One Night- Prologue
The elevator doors slammed shut. Chloe leaned back and waited for the lift to take her down into the parking lot, her head spinning from the day's events. She wanted nothing more than to go home and have a nice, hot bath and watch mindless rubbish on the TV.
Her bag bounced heavily against her side as she strode across the parking lot towards her car, reassuring her that she hadn't left anything behind in her haste to leave the building.
She looked at her watch as she unlocked the vehicle. Seven thirty five. It would take fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to get home. Of course, if she'd left on time then she would have beaten the rush hour traffic. As it was, she'd been holed up in tech one most of the afternoon, with only the server and the phone for company.
The phone, she mused, backing out of her space, had rung only once during her stay in tech one. It had been Jack, sounding rather odd, asking if she had seen Milo. She had replied no, that the last time she had seen him had been at lunch when he had yelled at her for not bringing the hourlies to him to check before taking them up to Buchanan. Jack had paused before thanking her, and even then he hadn't hung up straight away. There had been a decided delay between "thanks" and "bye", during which time Chloe had forgotten the server and started chewing her nails, a habit she had picked up during her years of working at CTU.
He was probably distracted by someone walking into his office, her analytical brain reasoned, as she debated whether or not to put her foot down and overtake the blue Ford that seemed intent on driving below the speed limit. Maybe Bill came in, or he was reading something on the computer that caught his attention… the Ford came off at the next exit, and Chloe relaxed her foot on the gas pedal.
The sky overhead had an ominous look to it. It had been threatening rain all week and had yet to come to anything. The air was heavy and smelled of electric; the clouds loitered with intent, grey and full to bursting, as though waiting for the right time to empty their load. Chloe wished they would hurry up. Her head had been hurting all day, she was sure it was down to the air pressure. Either that or she really was spending too much time in front of a computer.
Pulling up outside her house ten minutes later, she heard a rumble of thunder. Grabbing her bag and locking the car, she quickly ran to the door, hearing the familiar jangle of keys. Once inside, she locked the door and stood with her eyes closed, breathing in the calm. She was home. Now all she had to do was take a bath, maybe look over those files she had been meaning to sort out for weeks now.
Dropping onto the hall chair, Chloe emptied the contents of the bag onto her lap, frowning as the item she sought failed to materialise. One by one things fell out; tissues, spare key, mirror, cell phone, pens, empty sweet wrappers, several discs… she shook the bag as it deposited the last of its treasure, a disbelieving frown etched into her features.
It took a while before she remembered. She had left it on her desk.