by Diaz, AJ
Taylor and Susan both read. “Stop snooping or die. It’s your choice. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
Chad visibly shivered. “So this means we stop.”
“No!” retorted Taylor.
Chapter 14Taylor wasn’t dumb. She wasn’t going to stop investigating, either. If someone went to all the effort to slip her a death threat, she must be hot on the trail of something. Whether it was the murder or the robberies or both, she didn’t know. All she knew is she had a lot of places left to investigate and many people left to talk to.
Such was the case here. Taylor, Susan, and Chad were in a small room at the police station, looking through a thick slab of glass at the nervous form of Aaron Cadell, the one accused of murdering Brad Ringer in the café.
If Taylor couldn’t glean information from him, she knew the case would be dead. This is where it all mattered. They only had a few minutes, at least that’s what the captain said, though she suspected those weren’t the official rules.
Pulling a phone from its cradle before Susan could, Taylor motioned Aaron to do the same on the other side of the window. He picked his up. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Taylor said, “I just have a few questions. This shouldn’t take long.”
“And I have a few answers, but I might not be at liberty to give them. Who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Taylor Kelsey.” Susan grunted in the background, but Taylor ignored her. “I’m investigating your case and the recent robberies around town. I think there might be a connection. That’s beside the point, though. The point is that I believe you’re innocent, and I want to help you prove it.”
He studied her through the glass. “Why?”
“Let’s just say I’m conscientious and in need of money.” She didn’t waste time. “How do you think the bloody knife got into your jacket pocket?”
“I have no idea. I swear my jacket was zipped up the whole time. I grabbed it off my coat rack in my apartment, put it on, zipped it, and didn’t unzip it until that stupid lieutenant asked me to.”
“And you went in the bathroom. Tell me about that.”
“Yeah, I used the bathroom some time before they found the body. I guess the police say it was twenty minutes before. Is it a crime that I drank a lot of iced tea that night?”
“No. So, why were you drinking tea?”
“I drink tea every night. I work the graveyard shift at a gas station. My shift ends at seven in the morning. I drink a lot of liquids during my job because I get free access to the soda fountain.”
“Let me get this straight,” Taylor summed. “You worked until seven in the morning that night. Or should I say day? Then you came home, drank your ice tea refills, put on your jacket, and went to the café at noon. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Wow, you got a raw deal.” Taylor was quiet for a moment, trying to remember her next question. “So… what about your dad? I understand he worked at the café.”
The man’s cheeks puffed as he exhaled air angrily. Apparently his father was a bad topic for him. “My dad was a drunk when I was a kid. He didn’t like me. Doesn’t like me. Never will like me.” He exhaled again. “One day he told me he cleaned up his life. Got sober, you know, all that kind of stuff.”
Taylor was nodding.
“Anyway, I didn’t believe him. Long story short, what he said was true. He got the job at the café, stuck with it, and even won employee of the month like a ton of months in a row or something like that. He was a changed man. Still, he hated me. But everyone else liked him.”
“And your mom?”
“After my dad left me and my mom when I was just a kid, my mom left two years later. I grew up in foster care after that. My dad always stuck around in town, and we contacted each other here and there. Saw each other around. But my mom fell off the grid. We don’t know where she went.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Taylor.
“Don’t be. You said it yourself: I got a raw deal.”
At this moment, Susan unexpectedly grabbed the phone from Taylor and shoved a newspaper picture on the glass partition. “What’s up with the beanie?”
Aaron Cadell studied the picture a moment. It was a picture of him in the café being arrested. In the picture he was wearing a black beanie that was folded up as if it were too big. He smiled. “That beanie is my favorite piece of apparel I own. I said my dad never liked me, but I guess that was a lie. He did. Once. Only one time in my entire life did he do something nice for me.”
Susan put a finger up saying stop, then handed the phone to Taylor. “Did you say your dad was nice to you?” asked Taylor. “I only heard bits.”
