Page 83 of Ghosted
I close my eyes because I’m incapable of lying to her. When she jabs me in the ribs with a sharp fingernail, my eyes fly open and I glare at her. “Dean had an idea,” I say slowly. She raises her eyebrows and gestures for me to continue. “He offered to have me move into his house so I can rent out my apartment. It would probably make up the difference in finances, especially if I scale up our online store, but there’s no way I can do it, obviously.”
“The giant house in the middle of a meadow?” she asks. Inod. “The one you compared to the Cullens’ house?” I nod again.
She flicks me on the arm. Hard. “Ow!” I exclaim, rubbing the sore spot. “What the hell?” I grumble. She doesn’t usually resort to physical violence, so this is a fun new development.
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asks incredulously.
“It’s too much. His family would basically be giving it to me. And it’s like, a cajillion-dollar home.” I shift in my seat. “And anyway, he hasn’t talked to them about it. It’s technically theirs since he died. They might not even go for it.”
“I think this is another example of you shutting down a good thing because you’re scared,” she replies. “If Dean told them this is what he wanted, I doubt they’d say no. Especially after everything you’ve told me about them.”
I shake my head, taking a sip of my latte. “I don’t know. I hate relying on other people for anything. It would feel like charity.”
“Rae,” Dean says, suddenly in front of us.
I start a little, and say oh-so-casually, “Hey, Dean, what’s up?” I ask, trying to look like we weren’t just talking about his proposition. Wren looks at him, eyebrows drawn tight together.
“He’s trying to leave. You need to call the police now. Richard is going to run,” Dean says, squatting so he’s directly in front of me.
I sit up straighter. “Where is he going?”
Dean shakes his head, running an anxious hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I followed him to the car, thinking he was just getting out of the house. But then I realized he had a whole bag packed, a cooler, and a few extra gallons of gas. When I left, he was headed north. I think he’s going to Canada.”
“Canada? Shit,” I hiss. “Okay, I’m going to place an anonymoustip.” Dean tells me the exact road Richard was on, and I call the police, hoping he was told not to leave the state. That way, they’ll have reason to stop him.
After the dispatcher assures me they’re sending a police officer after him, I thank her and hang up, palms sweaty. “She said they were sending someone after him,” I tell Dean and Wren.
“Okay. I’m going to go track him down again, in case they don’t catch him. The longer I’m away from his last location, the harder it will be for me to find him again since he’s going somewhere unknown,” Dean says, looking like he’s about to break into a sprint.
“Keep me updated,” I say, leaning in to accept the kiss he places on my forehead. He salutes and is gone in a blink.
“That fucking Richard guy definitely did it,” Wren states, who has clearly been eaves dropping on my side of the conversation. “No one runs to another country if they’re innocent.”
“Hopefully they catch him,” I say, hating that I just have to sit here and wait to see what happens. I text Jack, letting him know what’s going on. He and I have been chatting back and forth the last few days as they scoured Richard’s devices. They were unable to find anything damning (aside from a large, morally questionable porn collection). I know Jack is starting to lose hope.
Dean
I sit in the passenger seat, engaging in my favorite pastime as of late: berating Richard to his stupid face. He can’t hear me anyway, so I may as well. It’s the only fun I can have while I’m away from Rae.
I have a sinking suspicion that the dispatcher wasn’t taking Rae seriously. They either didn’t send someone or made it seem unimportant to whoever she did send. Hours have gone by without even passing a speed trap.
I try not to panic as day slips into night, and we pass the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign. The state motto “Live free or die” really takes on a whole new meaning these days.
Richard readjusts in his seat for the fiftieth time, and I’m about to lose my mind if he does what I think he’s going to do with that empty Gatorade bottle… Annnnnd yep. It’s happening. The trickling sound is overly loud because he’s the type of psychopath to drive in total silence.
I grimace, secretly hoping his knee-driving sucks and he rams his stupid Audi into the concrete divider. He is swerving a little, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. I perk up a little. He pops the cap back on to the world’s worst flavor of Gatorade and chucks it out the window.
“Dude, seriously?” I gripe at him. Fucking litterers. It’s not enough to have murdered me, you also have to try to murder the planet? I can’t believe I was ever friendly with this guy.
Red and blue swirling lights light up the cab in a dizzying pattern, and I turn to look behind us. “Fuck,” Richard shouts, voice breaking. The police siren sounds, and he immediately ducks like he can avoid being seen.
I kick back, letting my feet drift through the footwell, ready to enjoy the show.
Finally.
The car lurches forward, and I look toward Richard. “You are such a dumbass,” I say, watching the speedometer climb towards eighty, then tick past it. He starts swerving around traffic, pushing the gas pedal down until we’re eating up the roadway,going nearly a hundred miles per hour. Thankfully, there aren’t a ton of people on the road at 8 P.M. on a Tuesday, so he probably won’t kill anyone else.
“Pull over,” the officer says over his loudspeaker. He’s kept pace with us easily so far. Maybe Richard should have watched moreNeed For Speedand lessBarely Legal Busty Babes.
