Harford County Sheriff’s
Department, Southern Precinct Office (Edgewood,
MD)
April 22, 2008, 9:02 a.m.
It was some electronics store, at the front
counter. The clerk was busy goofing off
when another large man came into the picture, wearing dark jeans and one of the
recently-made Phoenix
t-shirts that NLW had put into production.
A large sum of cash changed hands, and the man walked away, pushing a
trolley with five large-screen televisions on it. There was no identification of any other sort
that could be seen, except for the t-shirt.
As the screen cut to static, Lincoln looked at him, a Cheshire Cat grin on
his face as he exclaimed, “What do you have to say about THAT, Prydor?”
As calmly as he could muster, he said, “All that proves is
that an NLW fan bought a few TVs at once and paid cash for them. What’s your point?”
“My point is that someone affiliated with you bought
several TVs for the purpose of mentally abusing The Ice Man!”
By now, he was nearing his breaking point. “I’m only going to say this once, Lincoln, so pay attention
to me. If you cannot do your job without
bias, then you do not need to be here. I
do not want or need to hear these thinly-veiled threats of prosecution when
there is not a damn thing you can do to prove that I am somehow involved in any
of this.”
Lincoln
looked like he was about to blow a gasket, yet remained silent as Will pressed
on. “Furthermore, the fact that you
would come all the way out here, to the other side of the country, to harangue
me about this case tells me that the Portland Police Bureau cannot do any part
of their job. I pity the poor citizens
of Portland. Their chief of police leaves much to be
desired.”
He turned to Erick Adams, the sheriff who held
jurisdiction. “Sheriff, is there
anything you require of me that does not involve irrational accusations and
incompetent fools?”
Lincoln’s face turned red
as Adams managed a very slight grin. “Actually, Will...these discs were found
inside your cabin this morning, as I mentioned earlier. We’ve reviewed the footage and we cannot make
sense of it. Care to give it a go
yourself?”
He was now on the horns of a dilemma. Could he afford to take time away from
preparing for a match against Draco to handle this business that could cost him
his career if left unchecked? Also...
“Wouldn’t that be considered tampering with evidence, Sheriff?”
“Will, at some point you would be forced to see these
discs anyway. If you can find something
that we haven’t, perhaps that would help lead to the culprit behind this
scheme.”
He sat for a moment, mulling this over in his mind. After a few prolonged seconds of thought, he
nodded once. “All right. Give me exact copies of these discs so you
can keep the originals as evidence. I’ll
see what I can do with them before I have to start preparing in earnest for my
match in Atlanta.”
“If I had my way,” Lincoln
growled, “you won’t make it to Atlanta.”
“Remind me to ask Ice Man how well THAT worked out for
you, ok? In fact, you should be grateful
I even addressed you by a formal title.
‘Officer’ is too good for you, much less ‘Chief’ or ‘Sheriff.’ You, sir, are an embarrassment to any
law-enforcing agency. Sheriff Adams, if
you will excuse me....”
With a nod, Adams let him
walk away. As he stood outside the
interrogation room, one of the junior officers led him to the A/V unit where he
obtained a copy of the discs. With
nothing left to do here, he climbed into his truck and drove away. The sooner he got away from Lincoln before he did something he would
regret, the better.
Some people in this world can be total asses, he
thought as he drove back to Baltimore. That’s one thing that Lincoln and Draco
share. But at least Draco has one
redeeming point over that out-of-state cop.
I can beat Draco into submission at Uprising and not
get arrested for it. And on May 4th, I
intend on doing exactly that.
Residence of William
Prydor (Baltimore, Maryland)
April 24, 2008, 7:49 p.m.
Wearily, he rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the
screen. The same 15 seconds of footage
kept running repeatedly on these discs, each from a different Uprising that Ice
Man was featured in. He had only been
looking at these discs for about an hour, trying to figure out a correlation
between the images presented. The only
thing he could draw out of these images was that Ice was in each of the
discs. He was looking at the match he
had beaten Ice in and was about to stop the disc when something caught his
attention.
I know I’m seeing things. But can’t be...can it? Slowing the picture to a frame-by-frame
crawl, he focused on one certain area in the crowd...and sure enough, right
above where Ice’s head was, a familiar female figure was in the crowd. Hitting the “pause” button, he stared for a
moment to make certain that he wasn’t seeing things.
The woman had dark hair, pulled back into a ponytail with
a few strands hanging loose around her face.
The outfit was one he recognized; it was a more demure version of her
old ring attire. The only thing alien
about it was the look of anger etched on her face, as the bell had just sounded
to end the match.
Now with a rush of adrenaline, he switched discs, this
time going back to the very first Uprising.
Freezing the disc right as he was drilled by Ice Man’s finisher, he
scanned the crowd again...and sure enough, just a few seats over from where she
was on the other disc, she watched. This
time, she had a big smile on her face, apparently thrilled that he was about to
lose.
He committed that image to his memory, and went through
the rest of the discs. In all but one of
them, she was seen in the crowd, with varying facial expressions depending on
the in-ring action. The last disc,
however, caught his attention as it was apparently filmed inside the gym that
Ice Man trained in. There was no way Brandy was going to get in there, he mused as the
two men on-screen took a break. Ice
walked off camera, and a door was heard shutting off-camera. Moving quickly, the remaining man in the ring
slid out and picked up a cell phone.
Dialing a few numbers, he waited for a moment before beginning to speak.
“Hey, hon. I’m
fine, just working out a bit. When can I
come see you again? ...Really? I like the sound of that. Look, I can’t stay long, just wanted to call
and hear your voice. I know...you too,
Brandy. ‘Bye.”
As the man in the video closed his cell phone, Will felt
his blood run cold as the implications began to dawn on him. Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but
something in this entire equation just did not seem to add up right to
him. Everything seemed to be pointing
directly at her, at a woman who he swore just months ago he would never have
anything to do with again. Now, she was
trying to run roughshod over his life and career.
Once more, Draco would have to wait. After all, he knew who his opponent was this
time, and could focus on him alone. Of
course, that was if Draco could be pulled away from pining for a woman long
enough to be bothered to wrestle. It was
hard to say what would happen, given that this was the resident
attention-seeker of NLW with a decidedly nasty exterior attitude.
Sighing deeply, he pulled out his cell phone and blindly
dialed ten numbers. After three rings,
the other end picked up. “This is Anderson.”
“Elyssa, it’s Will.
I think I’m going to need your help....”
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