The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Party of Five, Chapter 18

Previously: "Party of Five, Chapter 17" 

You had planned on writing two more chapters, showing the escape from the island, and then an epilogue. But your "writing gut" (though technically it is Sean's writing gut, you suppose) tells you to polish it off in one. Besides, the story just has one more detail to add in order to accomplish its purpose, and you're impatient to wind it down.

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DEPUTY ROBERT DONOVAN cussed to himself as the SUV rolled to a stop before his outstretched hand. He remembered this car, and he remembered the high schoolers that went with it.

There were no "islanders," strictly speaking, in Saginac, for no one was ever born on the island. But everyone in one way or another identified with it.

So like almost everyone who grew up in a tourist destination, Donovan nursed a cordial dislike of outsiders.

And these five were something special on top of it.

"Morning, officer," said the tow-headed kid who was driving. He was shirtless, and his hard-muscled shoulders were lightly filmed with perspiration. "You catch those guys yet?" He grinned, and there was a light sneer in his eyes.

"And what takes you off the island this morning?" Donovan asked. His eye roved past the driver to the other occupants of the car. A blonde girl, her hair done in two ponytails that trailed down the side of her head, smirked at him from the passenger-side seat; in the back, a boy with brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses was relaxing between a lithe, tawny-headed girl and a bosomy brunette: his arms were thrown casually around their shoulders. All three gave him variations on the cheeky smiles of the two up front. "Running into town for supplies?" he added, disliking these kids the more he looked at them.

"No," said the blonde in the passenger seat. "We're taking your advice, officer." Her voice was sweet and honeyed, but she was laughing at him behind her smile, he could tell. "Getting off the island before those convicts can murder us in our sleep."

"Oh my God," groaned the brunette in the back. "I had nightmares last night!"

"You got everything you brought with you?" Donovan asked. "Didn't leave anything behind?"

"Why?" The driver sniggered. "You not gonna let us back on the island after we go?"

Donovan skipped over the insolent question. "Where you kids from?"

There was a momentary pause, and the driver looked taken aback. "Saratoga Falls," he stammered. "We were here on spring break."

"Was that your cabin?"

"It belongs to a friend of a friend of ours." His gaze turned hooded. "What's with the questions?"

"Just get on the ferry."

The driver's expression briefly darkened, and he squinted sidelong at Donovan as he touched the gas and slowly pushed the SUV forward. Donovan glanced over at the pilot house; Wasson, at the wheel, gave him a thumb's up and started to lower the gate. Donovan hesitated, then leaped over onto the ferry. He crooked his neck to speak into the mike at his shoulder. "Ray, I'm going ashore, will come back with it. Over."

He stalked past the SUV on his way to the front, and he almost expected a brawny hand to come out and slap him. There were three other cars being taken, and he glanced over their occupants again. A family with two kids; an elderly man and woman; a guy and a girl about college age or a little older. None of them had set off his bullshit radar the way the kids in the SUV had.

Which was weird. They didn't immediately look like the kind of high school kids who liked to get up a cop's grill. Even the one with the muscles, despite his mop of hair, was pretty clean-cut. He wouldn't have given them a second glance before yesterday if he'd passed them on the street.

But assholes come in all shapes. The kid with the muscles, Donovan decided, was a hot-dogger: a high school jock who liked to swagger big in front of girls. He and Ray had run into that kid yesterday, him and the girl riding up front next to him. The kid had looked shocked—scared, even—when Ray called to him, and had stood white-faced and staring while stammering a lot of "Yes sirs" and "No sirs" in answer to Ray's questions. Not until the girl had gripped his bicep and stroked his arm did the kid, though momentarily startled, calm down. But the change, once it happened, had been quick, and he'd gone in just a few seconds from a frightened helpfulness to cocky confidence and even into a veiled insolence. If you need any help looking for the bad guys, he'd bragged at the conclusion of the interview, just come and ask!

Ray hadn't said anything after they resumed their round, and Donovan had told himself it probably wasn't anything. Worst case he could think of, the kid had a stash of weed growing out in the woods, and after his first panic had gotten cocky at the thought that he was putting something over on the deputies.