“Yeah. He was nice to me just once. He took me skiing. Just me and him in the mountains. He didn’t even get drunk. While we were there, I was complaining how cold I was and he brought out some beanie’s he’d bought for us. He had letters sewn on the tops of each one. The top of my beanie had the letters AC for Aaron Cadell. And my dad’s had—”
“JC,” Taylor finished, “for Jack Cadell.”
Susan told Taylor something, and Taylor relayed it through the phone. “Why is it folded up around the bottom?”
“Because it’s also a ski mask, you know, the kind you pull down over your face, and it has cutouts for the eyes and mouth. That way your face stays warm when you’re skiing. I loved that ski mask so much, I always used it as a beanie afterward. I just fold it up.”
“That’s a touching story,” said Taylor. “Listen, I really, really want to prove your innocence. Do you have any ideas for me? Like places I should investigate, or whatnot?”
He thought about it a moment. “You know what, yeah, actually, I do. I give you my permission to investigate my apartment. The police should be done with it by now. There’s a key under the potted plant at the front door. Not in the plant, but actually under the pot.”
“Got it. Where’s the apartment?” Taylor pulled out her iPhone and took down the address in the notepad. “Thank you, Mr. Cadell. We’ll try our best to solve this case.”
“Good luck.” He was just about to hang up his phone when he quickly put it back to his ear. “Taylor, just one thing. Don’t touch my gold statue; it’s very valuable. It’s pure gold. It was an heirloom from my mom’s dad.”
“Okay—”
“It’s in my bedroom covered by a comforter so no one can see it through the window. I don’t want to tempt anyone to steal it. Literally, it’s pure gold.”
“Got it.”
Outside the station, Taylor, Susan, and Chad started talking about everything Aaron had said. So far they couldn’t make any connections. Sure, they’d learned more about the suspect, but that didn’t prove as useful as Taylor had hoped. Now they just had more useless information and no leads.
“Well, we still have to investigate the café and the museum, maybe something will turn up,” Taylor said, consoling herself just as much as the others.
They got in Taylor’s old car and rode in silence for a while, all feeling a bit defeated. Chad, who was sitting in the middle back seat, finally leaned forward and spoke, “That’s interesting he has a gold statue. Wouldn’t that be a good steal for the robbers?”
Taylor smiled. “I was just thinking the same thing. That does add to the hunch that the cases are connected, but still, it’s not solid evidence.”
Just then, a bullet burst through the car’s back window and ripped into the back seat. Chad deftly spun in his seat to see a large, gaping bullet hole in the back window. Cotton from the seat was floating in the air. Boom! Another shot roared through the window, and Chad threw himself to the car floor.
Taylor and Susan were screaming at this point. Reacting in panic, Taylor hit the brakes and skid loud and long until her car came to a stop perpendicular to the road. Out her window she watched the car with the shooters stop right before her. The man in the passenger seat stuck a rifle out of his window, and she recognized him immediately. It was Billy, the security guard fr
om the carnival!
“We told you to stop snooping,” he yelled. “And this was the other choice.”
Chapter 15 Taylor didn’t know what to do. For some weird reason she wanted her dad to be here with her. No matter. Billy ripped off two shots; the muzzle flashes seemed to be in slow motion.
Taylor plunged her head to her knees, as did Susan, and the bullets zipped through her window and out Susan’s. Coming up, Taylor hit the gas pedal and straightened the car, now flying down the long, winding road.
Looking about, she could see why the bad guys were trying to kill them here. The road was in the backcountry, a road necessary to get to her house. The left side featured mountains and hills, and the right side steeply dropped into deep valleys.
She tugged the steering wheel left and the vehicle screeched as they barely made a bend. Behind them, their pursuers did the same. There were a few more bends as the road declined before they’d reach a long straightaway, which was bad because it meant the bad guys would have a good shot.
