The Fifteen Minute Novel is an attempt to take a single prompt and use the last sentence written each day as a start for the next day. This year I had several prompts circling around a similar story, so I have combined them. However, the story starts the same way each day, with the last line from the day before and a timer set for fifteen minutes. The hope is to end up with a complete, if very rough draft by the end of the year. Some stories are better than others, but I always learn a whole lot about my own writing when I do this so for me it is not only a nice way to work out a story, but it is a tool for helping my writing get better. And so, we continue this story for 2024 with…
Day 246: Janine shook her head.
Janine shook her head. “Clearly that will need to be replaced.” Do you want to run out after lunch for anything immediate? We can hit up some of the larger big box stores as well as the grocery? If you still need the grocery?”
“Oh I am going to need the grocery,” Sophie said. “And I do need to swing by and give my prints for exclusion although I think they may have already found other finger prints.”
Janine’s eyes went wide and Sophie filled her in on the visit from Elizabeth and Sean.
“Good lord,” she said. “Well at least your job is secure and they aren’t taking it out on you,” Janine said. “And it looks like they already know who is responsible so you may get your car back soon.”
“True,” Sophie said. “Maybe we could go to the police first and see if I can get that back now or if they have a time line.”
“They might want to keep it until they are sure it isn’t going to be set on fire too,” Janine said. “But we can make that the first stop.”
They finished lunch and Janine helped Sophie take down a couple of more bags of trash down to the dumpster. ”At least I can get all of the necessary errands done before I have to spend hours picking up loose buttons and straight pins,” Sophie said as they got into Janine’s car and pulled out of the parking lot. The section where the mail boxes were was still cordoned off and before Sophie left, she checked her door lock, twice.
“I wonder what they will do with our mail,” Janine asked as they drove out of the lot. “Most of what I get is junk mail, but there are the occasional official bits.”
“And packages,” Sophie added. Since making time to go to the large scale fabric emporium she hadn’t been ordering as many things on line as before, but she knew a lot of packages still came into the building on a regular basis. “I suppose they will have to figure something out.”
Sophie felt a little guilty about the adjustment everyone was going to have to make, as well as the repairs needed to the building. Overall though she knew it wasn’t her fault. ‘I wonder if Kristen’s family will have to pay for the building repairs as well.’
She wasn’t entirely certain how that sort of restitution went. She thought the property owners would have to sue for damages or something. She wondered if she would have to go to court over this. It was a scary thought.
Janine headed towards the cluster of buildings housing most of their town’s official offices and they had to circle twice in order to find a parking spot. They fed the meter, Sophie relieved that it took debit instead of requiring a fist full of coins. They then went into the police station.
The police station smelled of lemon scented floor polish and everyone she saw as they made their way inside seemed completely occupied with something else. Sophie was glad she wasn’t alone and felt better about feeling so out of water when she looked at Janine. Her friend was looking around as though wondering where they kept all of the irate prostitutes and sleezy con artists. There were wooden benches but they were empty.
‘And I wouldn’t think they’d arrest people just to leave them in the lobby anyway,’ she thought. The crossed the large expanse of tiled floor to reach the wall where a uniformed officer was located. He was sitting behind a desk that looked like more like it was designed for a bank teller.
Ten til Midnight 