The Fifteen Minute Novel is a novel written fifteen minutes at a time with each week day’s section starting with the sentence from the previous day. At least it is attempting to be a novel. For now I am just aiming at one continuous story, worked on for fifteen minutes each day. Started Friday January 1st, 2021 (in case you want to search for the beginning. I can’t wait to see where it ends up. It could be good, or it could be a mess. We’ll have to see. For now, here is today’s fifteen minutes.
Day 113: Curious, James moved towards the guest chair.
Curious, James moved towards the guest chair. James sat. It was strange sitting in the chair while Morris sat propped up in the bed. He didn’t know Morris well. In fact he only met him a couple of times. Talking to him this way felt personal, intimate. As he looked at Morris he couldn’t help remembering the scent of his blood in the car as they drove. With his heart still pounding from the attack and the worry that Morris would die before they arrived at the safe house, it felt as though he was closer to the man than he really wanted to be.
“So this man you recognized,” Morris began. “Where do you know him from?”
“I didn’t, not really,” He said. While he told Tucker in the car, Tucker hadn’t conferred with Morris so James found himself repeating the same thing he told Tucker. As he talked, James noticed that Morris was tapping the file.
“The files?” James asked. He wondered if they were his.
“The missing files were requested from the office,” Morris said.
“And they were sent here?”
“No,” Morris said. “I put the call in before the shooting. Then the office was attacked and we ended up here. When someone called asking what I called about, the person who answered said I called to request an appointment with Michael La Blanc. They didn’t know what the meeting was about.”
James frowned and thought about it. The thought didn’t take long to work through. “So the project came up for audit, files were removed from the review box and someone was sent to kill before anyone could notice the gap?”
“Yes,” Morris replied. “My guess is if pressed for the missing files they will claim they were in the box the whole time and that the shooter stole them.”
“So if those aren’t the missing files, which files are they?” James asked. He didn’t like to think of the scenario. It seemed cold to him. While he hated that the kind old man died in the store, it was a quick kill, done in the heat of the moment. This was calculated. Whoever put the box together deliberately left out the files and arranged the murder. Planned it. Thought about the details, the timing. Scheduled it.
“Schedule,” James said before Morris could answer him.
“Excuse me?” Morris said. James glanced up. “I went and checked Mike’s schedule. He missed a couple of meetings for a project and he claimed they never got onto his schedule. We kept a group schedule that we could all access and then a private one that was password protected. The meetings for the project were on the group schedule so I went into his personal schedule so that I could add it in so that he would be sure to arrive.”
“You broke into his schedule,” Morris said slowly as James paused, studying the memory more than Morris.
“He uses the same password for everything,” James said absently. “He always has.”
Ten til Midnight 