Unleash The Island

Chapter 26

The four of them hopped into Imani's car. Leo kept his eyes out for Wayne, who was still standing in the house somewhere. EJ stared at the floor of the car, checking her shoes. Pent up energy rushed through her body and the car was getting more cramped by the minute.

Imani angled her head towards the back of the car and asked, "Where do you want to go?"

"Shelly's," Gavin blurted, stupidly thought they were actually going to a bar.

"First things first," EJ said, "you two need to turn off your locations, or shut your phones off."

"Wait," Gavin said, confused. "What's going on?"

Leo looked at his step brother with a serious face. "Gavin, we think it was Wayne that killed my mom."

"What?!" Gavin looked at all of them like they had three heads. "Are you guys crazy? Did you pull that out of your ass?"

The cops started to walk out of the house and Imani did not want to wait any longer. She pulled the lever downwards and pressed the gas pedal. The car jolted as they drove around the driveway and out to the main road.

Gavin held onto the bar like he was a mom. "My dad wouldn't-"

"Gavin. You're such an idiot sometimes." Leo understood why EJ was irate at him before. "He was the only one at the house. Who else could've done it?!"

Gavin did not have time to protest. They were already too far off a walk for him to go back. "There's cameras in the house, right? What if we check those?"

He was a genius. Leo changed his mind about him, temporarily. He shook his shoulder. "Yes. That's it! The cops probably haven't even asked about them."

"Does anybody have a laptop?" Gavin asked.

"I do," EJ stated. "It's at my house." Imani already knew how to get there, but not from a good experience. She may have driven Gina to her house and they egged it. Imani was the only one to apologize. "Turn off your locations."

Leo and Gavin pulled their phones out. With quickness, they opened the app and found their names. With his pointer finger, he swiped the little bar by his name and his picture on the map disappeared. Two seconds later, Gavin's was gone as well.

The sun was setting already. Leo and EJ must have been at the beach longer than they had thought. By the time they were almost at EJ's house, the clouds were dark gray and the sun was long gone. The moon and stars were hidden.

Something in EJ's gut twisted. Without realizing before, Leo's hand was laying in the middle. His elbow rested on the cupholder. He was lost in his own world. His eyebrows were firm and the muscles in his jaw moved around. EJ extended her left hand and flipped his hand over. He did not peel his eyes off the outside world. His hand was large and callused. With the tip of her pointer finger, she traced the lines on his palm. His arm relaxed and he let himself lay into his seat. After her second round on the lines, his hand clasped like it was a clam. His fingers gripped onto hers and her palm laid on top of his. He did that without having to even look. His eyes trained on the roads. He was looking for anything, anybody, or him. He tightened his grip on her hand.

They got to the house a couple of minutes after that. Imani parked her car in the driveway and they made their way towards the door. EJ led the way. Leo had a hand on her back, lightly grazing her. She pushed her key into the first, then second hole. She pushed the door open and they stampeded in. When they were all inside, she slammed the door shut and locked everything. She led the way towards her room. They piled in and she locked that door behind her.

"I know the password to the security system," Gavin said with a grimace, "but he'll get a notification that somebody tried to get into the network."

EJ opened her computer, typed her password in, and pressed the Google app. Once the browser opened, an empty page was waiting. Gavin sat on her desk chair, waiting for his time to shine.

"Just do it quickly," Leo said standing behind him. "We'll pull up the footage, take a video of it, then log out."

After a hefty inhale and exhale, Gavin started typing. The network started to load and the login page was there. He typed in Wayne's email and his password. It was Gavin's birthday. "EJ, I'm about to press the login button. Can you record it?"

EJ whipped her phone out and found the camera app. Gavin pressed the blue button and he was in. There were four cameras. The cops were still there, but Wayne was nowhere to be seen, at least on the cameras.

"Run the cameras back to around four from yesterday," Leo instructed. "Wayne found us in town ten minutes later."

Gavin glanced back at Leo and EJ. "You two better be right."

He went to the time and started to backtrace. There were flashes of images. They saw when they walked out of the house, talked to each other, and the cops walked around. The nighttime cast into the rooms, then the next day came around. The cops were there, they were all pacing around, Leo bolted for the backyard, and they entered the house from their dinner with Wayne. It was getting closer to four PM.

That was when they saw it. EJ pressed the recording button and Gavin raised his finger from the button, letting the recording roll. There was no sound, but it was not needed. Leo kept his eyes on the screen. EJ was shaking, but kept her hands steady. Wayne had punched her on the side of her head. The glass table shattered. Gavin did not want to watch, but his eyes stayed on the screen. They all watched as Wayne dragged a dazed Lisa up the stairs and that was all they could see until they were out of frame. EJ stopped recording and the video was saved.

None of them moved, except for when Gavin logged out of the network. He closed the browser and shut the computer. He did not say anything. Leo grew more furious. He thought about punching something, but remembered where he was.

"Send it to all of us in case your phone dies or something," Gavin said firmly. His muscles tensed up. "We need to bring it to the police."

EJ shared the video with Leo, who sent it to Gavin and Imani. They all got the video and downloaded it. They took a couple breaths and EJ held Leo's hands, extended his fingers outward so he would not ball up them into fists. He was trying to cool himself off. They had to focus and think.

There was a knock at the door.