Taylor tried to devise a plan but found it hard to think. She swerved around another left bend at break-neck speed. The next one was a few hundred yards off and it was a right bend. Yanking out her iPhone, Taylor tossed it into Susan’s lap. “Call the lieutenant,” she said over the rumbling of the old engine. “He’s in the contact list.”
Susan started pressing buttons and scrolling.
“They’re right behind us, can’t this thing go faster,” yelled Chad from the back, peering over the back seats.
“I’m trying.”
Suddenly, they hit a bump in the road and the car violently jerked upward. Chad, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt because the old car didn’t have backseat seat belts, sprung up and hit his head on the roof, then came down hard, landing on the seat and bouncing off onto the floor.
They hit another bump and the same thing happened. “Ahhhh,” Susan moaned. “Stupid touch screens. They really aren’t designed for emergencies. Every time we hit a bump—”
The car jolted from another bump, and Susan’s finger accidentally scrolled the phone. “Stupid phone!”
“Just hurry up,” yelled Taylor.
“Uh... Guys…” Chad was mumbling.
“What,” yelled Taylor.
“They’ve got the rifle out again.”
The gun ripped off another shot, and Chad threw himself behind the seat again. The bullet punched through the back window and exited through the roof. Taylor looked back to see several gaping holes in the rear window. “I wish that thing would break. The broken glass might might pop one of their tires,” she said, mostly to herself.
“On it,” said Chad.
“Susan!” yelled Taylor. “Why aren’t—”
“It’s ringing. It’s ringing.”
“All right, guys, we’re coming up to the next bend so hold on tight,” warned Taylor. Susan and Chad braced themselves.
Taylor forcefully spun the wheel. Smoke from the skidding tires spewed backward as the car pivoted. The right side of the car slightly lifted from the ground. The back license plate was loose from the gunshots and the bumps. It flew off, landed in a tumble, and rolled from one end to the other until smacking into the mountain’s rock wall.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
As a result of the sharp turn, Taylor was drifting into the wrong lane and a car was coming directly for her. Instinctively, she hit the brakes before she drifted too far onto the wrong side. The car swerved closer to the mountain wall, slightly clipped Taylor’s car, but made it through.
“Ahhh!” screamed Chad.
Taylor turned in her seat to see why he was screaming. Through the cracked back window she saw their pursuers’ car only for a split second before it slammed right into the back of her car. Chad was jarred into the back window, breaking it, and fell sideways into his seat as glass showered over him. Talk about whiplash.
“Yeah, yeah, Lieutenant, this is Susan. We need help now!”
“You okay?” Taylor asked Chad.
He managed a thumbs up. Taylor nodded and hit the gas, screeching out toward the next bend, which turned left around the mountain wall. She hated these ones more because if she took it too fast they wouldn’t slam into the wall—they’d simply fly off the road and fall a few hundred feet into the canyon below. Fortunately, the road declined with every bend, becoming less and less dangerous. Unfortunately, it led to the straightaway previously mentioned.
The bad guys’ car sped out behind them, still in pursuit.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. We’re being chased and shot at! What?” Susan paused a moment to hear the lieutenant respond. “Forget about Billy. I shouldn’t have ever tried to explain that. Just get the police down here and fast!” Susan listened. “What do you mean what road? I just told you!”
Taylor yelled loud over Susan and the engine, “Chad, you might wanna brace yourself for this.”
She knew he had no seatbelt back there. He pressed his feet into Susan’s chair and pushed his back against the back of his seat. Taylor spun the wheel yet again and the g-force pinned Susan and Chad against their windows. Alternatively, Taylor had to hold the wheel tight so she didn’t lean too far into Susan.
They came out of the turn cleanly. For once. Taylor thought they might even gain some ground on the gang of bad guys behind them.
Chad must have been thinking the same thing because he turned in his seat to watch their pursuers make the turn. They went just as smoothly, if not smoother.
“Dang it!”
“Still on the same road,” Susan yelled into the phone. “Yes. Just please hurry. Thank you.”
