"THAT WAS A STUPID waste of time," Venus complained, hands set on her hips as the Pogues stood on the sidewalk outside of the station they arrived at to report the wreck. It was packed with other people that had missing pets and that were filing reports; too crowded and busy for any of the officials to listen to the group of friends that had been waved off before they could even get a full sentence out.
"Even if there was a reward, they wouldn't give it to us," JJ concluded sadly with a stiff laugh.
"I know how we could find out who owns the boat." John B held up the motel key in front of them, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Pope immediately started shaking his head, already not liking the idea. "We don't know who's room that is. It could be anybody."
Kiara grinned and took the key from John's grasp and started walking back towards the skiff.
"That's what makes it interesting," she coaxed, nudging Pope with her shoulder. "Come on. We'll be lookout."
John B couldn't contain the laugh that left his mouth. "Yeah, that way you'll only be an accomplice."
•
Venus followed JJ and John B across the motel balcony as they checked each lock to see if the key would work. Originally, she offered to stay behind with Pope and Kie as a lookout while the two snooped around, but she'd quickly been placed on team recon by the group instead.
She was starting to regret the team she'd been placed on though, because so far all JJ would talk about is how John B should finally make a move on Kie.
"You know the rule, JJ. No Pogue-on-Pogue macking," John chastised and shook his head. "You're the one that always hitting on her."
"Okay, in his defense, JJ hits on everyone," Venus spoke up, gesturing to the blond as John B tried fitting the key in another lock.
"See! I've even hit on Venus like...how many times now?" JJ tried to think.
The Beck girl rolled her eyes. "Too damn many to count, but that's not the point." She flicked him in the backside of his head. "If it's semi-attractive and has good hair, JJ flirts with it."
The boy scoffed at her words. "That isn't true. I have standards, you know?" He brushed off her statement and walked to the next door, knocking on it in a rhythmic pattern. "Housekeeping," he said in a high-pitched voice.
Venus did her best to hold in a laugh at the boy's actions and turned back to the Routledge.
"John," she sighed, "the point is that the rule is stupid. If you like her and she likes you the way she seems to, then go for it," she encouraged with a smile.
"And what if it doesn't work out and she never wants to speak to me again?" He turned to face the girl and tilted his head in a questioning manner.
Venus took the key from his hand and moved to try the lock of the door JJ stood at. She slowly turned the key until she heard a soft and familiar click. She fully unlocked it and handed the key back to him.
"What if it does?" she countered, a smug smile coating her lips. The girl carefully opened the door and peered inside to make sure it was vacant before walking in.
JJ trailed behind her, his mouth open in disbelief. "Woah, how did you know that it was going to open this one?"
"The number matches the key, JJ."
John was the last to walk into the motel room and shut the door behind him. The three took in their shaded surroundings. The curtains were drawn, leaving only a few slivers of light to peek through and into the room, two duffel bags sat on the floor next to the bed, and there was a map on the desk in the corner that JJ had already gone to.
"Look," he called, "That's where they were fishing." He pointed to a spot on it, his eyes flickering between the map and a paper with coordinates written in scraggly handwriting.
John B's head tilted as he examined it further. "That's the continental shelf. Big swell." He shook his head. "You wouldn't fish there."
The three continued to search the room for a few minutes until John B had told them to come look at what he'd found. A safe sat in the closet, a keypad sitting in between them and whatever was inside of the metal container.
The boy began punching in sequences of numbers starting from zero, causing Venus to roll her eyes.
"Are you two sure you didn't see any like, codes, or something in the drawers you checked? Maybe in the bathroom cabinet or the duffel bag you looked in, JJ?" she began asking, knowing there had to be something that could help them.
"What do mean 'codes'? We aren't launching a rocket," JJ quipped.
"You know what I mean, jackass." She turned and started going through some of the dresser drawers, looking for anything that could help speed the process along.
John followed her lead, only with a bit more purpose than she had. He made a beeline for the small table that sat it the corner. It was one of the things he originally looked over when they first started snooping around. A small piece of paper sat on it with a few numbers jotted down.
"Beck," he called for girl's attention, holding up the paper.
He took it back to the safe and tapped them in, and sure enough, the safe lock blinked green and let out a sharp clicking noise once it unlocked.
"Holy shit," John B muttered, his eyes widening as the safe door swung open. A large stack of cash sat inside, staring right back at the trio.
"No fucking way," JJ grinned, already trying to reach into the safe and grab what he saw. The brunet tried swatting his hand away, but JJ wasn't having it. He went to grab a sheath of the cash, but instead saw something sitting behind it.
He pulled his hand out of the safe with a handgun now tightly situated in his grip.
"Put it back," John B demanded.
"Is that loaded?" Venus asked, trying her best to steer clear of where JJ started waving it.
"Sig Sauer Elite!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This is a spendy gatt. It retails at about twelve-hundo." He examined the gun for a moment before reaching back into the safe and grabbing two sheaths of cash and stuffing them in his waistband.
"Take a picture," he requested, shifting into an unnatural pose with the gun and cash.
"Yeah, let's just create our own incriminating evidence," John B retorted sarcastically.
"He's right, we shouldn't—"
The sound of something hard hitting the window of the room made Venus halt her words. The trio turned to the noise as John moved to see what was the cause. He pulled the curtain back enough for him to see outside and looked down.
"It's Kie and Pope. Shit. Cops are coming up." He shoved the curtain back and started looking around the room for somewhere that could keep the three hidden.
