Prologue - Claire Winters

[Shrike7]

It had been a long day. Claire was filling in for one of her friends, a constable that did night shifts patrolling. The guy did a couple days for her all the way back when her mother passed away, and had finally called in the favour. A glance at the time showed her that there was about three hours left, and she remembere again how thankful she was that her friend worked nights, and not the graveyard shift. The crackle of the radio brought her back to the present. It was the dispatcher, on the private channel.

"Hey, do you have a minute?" He says, sounding either confused or disturbed.

((And yes, I know I have effectively zero knowledge of protocol and such, just try your best to ignore the inconsistencies ))

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

Claire frowned and picked up the mouthpiece for the radio, pressing down on the talk switch.

"Yeah, what is it?" she asked whilst looking around her. She was pulled over by an intersection, down town, and it was already dead for the night. She took a small sip of coffee.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

She picked up the dispatcher, recognizing it as one of the newer ones. Couldn't remember the name, but she remembered the character. Did his job well enough, and didn't chat over the radio too often. The guy spent most of his time editing homemade movies on his laptop. Not 'home movies' either, thank god, but fake newscasts and stuff like that. He took an kind of liking to Claire right away, said she reminded him of his mother, which is probably why it was her that he called.

"I have a 911 recording here, a false alarm. Looks like the operator was trying to send it to the archives somehow, but it got sent to my desk instead. I was kind of curious, so I opened it up and listened. Pretty standard, some guy dialing from his pocket, but I heard something in the background, so I went and looked up the number. It's registered to a woman, Winters."

:e paused and took a breath, before continuing. "It's not that odd, but a warning bell went off in my head for some reason, so I kinda... Copied it onto my laptop. Before you say anything, I took the voices out and enhanced what's left, and I think it's someone being choked. What should I do, should I get someone on it?"

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

Running a hand through her hair, Claire let out a sigh and bit her lower lip. It could be coincidence. There could be plenty of other Winters out there. Regardless it freaked her out a little.

"I'll be at the station in a few," she said, putting the cruiser into drive.

It took her exactly seven minutes to reach the station, and she quickly made her way inside. "So what do we got?" she asked the dispatcher behind the desk, walking around so she could get a glimpse at his laptop.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

((Ack, bad writing on my part there. The phone isn't registered to a Winters, he was just calling you by name. I'll just ignore it, and you can touch up your response if you feel like it, sorries!))

The man swivelled the laptop around so she could see the screen. There wasn't much to see, just some audio editing program. "Alright, I'll play the call first." He says, clicking something with his mouse.

"911 emergency, how can I help?"
*short pause*
"Huh? Oh, shit, sorry! It dialed from my pocket."
"Are you sure sir? Everyone is fine?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. Bye."

The man sounded sincere, but the dispatcher was right, there was some noise in the background. It was too garbled to make out what it was, though. "Alright, now again, without the talking." He says, clicking again. The sound in the background was a bit clearer, but still too quiet, though it sounded like rustling clothes, or something close.

"And one more time, louder, and enhanced." The dispatcher said, clicking one last time. Now it was clearly the sounds of some sort of struggle, and it sounded like someone was gasping, trying to breathe...

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Where did that come from? Please tell me we have jurisdiction wherever it is," Claire said, already hoping she'd be able to deal with something herself and not have to fill out more paperwork.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

The dispatcher swivels his seat back to his dispatcher computer. "It was... Downtownan a couple blocks from the Black Night. That was a little over an hour ago, though, I'll see if the phone is still on, radio me when you're back at the car, I should have a location for you." He says excitedly, and starts typing furiously.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

Claire moved quickly, excited. She could hear her blood pumping through her veins, her heart pounding in her chest. Moving to the cruiser she slipped inside and started it up.

"Alright, I'm ready to go," she said into the radio.

While she waited for an answer she looked out into the trees that encroached upon the town and took a deep breath to calm herself. Perhaps tonight she would go for a late night jog. It was a nice night out.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

The radio crackles to life almost immediately. "Alright, phone's still on, Their going East from Edgar Industrial, back into town. either they're driving slow, or biking fast, its a fairly decent clip. Phone's registered to an Eve Vosmus, No description yet."

((Northwest end of town, towards the main north-south street, Gaetz))

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

Claire drove to where Gaetz intersected with 55 ave hoping to find the car.

"Is there anything on this Eve Vosmus? Car on record, criminal record, anything you can get at and tell me... the car bit would be especially useful," Claire said into the radio as she pulled alongside the road.

As she put the cruiser into neutral and shut off the headlights she thought about how she was going to handle this. Pulling the car over would be a quick enough way of checking it out.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"No criminal record, but there's a green VW Beetle registered under her." The dispatcher says, right as Claire notices something from the west, towards Edgar. There was a woman, running incredibly fast and looking extremely panicked, coming down the side of the road.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

Claire got out of her cruiser, and pulled the flashlight from within, flicking it on to let the woman know she was there, but not pointing it directly into her face, which would blind her.

"Ma'am, I'm a police officer," Claire shouted out to the woman, something in her gut not feeling right at all. Her gut didn't let her down often and her hand went to her holstered fire arm.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Oh thank god! You have to help me!" The woman said in a panic, stopping a few feet from Claire and bending over, panting heavily. "There was this man, and a woman... And they kidnapped me, but I managed to get away, but they saw me... And I think they're still after me!" She pants out, looking like she's ready to drop. Her clothes look torn and singed, and theres blood on her...

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Alright ma'am I need you to calm down. Come over here, and tell me slowly what happened," Claire said, studying the woman, but also making sure to keep her eyes and the beam of the flashlight piercing through the darkness of the night in an attempt to spot any pursuers.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Okay... Okay..." The woman says, slowly getting up and walking the last few feet to Claire. She looked even more haggard up close. "I w-was driving home from a friend's place, and I stopped at a light. I had my window down, and this guy... He grabbed m-me, and started choking me... And I tried to call 911, but he took the phone, and... And..." She says, and stops talking again, hyperventilating now as she tried to calm down again. Claire doesn't spot anything else coming from the direction the woman did just yet.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"It's okay ma'am... can you get into the cruiser please? And are you Eve Vosmus?," Claire asked, starting back towards the cruiser, but this felt wrong. The girl wouldn't be let go so easily.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

The woman looked surprised to hear the name, sniffling a bit before answering. "Y-yeah, I am, h-how did you know?" She asked, climbing into the backseat of the squad car as she was asked, and laying down across the seat, moping.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"We got a call from your phone," Claire said as she gently closed the door.
She walked around the cruiser and paused when she heard some rustling in the tree line. The beam of her flashlight revealed a raccoon scuttling into the underbrush.

Claire chuckled as she opened the door to her cruiser.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Oh, I see..." Eve says quietly, before they both hear an engine coming from the west. "That's them! We have to go!" She says, panicking again. Claire looks just in time to see a silver Mitsubishi Lancer do a powerslide around the far corner and come barreling right towards them.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Prologue - Claire Winters

"Son of a bitch," Claire muttered, before moving to the driver's door of the cruiser, pulling out her side arm as she moved. She knew she wouldn't be fast enough, and so raised her pistol and fired off a few quickly aimed shots at the windshield of the car.