AVRIL'S CASE -BOOK 2

Chapter Two

Cassie tossed and turned in her bed, having great difficulty in sleeping. Anytime she shut her eyes, the distraction of the numbers she saw in the cabin would constantly flash through her mind, rendering her completely and utterly restless. It was all she could think of in her drive back home the night before, and on her bed when she tried to sleep. She sat up and retrieved the foolscap paper from under her pillow, she turned on her lamp and once again, tried her hardest to decode it, but it seemed the longer she studied it, the harder it was for her to comprehend. She picked up her laptop from her bedside table, and as soon as it came on, she bothered the internet with questions of what those numbers could mean, but she found absolutely nothing that related to them.

She had thought that through that picture, she was finally getting close, finally going to receive some answers, she thought that finally, everything will fall into place and make sense. She never imagined going back to where she had started; a place of confusion and cluelessness. With those numbers, she felt like she had been given a clueless clue, an answerless answer. It was a comma or possibly a full stop to her investigation, she knew that she had to decode the code to get to the next page of her investigation, otherwise she would be stuck on one page and she would never get to the end of the story.

She groaned at her lack of progress, and then she placed the paper back under her pillow. She shut her eyes again trying to sleep, she was successful, but ten minutes into her sleep, her phone rang; bringing her to an annoying wake. She muttered a few curses at whoever interrupted her sleep before looking at her screen. It was Danny's name and picture popped up. Her friends had been trying to reach her all night but she ignored their calls and didn't bother reading--let alone replying their messages. She knew they were smart and that they would drill her with so many questions. She needed to see them in person to try to convince them that she was alright, if she didn't do that, they'd start investigations of their own. She took in a deep breath and not fully knowing why, clicked on the green button on her phone.

"Hello," Danny said in a rushed and relieved tone. "Goodness, where have you been. The whole of Freetown has been trying to reach you," he over exaggerated.

Cassie could not help but giggle and roll her eyes, "You better have a good reason for calling me at..." she pulled the phone off her ears to take a glance at the time, and then she placed it back "2:17am," she said.

"And you better have a good reason for disappearing and ignoring everyone. Come on Cassie, we were all worried about you, the least you could have done was to send a text saying you're fine, or something else...anything," he said in a hurt and somewhat angry tone.

She felt bad at that point, yes, she had a scare, but she knew perfectly well how worried Tyler and the rest of her friends could be. They were always worried that she would go off the rails again. "I'm sorry," she said softly "I overreacted over the issue and I know I left you guys worried, the right thing to do would have been to call, so I'm sorry, okay?" He didn't say anything "Forgive me yet?" she pressed, biting her lips impatiently.

"Not yet," he said, "Cassie everyone is worried that you're obsessing over something again. You had the same look you had when you solved the detectives' case."

"Danny, I'm not obsessing over anything okay?" she sat up, and guiltily felt for the paper under her pillow. "So stop worrying so much Daniel." She teased.

"If you say so," he said with uncertainty, but decided not to press further, in order not to anger her "but I'll only forgive you if you never call me Daniel again."

"Hmmm," she placed her hands under her chin "promise to never call me Cass baby, Cassie bear, Cassandra, or any other thing you call me again?"

"Nope."