Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Innocent

Arriving at the Wheeler's house in the back of a cop car with Max definitely didn't seem like something Annie was going to do over spring break. Or ever. If Steve found out about this, he'd be pissed off. To the max.

When they walked in the house, Annie saw Lucas' parents and Erica, Dustin's mom, and the Wheeler's. No sign of Max's mom or either of Annie's parents.

Chief Powell saw Annie looking around a bit. "We rang your house, no one answered. Do you know how we can get a hold of your parents?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Don't bother, they must've already left," she said. It was barely six days they were home this go around.

The chief didn't know how to answer, so he looked over at Max. "Is your mom home? We tried her, too, and no answer."

Max shook her head. "She's probably working. I can't call her at work, she'll get in trouble," Max said, quietly.

He nodded, and the kids were sat down on the Wheeler's living room couch. Chief Powell got one of the officers to get a notepad out and started to ask questions.

"What exactly were you all doing at the lake?" he asked.

None of them wanted to answer. They hadn't confirmed their story with each other, yet, so how were they going to know how to answer any of these questions and not give themselves away?

They looked at each other, seeing if anyone wanted to try and give an answer. Dustin mumbled something, and Max spoke up.

"We were just... we were just going for a walk," she answered.

"A walk?" The officer with the notepad was starting to get on Annie's nerves. "At nine pm?"

"To the lake," Dustin said, his voice way too high. "We were gonna... take a little swim... Little night swim?"

Annie tried her best to keep a neutral face on and nod. But it was hard. Not only was Dustin's voice absolutely hilarious, he was also not making things much better. It was too obvious he was lying.

"Dusty," his mom said. "Someone was just murdered there!"

They all slowly nodded. "Yeah, we... we didn't realize that until we got there!"

"That's why we didn't swim!" Lucas jumped in.

"And Nancy," Mrs. Wheeler jumped in, "was she with you at this night swim?"

"No."

"Yes! Uh..."

"We're not sure..."

Annie cleared her throat. "She was there. Then she left..."

"It's all a little confusing," Dustin added on.

"That's when you guys came," Lucas said. Their story was kind of taking shape?

Annie was nodding along. "They dared me to say what I said," she said, gesturing to the boys to her right.

Lucas let out an awkward chuckle. "Oh yeah..." He and Dustin started to laugh, Max and Annie weakly joining in. "About the killer..."

"You're lucky you didn't get shot!" Mr. Wheeler said, cutting the laughs off. Mrs. Wheeler gave him a look.

That's when Chief Powell got back into his questions. "Have you had any contact with Eddie?"

"That... psycho... freak... killer? God no! Nope. Absolutely not," Dustin answered.

The other three shook their heads with him. Max added, "We haven't heard from him..."