No Happily Ever After

Chapter 35

ChiefJiminy roiled in silence over the miserable New Yorker's threats.

He paced angrilythroughout the Faraway police precinct the next day, and everybodywondered what on earth could be the matter with him. But he didn'treveal the source of his evil mood to a single soul.

Instead, he spenttime in his office, obsessing over Detective Piper. He checked, andrechecked Piper's credentials. As Piper himself had touted, he had asterling record. However, in retrospect, Jiminy realized that in hisdesperation to solve the town mystery, he hadn't done due diligenceto actually check those credentials. And that day, in Piper'sabsence, he did check them.

Only to find Piperhad been a phony.

In fact, near asJiminy could tell, the man was a ghost. He seemed not to exist atall. Jiminy sat at his desk staring down at Piper's file, and rakinghis hands through his thinning silver hair.

He had matchingaccounts of the fateful night in question from ten teenagers of soundmind and body. Piper had played very little role in the rescue. Infact, the fact that he'd involved more teenagers in the rescue wasunfathomable. Criminal even. They could all have been killed withjust a slight turn of fate. The more Jiminy thought about it, themore furious he became. This man had strolled into town, takenadvantage of a delicate situation, and jeopardized the lives of evenmore of his citizens. Not only did he not owe Piper, the fool wouldbe lucky if he didn't hunt him down, and shoot him.

Jiminy slammed thefile shut and officially considered his debt canceled.

***

After a week, thechilling exchange with Piper was all but forgotten. Faraway settledback into the quiet routine it had once known, no longer smotheringunder the heavy blanket of fear. In two weeks, Chief Jiminyannounced that he was retiring. A police lieutenant was appointed toreplace him and in a whirlwind, the town celebrated and sent him offinto his relaxing future, by the time week three had passed.

After week four hadcome and gone, the majority of the snow had melted, and hints ofspring appeared. The day past Piper's thirty day deadline arrivedsunny, unseasonably warm, and cheerful. Everybody was out and aboutwithout a care in the world. Because of course, nobody knew therewas any particular reason to care about anything. Jiminy was onvacation in Barbados, and he hadn't told a single soul about what heconsidered Piper's hollow threats.

Which was whynobody knew to pay any particular extra attention to Cailyn Pure asshe ambled along to school that morning. And so, it was practicallya synch to jerk her into a black sedan, and swerve off around thecorner.

***

Cailyn, Ella,Nicholas, Aspen, Kimberly, and Stella all disappeared in the sameorder that they'd disappeared before. Except, this time, it happenedso quickly that they were all gone before anyone noticed any of themmissing. But, by nightfall on day thirty one, the entire town was inan absolute frenzy.

Zoe, Jennifer,Hanley, and Giselle, who had basically parted ways after the rescue,found themselves shoulder to shoulder once again the next evening, atanother town meeting. This time, the new police chief seemed capableand was flanked by FBI agents. They delivered hollow reassurances,however gave no real answers or much hope of any kind. The fourcomrades listened intently and bolted at the first opportunity.

Outside, back onthe streets of Faraway, the girls raced to keep up with Hanley's longstrides.

"Hanley. Hanley! Wait up!" Zoe called as they finally caught him andfell in step with him. "What are you thinking?"

Hanley raked hishand angrily through his wavy black hair. "I don't know. Ihave no idea."

The four accidentalfriends strolled together to a nearby playground. Withoutcommunicating a desire to go there, they mutually gravitated to ajungle gym, where they each took posts upon the cold, steel bars.