Lilly vaguely registered the click of the door closing as she searched through the box for the witness statement she needed. There was a niggle in the back of her mind saying this was bad, but she was concentrating on what she was doing and didn't acknowledge it.
With a quietly triumphant, “Yes!” she pulled the piece of paper form the box and looked up. She could see the closed door through a gap in the shelves. The closed door ... Damn, the latch had broken earlier in the week and there was a big sign up on each side of the door saying to not close it because it can't be opened again without a screwdriver. Apparently some cops couldn't read. She hastily closed the box and shoved it onto a shelf before jogging over and tugging futilely at the door. It didn't move. She was stuck.
“Typical,” she grumbled, banging on the door. “Hey, I'm stuck in here. Let me out!” She banged again, but no one answered. It was 6pm and she was the only one from her squad left in the office, and with the exception of the front area and the locker room downstairs, she knew the rest of the building would probably be equally empty.
She pulled her cell phone out and tried to dial Scotty's number. He hadn't left that long ago; he could come back and get her. Just as he picked up her phone disconnected them and she cursed. Looking down at it to hit redial she saw the battery light flashing. She sighed. Great. Hopefully he'd try and find her when she didn't call back and didn't answer, but would he really check the file room?
She shoved it back into her pocket angrily. Could things possibly get any worse? Even as she thought it, the light flickered and went out, leaving her in the dark. She groaned and slid down the door to sit on the floor, her head in her hands.
Sometimes she wondered if she'd done something truly wicked in a past life to deserve the constant kicks in the ass karma seemed to like to give her. She had never admitted it to the rest of the team but the file room gave her the creeps. All those boxes, stacked in rows, each one a case where someone hadn't got the justice they deserved. Sometimes she felt like the victims were all around her, just out of sight, waiting to pounce when she least expected it.
What about us? Don't we deserve justice? Why haven't you helped us?
The dark just made the feeling worse. She could almost make out their ghostly forms surrounding her, a pale, shadowy mass of figures, fuelled by anger, pain, fear, remorse, and above it all an overpowering sense of injustice.
They deserved something, even if their killer was long dead, they deserved the truth, they deserved to have their stories told. She shivered. It was going to be a long night if Scotty didn't come and rescue her.