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 256: Sophie nodded, relieved that her doorway was at least going to be fixed.
Sophie nodded, relieved that her doorway was at least going to be fixed. It was nice to know she would be sleeping behind a brand new lock. ‘And a brand new door. As the police cleared out the maintenance people, under Alec’s direction began putting things back together. The damaged door was taken off it’s hinges and a new one installed. As Sophie watched she saw that bullets had been taken out of the wall in the corridor as well.
“Ricochet,” Alec said when he saw her looking. “We are just lucky it went into the concrete instead of through the wall.”
Sophie nodded. Not only could she have been hurt or killed but someone not involved at all could have been involved. The repairs, or what they were doing of them tonight were completed and Sophie had a new door. Alec gave her the keys and promised to be by in the morning to fix the windows and the wall inside her apartment. Seeing them leave, Janine’s door opened and she peered out. Sophie waved her over and saw that Kevin was with Janine.
“We wanted to wait until all the official stuff was settled and not get in the way,” Janine said.
“Thanks,” Sophie said.
“Do you want some alone time to decompress or company?” Kevin asked. “Cause I am up for pizza if you are interested or can leave if you aren’t.”
“Pizza and company sound great,” Sophie said. “Especially since thee is little that I can do until tomorrow.” She thought about the beads on the floor of her work room. “I’m done cleaning up tonight.”
They both came into Sophie’s place and pizza was ordered. Questions were asked and Sophie gave everyone a shorter run down of what happened than she gave to the police.
“That’s insane,” Kevin said as he inspected the hole in her couch. “She’s always been a little…off balance I suppose, but this.”
They chatted for a bit and Sophie felt a little better for the company. Things started to feel more normal. A knock sounded and Kevin went to get the pizza that arrived. When he came back with the boxes, he had a frown on his face.
“Sophie there is a man outside.”
“A man?” she asked. Sophie went to the door. The man was dressed in a suit and was a bit older.
“You are Ms. Daniels?” the man asked. Sophie nodded, but held back, unsure if she wanted to admit it to a stranger.
He smiled. “I have been tasked with delivering this for one of my clients,” He said. He held out an envelope.
“Clients?” she asked. She looked to the envelope and wondered what sort of work he did.
“I’m a lawyer,” he qualified. “With the law firm of Jacobsen and Watts.”
“I see,” she said still not reaching for the letter. “You do know that some sort of letter bomb burned down our mailboxes this morning?”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes going wide. “I see the hesitation. Do you mind if I open it then?”
“Not at all,” Sophie said. She glanced back to see Kevin and Janine were crowding close behind her. All three of them waited as he opened the letter and showed her that it was indeed just papers, no incendiary device included.
“Thank you,” Sophie said relaxing somewhat.
“Not a problem,” he said. It didn’t even occur to me with the…he glanced down the hall, difficulties.”
He handed the pages to Sophie. “Good night.” He turned and left. Sophie brought the papers into the house and looked at them. Inside was a letter from Kristen’s family apologizing for Kristen’s behavior and promising to rectify it. There was also a rather large check to compensate her for some of those difficulties.
“I’ll check with the detectives in the morning to see what to do with these,” Sophie said. She wasn’t certain if accepting the check would be legal or not and wanted to know before depositing it. “For now I’d like to forget all about this and have some pizza.”
Ten til Midnight 