Which was bad enough. Donovan hated attitude.

From the front of the ferry he gazed back at the cars. Most of the drivers and their passengers ignored him, preoccupied with their own concerns, and probably not wanting to draw his attention. (He understood that people get nervous around badges.) But the kids in the SUV, he could tell, were watching him and talking about him and even laughing at him, judging by their grins. The driver kept pointing at him, and turning around to say something to the ones in the back. Donovan just watched them. He didn't know what he was watching for, but if there was something, he was determined to catch it.

And then the driver gestured him over. Like a diner summoning a waiter, he put his hand out the window and crooked his finger. Donovan bit down on another curse word, and slowly wound his way back to the SUV.

"Scarlett wants to know your name," the kid told him when he drew up opposite the window. He hiked his thumb at the brunette in back. "She thinks you're hot!"

"I do not!" The girl blushed deeply, and her face split into an embarrassed grin.

"She can't stop talking about you, officer," said the boy in the glasses. "She says you're the hottest cop she's ever seen. And Scarlett's got a thing for cops."

"I do not!" She slapped him in chest.

"I think you should arrest her," said the driver. "Slap some cuffs on her. She'd cum."

The girl covered her grinning face with her hands and tried to sink down into the footwell.

"Do you mind if I look in the back of your vehicle?" Donovan asked.

"What for?" The driver sobered up a fraction.

"I'm just asking if I can look in the back of your vehicle."

The kid twisted around to look at his friends, who didn't say anything. "Sure thing, go ahead," he said. "Got nothing back there 'cept our dirty laundry."

Donovan stepped to the rear of the SUV and popped the hatch. He pushed around and glanced over the backpacks, knapsacks, athletic bags, and rucksacks while ignoring the passengers. But he didn't miss the way the kid in the glasses turned around to watch with a mild curiosity, or the way the driver craned his neck to watch in the rearview mirror. He didn't make a thorough search, though, for he just wanted to rattle these dipshits.

"I don't suppose you have any alcoholic beverages back there," Donovan said when he'd returned to the driver's side window.

"No sir, drank all the beer and left all the bottles back at the cabin."

"Any weed?"

"Smoked it all last night." The kid grinned, and his eyes gleamed.

"You clean up that broken drinking glass?" Donovan glanced past the driver to the other boy, who frowned. "You dropped and broke it when my partner and I came out to speak to you yesterday."

The boy blinked, and the car turned very quiet. Then he said, "Oh, yeah!" and snapped his fingers. "We got it cleaned up. It was a non-alcoholic mojito," he added.

"Bullshit!" exclaimed the driver. "Officer, Dougie back there got Scarlett totally wasted last night on rum and coke. Then he took her back in the bedroom and committed multiple felonies on her. So if that prison's got some vacancies—

"Shut up!" The brunette smacked him in the back of the head. "We didn't do anything we'd be ashamed of, officer!" she said.

"Nothing you'd be ashamed of," the driver snickered.

"That's good," Donovan said dryly He started to move off.

"Are you attached to the local sheriff's office?" It was the boy in back—Dougie?—who'd shouted the question. "I mean, you weren't brought in special to track down those escaped cons?"

"I'm with the Saginac County Sheriff's office," Donovan confirmed.

The boy whipped around to look at the last girl, the one with the tawny brown hair. Of all of them, she alone hadn't said a word the entire time, but seemed preoccupied with her phone. The boy muttered something to her, and she looked up long enough to give Donovan a quick but searching glance. Then she nodded, once, before returning to her phone.

"We're planning to come back out here next weekend," the boy resumed, "assuming there's an all-clear on the escapees."

"I'm sure we'll have them back in custody."

The driver hid a quick grin, and Donovan's dislike for him deepened.

"Maybe we'll see you then," the boy in the back said.

The brunette, almost crawling out of the window to give Donovan a wide, open-mouthed grin over her dangling boobs, added, "I hope the other deputies are as hot as you are!"

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You can't resist smirking to yourself at the clever way you inserted a reference to your home town. It's the final and most important bit of bait for Sean, and it will be a hell of thing if he doesn't nibble at it.

Next: "Shadowing Sean" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"