Shattered (Book Four)

Chapter 17: Thinking Out Loud

After the awkward encounter, Uncle Seth offered to drive us back home, to which we gradually accepted. However, I sat next to Uncle Seth while Jared sat in the back.

I crossed my arms in frustration, while Jared stared hard at the floor, rubbing his sore cheek that I gave him earlier. The long drive home was completely awkward. I think Uncle Seth sensed it too.

"So, Cleo." Uncle Seth began. "What was the restaurant Jack Sparrow named?" I shrugged my shoulders, not caring about the joke. "Arghby's." he exclaimed. He let out a roaring laugh, making us uncomfortable.

"Get it?" Uncle Seth breathed. "Because Jack Sparrow is a pirate?!" None of us laughed. "You guys have no taste in comedy," I heard Uncle Seth grumbling. I felt very sorry for him: he is trying his best to make our night seem less awkward.

"It's a great joke," I reassured, patting him gently on the arm. After Uncle Seth dropped Jared off at his place, he gave me an apologetic look and headed to his house. As soon as uncle backed out of the driveway, he headed straight down across the miserable street.

"Sorry about the encounter," Uncle Seth grunted. "It's fine," I beamed. "I have been through worse." "So, what did Romeo and Juliet do?" he asked. "We talked about scholarship, school, and other things."

"Sounds like a boring date if you would ask me." He responded. "Where's the passion in your voice? At least tell me the food is good." "The soup tasted delicious," I explained. "But the waitress had forgotten my tea."

"Anyways, while we were talking, I saw Jerry talking to some guy." That's when I received a worried look from Uncle Seth. "Did he threaten you or anything?" he asked. I shook my head no.

"Was he with Isabel?" I shook my head again. All of a sudden, I found myself telling him everything I saw and heard. Uncle only nodded as he kept his eyes on the road. "So Jerry is involved with the car explosion?"

"He doesn't even know that I took pictures of the box before the police took it." I said nonchalantly. But nonetheless, I could feel my uncle's eyes growing fearful. "What was in that bag, anyway?"

"I don't know," I answered. "But surprisingly, Jerry didn't want the cash, maybe something precious?" As Uncle Seth came across a stoplight, he paused the car and reached for his phone.

Calmly, he dialed the numbers with his agile fingers and waited for the other line to pick up. "Hello?" a quiet voice began. "Hi," Uncle Seth said in a cheery voice. "My name is Malcolm Waters and I work for Bright House Networks."

"Anyway, I just received an alert that there is something wrong with your WiFi." A loud sigh came out of the phone. "Okay," the voice replied sternly. "If you could please give me your address, I will come by tomorrow and fix it in a jiffy."

After the voice told Uncle Seth the address, he thanked him dearly then hang up the phone. "Wow," I said as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket. It wasn't surprising that Uncle Seth is a pretty good liar. "Years of practice," he bragged.

"Tomorrow, I am going to break into the Terrence's house and get some information. You are just going to keep an eye out for Mr. Suspicious." "Got it," I beamed. When we got home from Red Dragons, I hurried to upstairs to change into my casual pjs while Uncle Seth napped peacefully on the couch.

Just then, Mom and Dad both came downstairs, looking distraught and worried. "Hey guys," I waved. "Cleo, where were you? It's one a.m. in the morning?" "What?" I glanced at the time, desperate to prove Mom was wrong, but she wasn't.

"Crap," I muttered. "I'm sorry." "Don't worry about it," Dad sighed. "Was the food good?" I wanted to snap at him for sending Uncle Seth to spy on me, but I was incredibly tired. "Yeah," I answered.

"Good," Mom beamed, pinching my cheeks. "Go to bed, Sleeping Beauty." I kissed Mom, Dad, and my quirky uncle on both cheeks and hurried up to bed. Later that night, I dreamt that I was standing in front of a white board full of recent pictures I took from the crash.

First, the black Ferrari: based on my intellect, the car is cleaned without any scratches or marks; however the license plate has been damaged. Probably, Khan has been caring for it in a very long time.

Second, Khan's reckless move. Mr. Pao reprimanded Jerry for not stealing the box before the car explosion occurred. Also, they left him to rot in fire, meaning that Mr. Pao and Khan weren't the best of friends. But something is wrong though, did the antique owner knew about the cocaine and the wad of money or is he a part of the trade?

All of a sudden, I woke up out of my dream then turned on the lights. Hopping out of bed, I pulled out my drawer and searched the contents until I found pictures of the crime scene. Gathering the photos, some string, and a couple of thumbnails, I pieced the items on a brown corkboard then studied my masterpiece.

The photos of the Ferrari stood out above the pictures of the ruined license plate while the pictures of Khan's corpse stood farther away. According to the news, Ghenghis Khan is in his mid-twenties and worked for the Red Dragons his entire life.

But the box doesn't make any sense: why did Khan steal it? Did the owner knew about this? I reached for my notepad, scribbled my thoughts, and taped the yellow pages on the board. After school, I have decided to have a talk with the owner.

But what if he doesn't want to talk? The police is already finding strategies on how to break that guy. "Still," I sighed to myself. "I need to know what happened and why."