She was the first person he trusted with his secret. His safe place.
He was the first guy she let all the way in. He could ground her when nobody else could.
-
"𝐓𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, �...
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"You could have warned us sooner." JJ tells Pope and Kie on the way home.
"We would have, except Pope was on the math team."
I laugh. "That's so fitting."
"Wait, you were on the math team?" JJ asks.
"The cops took everything like it was a crime scene." Pope says changing the subject. "Did you find anything?"
"Did we find anything? No, I don't think so. Oh yeah, we did." JJ holds up the gun and one of the stacks of cash.
"What the hell?" Pope stands from the place he was sitting.
"Dude, what?" Kie asks.
JJ tries to reason with them.
Pope ignores him, frustrated. "Why take that from a crime scene?"
"Better than the cops having it." JJ protests.
"I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship." Pope says.
JJ shushes him with the gun. "At least you have us right?"
"I'm living a nightmare."
"J, at least put the gun away. You shouldn't have taken it in the first place, so we really don't need you waving it around to get us all in trouble." I say.
When we get back to town, we walk into chaos. A man who had clearly passed was being carried off a boat on a stretcher. A woman leans over him crying his name: Scooter.
"Who is that?" John B asks a girl sitting on the dock.
"It's Scooter Grubbs. He was out during the storm. Check out this pic I got." She pushes her phone in our faces. She shows us a picture of the dead body. "Dead body!"
"What kind of boat did he have?" JJ asks her.
"Somehow that dirtbag copped a brand new Grady-White. Everyone's out looking for it."
John B looks over to me. I shrug not really knowing how to react. We had already found the boat everyone was searching for.
~~~
I sit on my porch, relaxing after a long day. JJ in the chair next to me, playing with his lighter, I had a leg sitting across his lap. Kiara sits on the couch while John B nonchalantly drinks a beer.
Pope comes frantically running, opening the door. "Okay. So um.. we didn't see anything. We don't know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia."
"Actually, Pope's right for once." JJ says, standing. My leg falls to the ground. "See I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny, deny."
"Guys, we can't keep the money." Kiara says.
"Okay, not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara."
"We have to pass that off to Lana Grubbs. Otherwise, it's bad karma."
"Bad karma to be implicated in a felony too." Pope says. "We gotta go dark."
"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree." JJ says walking around the porch.
"I don't agree." John B eyes JJ. "Think about it, this is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about. Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat who's never had more than 40 bucks in his pocket."
"John B's right. There's no way in hell a guy like that can afford a Grady-White all of a sudden. It's just too weird." I say agreeing with my brother.
"Well for now we should just go about life like normal," Kiara says. "Keep ourselves off the radar."
"That's a good idea." Pope agrees. "Who wants to fish?"
We grab fishing gear and poles before heading down to the docks behind our house. Pope casts out, trying to focus on something other than the possible trouble we were in. I sit on the side of the dock with Kie, watching.
"All right, so think about it, Pope. How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?" John B asks.
"Prostitution." Pope says shortly.
"Square groupers, bro. Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean?" He turns to look to JJ. "JJ?"
"They were straight smugglin'."
"Smugglin." JB confirms looking at Pope. "And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck."
"Hell yeah!" JJ says. "Fish on!" He yells reeling it in.
After fishing we all head back inside, putting away the fishing stuff and heading into my brother's room.
"For the record, if that ship is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it, it probably belongs to someone else." Pope says.
"Minor details." Kie piped up.
"They could be looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid." Pope slaps the money against his hand.
JJ reaches out to take the money from Pope. "Right. Well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time." JJ fans out the money in front of his face. "All we need to do is figure out a way to get to the cargo hold of that wreck. Until then, just lay low and act normal."