Taylor peered ahead as the road unwound before her. “I didn’t realize how bad this road was until going this fast,” she yelled. “Pothole city coming up.”
“Rifle behind,” Chad yelled back.
“Yeah, let’s see how good their aim is on this road.”
Chad spun just in time to see the first bump. The car’s front tires bounced up and landed, then the back tires did the same. Then it happened again. And again. And again. Each bounce caused everything that was lying around—purses, phones, watches, trash, wallets, loose change—to be tossed around like spaghetti in a meatball fight. The car rumbled, jerked, bounced, slowed, sped, roared, jarred, twitched, and thumped up and down in the most grueling manner.
A gunshot went off behind them, but the bullet hit the carved mountain wall beside them, flaking off dust and debris. Taylor’s voice was warbled when she told Chad, “Find out the m—m—ma—a—a—ake and model of the car. Find out the license plate number.”
On the other end of Susan’s phone conversation, the lieutenant was asking what was wrong with her voice. “I told you, potho—o—o—oles. Are you coming yet?” He assured her that he and many other squad cars were on their way. “Good.”
Chad tried to get his eyes to focus on the car behind them, but the colors blurred with each jolt and jar. “I can’t see—e—ee—e it yet,” he said, voice also undulating.
“Can you—ooo—oo—ooo—oo see how many me—e—en are in it?”
He blinked a few times and tried to keep his gaze steady. “Yeah. There are three of them,” he said quickly between potholes.
“Okay. Easy does it,” Taylor told herself, swerving into the next turn, which was comparatively easier than the last few. The road smoothed out and though the wind was blasting through the car, the engine was roaring, and the car behind them was screeching out, everything seemed quieter.
Until, of course, the rifle fired and sent a slug through the back window, now bare of glass, and through the center of the windshield. Taylor and Susan watched as the small hole instantly caused the entire windshield to crack into a million lines without breaking. The road before her was suddenly refracted at every fissure in the window.
Bobbing her head up and down to get a clear view, Taylor realized they were just coming into a sharp left bend. She fervently twirled the wheel and the car spun out from beneath. The tail end slew
about, headed toward the unguarded edge of the road, the edge that dumped into the canyon.
“Oh no!” screamed Chad.
“What?”
“Oh no, oh no—”
The whole car was vibrating with life as it violently took the turn. Taylor glanced into the rear-view mirror and screamed likewise when she saw what Chad was looking at. The back end of the car was inching toward the road’s precipice.
She pushed on the pedal, but it was already all the way down. The tires were on the road’s dirt shoulder, spinning out, trying to grip the ground. Moving fast, she took her foot of the gas to put it on the brake, but it was too late. The back of the car slid off the road with ease, taking the front with it.
The mountain wall that was seen through the windshield dropped away as the car shifted backwards. Taylor pushed her back into the seat and screamed. Susan did the same. Chad was in midair, pinned against the backs of both Taylor and Susan’s seats.
The entire car was now in the air, free falling.
Chapter 16 Taylor and Susan watched the road’s precipice scale away as they plummeted into the canyon. Then Taylor remembered it was a canyon. With a river in it!
Susan must have known what Taylor was thinking. “It’s too shallow.”
When they didn’t think it could get any worse, the car slowly started to rotate upside-down. Suddenly, though, the rear of the car skimmed the top of a tree and it jolted the car upright again, so that the nose pointed toward the sky. Taylor tried to turn around to see what was happening below, but thought better of it.
From Chad’s point of view, for he could see through the back window, the bottom of the car began skimming trees and brush as the car slowly matched the near-vertical mountainside and auspiciously started rolling down the slope.
Still, they were going fast and narrowly avoiding large trees. They were rolling over sagebrush and plowing through scrub oak. The scent of plants filled the car during this stage of the fall. Then Chad saw the most horrifying thing he could at this time. A large pine tree. Just standing there tall and thick, directly in their path.
