A writer and his muse

Chapter 15

One week later

"Johanna, want to go to a crime scene?" Cosmo sauntered into the kitchen where Johanna was and leaned against the door frame.

"We don't even have an address,"

Cosmos eyes twinkled, "Uncle Ryan called this morning about an early morning crime and I tapped into the phones."

"Cosmo!" Johanna's eyes widened. "You will be an expert detective someday." Cosmo retrieved his wallet and keys. Johanna grabbed a pen and some paper and stuffed it into a bag. "Let's go!"

*****

"They went this way. Come on!" Cosmo pulled Johanna forward to a large hotel building. They slipped inside the revolving doors and acted causal. Johanna spotted Kate greeting a formal, government looking man.

"Right this way, Detective." A man in a slender suit led Kate over to the elevator and pressed the up button.

"Come on," Johanna urged Cosmo forward so they could hear better. Johanna quickly sat on a couch behind a plant and strained her eyes to see a file the man in the suit was holding. She couldn't make it out. Johanna scanned the area for the stairs so she and Cosmo could make a quick dash after the doors shut. The elevator doors opened with a ding and the man gestures for Kate to get it.

"We'll head up to six."

Johanna heard as the doors shut. "Six!" Johanna and Cosmo raced from their hiding spot and threw open the door to the stairs. She and Cosmo took the stairs by two's and by three's, doing everything they could do keep in time with the elevator.

"Five... Six!" Cosmo panted and pressed up against the window. There was a loud bang. "Oh my God!"

"What?" Johanna snaked herself between the window and Cosmo seconds later. She looked out of the cloudy cross hatched window to see a dead woman with a gun shot in her head fall down. Blood poured out as she lay slumped against the far wall.

Finally Kate walked into sight. She was walking in a too calm manner, watching every step as if she were waking on egg shells. Next out came the man in the suit with a Glock pressed against Kate's back. They moved briskly down the hallway and into a room.

Johanna backed away from the wall so she couldn't see her mother and the woman. Tears stung the back of her eyes, but Johanna pushed them down and forced herself to go back to the window.

If you ever want to be an examiner like Lanie, you'll have to get used to seeing dead people and horrible sights, Johanna scolded in her mind.

"Let's go, they just entered the room. I think it read 630, four doors down on the right," Cosmo informed in a hushed tone. They exited the stairwell and crept up to the room, pressing themselves against the opposite wall as the deceased woman, and getting as close to the door as possible.

"The car is waiting downstairs." A deep, muffled voice said. From the slight accent he had, Johanna guessed he might have been African American.

"Oh Kate, how we've been waiting so long for this day," the man said. A window was slid open.

"They're going out a window," Cosmo mouthed.

"Now listen here, Katie, I don't want to make a scene and neither do you, understand? Now, I'm going to keep my gun right here and you're going to move where and how I tell you, when I tell you. Try to escape, I shoot you. Try to signal anyone, I shoot. Shout out to anyone, I shoot. Break away, I shoot. Understand? Now move,"

"When should we go in?" Johanna whispered.

Cosmo waited, putting his index finger up telling her to wait too. Three seconds passed. Five seconds passed. Finally at the ten second mark, Cosmo gingerly turned the doorknob. To Johanna's surprise and relief, the door was unlocked and no one was in the room. Johanna did a quick double check, making sure everyone was out of the room before she made a dash to the still open window. She clambered through it and saw the car fleeing.

"Black Honda Civic, tinted windows, New York license plate number: 417-JBP." Johanna said to Cosmo the way she'd heard her mother recite facts many times in the past to Uncle Javi and Ryan. "417-JBP..." Johanna mused. She inhaled sharply, feeling weak in her knees. "Cosmo! That's the car that tried to kill us!" She shouted.

"Come on!" He yelled. Cosmo had raced out the window and past Johanna, jumping down stairs by fours and hurtling around corners. Johanna snapped out of her frozen pose and followed Cosmo down the stairs.

"Faster! My car is around the corner." Cosmo shouted as he sprinted across a lawn to retrieve his car.

Here we are, running to the cops," Johanna laughed, "Instead of running from the cops."

"Turn left!" Johanna pointed at the fleeing car. Cosmo dodged a red light. "Don't let them know you're following them!" Johanna begged. He followed the Civic from a distance like a mad man, weaving between cars and cutting off people. Finally the Civic turned down a little old, unused dirt road.

"Wow," Johanna mused. "Original."

"What next? An old abandoned cell tower or something?" Cosmo snorted in the front.

"Better," Johanna grumbled. "A barn."

Cosmo switched off the lights and let the car rumble to a halt behind a fur tree.