced up from reading and looked at me with a smirk. "How would you like to come to your first crime scene?" he asked. "I got a call this morning saying a woman was shot dead and I know how much you like crime scenes. Want to come?"

I felt my heart skip a beat and bolted upstairs. I got dressed and rushed down to the car. I couldn't believe it. My first crime scene. I've dreamed about going to one since I was little. I was just so into crime that it's all I imagined doing. The whole car ride I couldn't stop thinking about it. What happened? Who did it? What did they use as a weapon? I couldn't stop thinking about what it would look like. The placement of the body, if the room was trashed, the face on the dead body. Was the victim surprised? Did they know their attacker? More and more questions rushed through my mind the closer we got to the scene. But then we got there. It was Laura Reed's house.

When we got there, I panicked. I couldn't believe it. I was so confused. Who did it? But then I remembered last night. No. I couldn't have. But I did. I stopped and stood there ever so still. I felt time stop. The earth stopped rotating for just a minute. It seemed like the world fell silent. I couldn't hear anything but voices in my head. "You killed someone," "You're a disappointment," "Look what you've turned into," they said. I became numb and I couldn't move. I finally heard my dad saying my name repeatedly but I couldn't stop staring at her cold, bloody, and still body lying there on the floor. A victim. My victim. I hid it from my dad because he didn't know I had one of his guns and I sure wasn't telling him I was here last night. So I acted like I had never been there. My dad called his buddies in and they investigated. The cold case became hot again.

Weeks after the investigation, they hadn't caught me. They ruled it a robbery gone bad even though they never caught anyone. Just think. After all this time of wanting to catch murderers, I turned out to be one. I really messed up my life. All because I started collecting and reading those case files. When it set in that I had killed someone, I got a rush like never before. I started thinking about the fight I had with Jessica Dearing, my former best friend, last night. The conversation ran through my head over and over again. The anger came rushing back to me. Even though the fight was yesterday, I still hated her. Then the emotions of killing someone mixed in. Not good. I paced back and forth in my room trying to ignore the feelings. However I couldn't think straight. Not with everything that has happened the past couple days. The more I thought about everything, the more enraged I became. I stopped dead in my tracks. I had an idea. Jessica had to pay for accusing me of murder. If she wants to think of me as a murderer, I'll give her a reason to think that. I grabbed my bag and snuck out my window. Jessica's house was right down the street from mine, so it was a short distance for me to travel.

When I got there, I snuck up to her open bedroom window and called her. Buzz Buzz. Buzz Buzz. The phone rang five times. I could see it there on her table. Lighting up with my name on the screen. She answered with hesitation in her voice. The crisp sound of her voice. It made me nervous. I saw her facial expression. It was anger and shyness. She still didn't want me. As the breeze blew, the air chilled. The sun had set. Night time fell upon us. Leaves blew in the wind, making a howl. I was nervous for a minute. Flashbacks to old time came rushing to me. But so did the pain. The pain of her leaving. I finally moved. Without taking my eyes off her, I reached in my bag. I pulled out the same gun I shot Laura Reed with. I rested the barrel of the gun on the worn and white window sill. I aimed. I told her, "Karma's a bitch." She looked around, panicking. She started walking toward the window. Bam Bam. The phone went dead.