the middle ≫ jj maybank

xxx. the airstrip

The pogues woke the next morning to a John B-shaped lump on the dock. They'd looked for him all night, only for him to sneak home right under their noses.

JJ nudged him awake with the toe of his boot, and the Routledge boy stirred, lifting his head from the life jacket he was using as a pillow.

"We were looking for you all night," Kiara said, stifling a yawn. They couldn't have gotten more than four hours of sleep, and Slater felt like she'd been steamrolled. There was no coffee to be found in the chateau's bare cupboards, and she was running on empty.

"We must have just missed each other," Slater said, taking a seat beside John B as the boy sat up, stretching out his limbs, stiff from a night sleeping on the hard wooden planks of the deck.

He shrugged. "I guess I just wanted to spend the night out under the stars," John B said, staring out across the water. Also, the chateau was full of reminders of Big John, and it was probably too painful for him to sleep under its roof after learning of his father's fate. "Where's Pope?" John B asked, glancing between JJ, Slater, and Kiara.

"Scholarship interview," Kiara replied, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Oh," John B said, his shoulders slumping. "Well, I have some news."

"Please tell me you didn't shoot Ward Cameron," JJ joked, a failed attempt to lighten the mood.

If John B noticed the joke, he didn't acknowledge it. "The gold is gone."

The words sent Slater's stomach to her throat. "The gold is gone?" she echoed.

John B nodded. "Ward got to it before we did."

"How?" JJ asked, angrily slamming his hand down on the dock railing. "We just found it. How the hell did Ward find it?"

"When I talked to him yesterday, he let it slip that he knew about it. I ... I don't know how he figured it out, but he did," John B said, sighing.

"Was it Sarah?" Slater asked in a quiet voice, asking the question no one wanted to say aloud.

John B shook his head fiercely. "No."

"What the hell does a man like Ward Cameron need with the gold?" JJ asked. "Doesn't he have enough already?"

"There's never 'enough' with a man like Ward," Kiara said.

"I can't believe this," Slater said, watching John B sympathetically. "We ... we did all this work. We were so close."

Slater's stomach dropped, and she felt like someone had knocked the wind out of her. All of this? All of this, for nothing? She'd stolen evidence from the police station. She'd lied to her family numerous times. Hell, her parents probably hated her. She'd told herself it would all be okay, once they had the gold.

And now ...

Ward Cameron had the gold.

There'd be no reconciliation with her father. There'd be no getting out of Kildare. There'd be no world trip with JJ. Hell, would there even be a future with JJ? Or would her father actually send her away, never to see any of the pogues again?

"Isn't that how it always goes, though?" JJ said, slumping against the railing. "People like Ward keep on winning. People like us never even have a chance."

"He got everything?" Kiara asked.

"Every bar," John B said, defeated. "The whole enchilada."

John B had been playing with his cast, and before Slater could even tell him to be careful, the cast slid off, and John B's arm was free. She didn't figure it was a good time to tell him he should see a doctor. None of the pogues ever seemed particularly concerned for their own well being.