Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Five: End Game

"Steve!"

The chorus of kids yelling got Steve's focus back on the road, but he glanced in his rearview mirror to look at Max. "You stole her office keys? You were supposed to get information on Chrissy and what she might've told Ms. Kelly!"

She sighed. "Yeah, well, it's kind of her job not to tell random people about one person's private information. So, I improvised. Annie thought it was a good idea."

He nearly swerved again when his sister got mentioned. "You knew?!"

Annie, holding onto the car door handle for dear life, sighed. "We kind of planned it on the way here. As a 'plan B' of sorts. But now we can go straight to the source! Er- as close to the source as we can, really," Annie said.

The car was silent. Steve was processing how they were about to be criminals once more, while Dustin was more impressed. "That's... actually kind of smart."

"Don't encourage this!" Steve scolded. "How much illegal shit have we done in the past two, three years? Why do we want to add more!"

Max shrugged. "Why not add more? I mean, what else could hurt at this point," she pointed out, using Steve's point to turn it back on him.

"Plus, now we can maybe see if there are any patterns. Then, look to see if we can predict the next victim," Dustin brought up.

Steve was going to respond when a voice came crackling over Dustin's radio. "Dustin. It's Lucas. Do you copy? Dustin."

"Lucas," Dustin greeted, but he wasn't exactly thrilled. "Where the hell have you been?" Nope, was definitely not happy.

"Just listen. Are you guys looking for Eddie?"

"Yeah! We found him no thanks to you," Dustin answered. Annie didn't stop the eye roll she felt coming.

"You found him?" His lack of faith almost hurt Annie.

"He's at a boathouse on Coal Mill Road. Don't worry, he's safe."

But Annie could tell that's not the part Lucas cared about. He sounded like he had much bigger issues to share.

"You guys know he killed Chrissy, right?"

Max and Annie both sighed in frustration. Max didn't want to keep repeating the same story over and over again.

Plus, Lucas hit Dustin's soft spot. "That's bullshit! Eddie tried to save Chrissy."

"Then why do all the cops say he did it?"

Max moved, snatching the walkie from Dustin's hand and taking over. "Lucas, you're so behind, it's ridiculous, okay? Just meet us at the school. We'll explain later."

"Again," Annie mumbled under her breath.

There was a small pause before Lucas answered. "I... I can't. I think some real bad shit's about to go down."

"What are you talking about? What 'bad shit'?" Max asked.

They never got a response. "What the hell...?" Annie said, grabbing the walking from Max. "Lucas!" No response. Even when Max tried to call out, there was nothing.

"Do you think he's okay?" Max asked. "He was about to tell us something- about the shit going down."

Annie shook her head, and Dustin replied. "What are we going to do? We have no idea where he called from! Maybe... maybe Erica or his parents are bothering him now. Maybe he's messing with us! But he knows where we're meeting, so he can come warn us if he needs to."