"There's no where in here for us to fucking hide! What are we gonna do?" Venus panicked, her eyes darting around the room and trying to find a solution, but all she seemed to come back to was the window.
The two boys made eye contact with her as their gaze fell to the same spot, and with that, they all knew what they had to do.
Without a word, John pulled back the curtain and yanked the window open, ushering the other two to go first. JJ didn't hesitate and climbed out, carefully balancing the tips of his shoes on the thin ledge below the window sill. Venus followed closely and cautiously lifted herself out of the opening and stepped onto the ledge. JJ had shuffled down a few feet to make room for her, and placed his hand on her back to help her stay balanced as she moved. John came after her and pulled the curtains back behind him as best he could before shimmying out and pressing the window closed once more. JJ and Venus shimmied as close together as they could physically get, while John pressed himself against the brick of the building on the opposite side of the window sill.
Aside from her erratic heartbeat that pounded in her ears, Venus could hear the faint sound of footsteps that only got louder once she heard the door of the room open.
"Fuck," she cursed in a whisper, pressing her forehead against the wall of the building and shutting her eyes.
John carefully leaned closer to the window and peered through a small opening in the curtains, wanting to know exactly what the cops were after. He watched as the two deputies found the safe, the male one digging inside and pulling out an envelope. The man pulled something out of it that he couldn't decipher and placed the envelope back inside.
The boy's eyes widened as he watched the two split a wad of cash and put the rest in an evidence bag. He waved for the two next to him to look at what he was seeing.
JJ and Venus stood on their tiptoes and leaned over, the latter being halfway squished by the blond as they tried their hardest to see what John saw.
"Holy shit," JJ muttered as they moved back into their spots, but instead of carefully placing his feet back onto the ledge, he lost his balance and his foot slipped.
Venus gripped his shirt as hard as she could and yanked the boy back into place as a loud banging noise echoed up to them. The gun had fallen from JJ's waistband as he lost his footing, causing it to clammer onto the dumpster that sat below them and make a noise loud enough that Venus was sure the entire neighborhood could hear the commotion.
Harsh footsteps hit the floor as one of the deputies walked to the window and shoved the curtain aside to look around it.
The three quickly pressed themselves as far as they could into the wall and hoped to the heavens above that the cop wouldn't get the idea to look their way.
John's breathing quickened as he listened through the brick as best he could.
Venus could see a small boy and his mother walking by below them. The child's eyes glued onto the dumpster where JJ had dropped the gun and she inwardly cursed. The boy kept pointing at the object and waving at the window where the cop stood, trying to get his attention, but his mother hushed him after a moment and continued walking.
She could hear the sound of the curtains being pulled back shut and receding footsteps. She held her breath for a moment longer until she could make out a door open and shut.
The trio scrambled back to the others as quickly as they could after that, not wanting to run into the deputies again. They ran back to the boat and were met with a worried Kie and a frazzled Pope.
"This is the reason why I'm getting grey hairs at such a young age." Venus sat down on the HMS Pogue with a deep sigh and leaned onto her knees.
"So dramatic, you don't have grey hairs." JJ took a seat beside her and ruffled her blonde hair. "Your roots are showing from where you dyed it, though." She swatted his hand away and patted her hair back into place. "Maybe you should go back to brunette."
"You could've warned us earlier about the cops," she spoke, ignoring JJ's words and directing the comment to Pope and Kie.
"We would have," Kie began, turning to glare at the dark-skinned boy. "But Pope was on the math team."
"The cops had everything tagged, like it was from a crime scene." Pope looked between the three curiously. "Did you find anything?"
JJ scoffed playfully. "Did we find anything?" He lifted his shirt to show the gun and wads of cash that he'd stuck in his waistband.
"No. JJ, you did not take that from a crime scene. Oh, God. I'm going to lose my Merit Scholarship." The Heyward boy put his face in his hands as he began to worry.
The blond slung an arm around his shoulders and smiled. "Who cares as long as you have friends?"
Pope shoved him away and only continued to worry. "I'm living the nightmare. We need to leave. Now."
"I second that," Venus spoke, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly.
•
The group found themselves back in the marina not long after their mission, and were now being graced with some not-so-good news.
Officials had found a body and were pulling it from the water as they arrived. They tried to get a good look of the person, but the paramedics had blocked their view.
One of the locals John B was friends with showed her phone to the boy, a picture of a bloated and blackened dead body covering the screen.
"Who is it?" He squinted at the picture, trying to zoom in on the face.
"Scooter Grubbs. He was out during the storm."
The girl passed her phone around to them all, letting everyone see what the paramedics had recovered.
"What kind of boat did he have?" JJ questioned, trying to think of why the man would've been out in a storm like Agatha.
"Somehow that dirtbag had a brand new Grady White. Everyone's looking for it." The girl stepped away from the group and focused more on the officials after she told them the information she knew.
Venus paled at the her words and she felt her expression drop. She shared some glances with Pope who had a similar reaction to her own.
"Let me through!" a female voice demanded.
Venus looked up to see Lana Grubbs, Scooter's wife, rushing down to the scene, stopping beside the stretcher they'd just pulled the man onto. She paused for a mere second at the sight before her face filled with grief. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground as sobs racked her body.
Venus gulped.
"We didn't find anything. We don't know anything," Pope whispered, just loud enough for the rest of them to hear.
And without a single word being exchanged after that, they nodded.
•
and that's the end of chapter three! comment, vote, and share please! let me know what you think so far of venus and her dynamic with the others!
-s