Chapter 13

a/n: Hi! Short one today, but more will be along shortly. I've just decided to spend the next three months focused on writing (and reading!) and I now have an estimate that this book will be complete at 18 chapters. I am a bit anxious to get it out of me because I REALLY wanna get to the editing/rewriting phase; I have so many ideas! But I am staying strong and not allowing myself to edit until it's done 😄 Thank you for being here!!!! Your comments are so helpful!!!!

“This is stupid, Maxine, why don’t you just call him?” Derek called from somewhere in the back of the van.

Maxine was aware that her friends were shouting at her, but she remained intent on tailing Miles regardless. Or, if she was being pedantic, Brooks’s tail, since he was the one pretending to be an Uber driver for whatever reason.

“For real, Max!” Arden said, “It’s dangerous to follow someone on the Parkway!”

Unintentionally proving her point, Maxine nearly swerved into a minivan in her quest to keep up with the Civic, which had just changed lanes.

“Aaaaah, sorry!” she cried, waving a hand of apology, and receiving a blunt middle finger in return.

Maxine groaned as she realized that Brooks and friends had taken an unexpected exit during that interaction, and by the time she noticed, it was too late.

“Damn it! Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!” she said, pounding the palm of her hand into the large steering wheel.

“Does this mean we can slow down now?” came Eashan’s voice, sounding uncharacteristically weak.

Before anyone could react, a loud wretching noise rent the air, everyone but Eashan screamed, and the sudden appearance of projectile vomit on the windshield of the car caused the van to careen off the highway.

𓂃🖊 

“Lost 'em!” said Brooks from the front seat.

Miles breathed a sigh of relief, but saw that next to him Jill was white as a sheet.

“You gonna be okay?” he said, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder.

Jill merely mumbled something unintelligible in response.

“What’d she say?” Brooks asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know,” Miles said, then looked at Jill. “Can you say that again?”

He watched as Jill took a fortifying breath, then swallowed slowly before saying, “They were after me. It’s my fault.”

“What?” Miles said. “We don’t even know who they were, Jill.”

But Jill was shaking her head before he had finished his sentence. “No, no. I know who they were. Orlando’s lackeys. They know that I saw too much and they’re gonna get me for it. Probably planned on it this whole time and were just letting me think I could keep my job.”

“You saw too much? Wha’dya mean?” said Brooks, looking frantically into the rearview.

“Eyes on the road man, I got this,” said Miles. “Okay Jill, I need you to take a few deep breaths for me, can you do that?”

Jill shook her head. “They’re gonna get me. They know where I live.”

“But you’ve been working there all day and nothing happened. Don’t you think if they were after you they would have, I don’t know, trapped you in the creepy basement or something?”

This seemed to calm her, as he noticed her chest rising and falling in a slightly less rapid cadence upon hearing his words.

“The basement is actually pretty nice,” Jill said in the same monotone way she’d been speaking.

“Okaaaay,” Miles said, struggling for patience. “Would they not have trapped you in the nice basement, then?”

“Perez, who the hell is this girl, anyway? And what does she know?!” Brooks cried.

“Man, I’m trying to be delicate here, can you just chill for a sec?”

Brooks merely grunted in response, and Miles turned his attention back to the shell-shocked girl next to him in the back seat.

“When I found the body,” she began, but paused to swallow with some difficulty.

“You found Enrico’s body?!” 

“Dude, CHILL!” Miles said. “Please go on.”

She took a few shallow breaths before continuing. “I didn’t think it meant much of anything, but I heard someone saying they needed to find something. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I thought they said it was a memory card.”

Mile’s eyes went wide, and he held up a hand, already anticipating the outburst likely to come from Brooks. It worked. Jill went on.

“I forgot about it until now, but when I was just in the parking lot I was looking for good rocks while I waited for my ride. You know, smooth ones? And I didn’t find any, but I did find this.”

It was then that Miles realized that Jill had been holding her hand in a fist since she got into the car. When she unfurled her fingers, it was to reveal ample red lines where the object in her hand had been digging into her skin with her tight grip. The object sitting there, was a small black memory card.

𓂃🖊 

Maxine sat on the side of the road watching in misery as her three friends were examined by the EMS crew. As she’d been the most secure passenger, and the one with the more robust set of airbags, the collision with the Parkway’s median shrubbery had impacted her the least. It was a fitting punishment for her ridiculous behavior that she should be mostly unscathed while her friends were banged up pretty badly.

Through the tears in her eyes, she was dimly aware of the onlookers who had pulled over to call 911, and stayed around to be nosey. It was only two, maybe three cars, but she couldn’t bring herself to look over at them. And of course, the parade of Parkway drivers who all simply had to slow down out of morbid curiosity, made her feel as though she was on display in a fashion show. Only, the runway was full of people going by to look at her, and she was doing nothing even close to a catwalk strut for them.

Arden, Derek, and Eashan had already forgiven her, insisting that they were okay, but all she could hear were their insistent pleas for her to slow down just before the accident occurred.

How had she let this go so far sideways? And had she really chased them because she was worried about the case, or because she’d seen Jill get into the car with Miles? This was a question she could not bring herself to poinder just now. Bottom line: she had really lost it, and now her friends were paying for it.

“Ma’am, you can come right this way,” a male voice said from somewhere above where she sat slumped on the dry grass.

The cops had offered her a ride to the hospital, as all of her friends were being taken there immediately, and there would be no room for her in the ambulances. Plural. She cringed just thinking of it.

Without even looking up at the cop, she stood and followed him to his car. The seats were way more comfortable than she was expecting, she noted dimly as she clicked her seatbelt into place. This was it, she had to let this be the first and last time that her job endangered the lives of her friends. She would have to move out, she realized, and a fresh pang of misery coursed through her. Hot tears sped down her cheeks.

Maxine rarely let herself cry. She’d known too many people who wallowed in their own self-pity. But after the day she’d had, she thought she owed herself a little pity party.

The car, which had been edging back into traffic, managed to get past the two slower lanes and zipped to the nearest exit.

Why hadn’t he used the sirens or waited to follow the ambulance, she thought.

It was at this moment that Maxine noticed she was not in a cop car at all. Not only that, but she wasn’t alone in the back seat.

Her gasp was loud as she registered the hulking form of Orlando on the other side of the large back seat, his face holding a wide grin, his hand, a large gun.