A street racer and a cafe

Ch.28 A ghost in the mountains

The next few days were not easy for Ox or for a lot of us, but I was handling it better than most because all the evidence that we were provided with said that Azuki had to be alive still. When Cross brought the pictures of the accident scene by the bakery he stated that a body was never found, that there was no way a car that was on fire could disappear like that especially in the ten minutes between Ox and I leaving and the cops arriving to the scene, it didn't make sense. I decided that tonight I was going to investigate myself, cross left the photo's with us, I was going to head up the mountain and compare the scene now to the pictures taken then and see if I can find anything.

Night soon fell and I looked to Coconut and Maple to keep Ox in high spirits. "Maple, Coconut, I want the two of you to keep Ox happy while I'm out, don't let him think about Azuki, ok?" I said

"Ok, but what are you gonna do?" Coconut asked

"I'm gonna go up the mountain and investigate the crash sight my self and see if there's anything odd up there." I say

"We'll do our best for Ox." Maple said

I nodded to them and grabbed my car keys and headed out the door, got in my car, started it and drove off to the mountains. I see why Azuki loved to drift up here, lots of winding sharp turns that lead all the way to the top, I even managed to drift a few myself. I slid around the last turn and slammed the breaks, I pulled my Supra to the side of the road, shut it off and stepped out of the car.

The cool air of the summer night hit me with a sweat sent of grass and nearby flowers, I walked around to the trunk of my car and pulled a flash light out and clicked it on. In the other hand I had the pictures Cross gave us. I flipped though them, most thinks were the same or missing as I'm sure there was a clean up crew to pick up the scraps of metal and broken glass shards.

I continued looking around when a shimmer reflected the light. I walked over to it and pulled it out from under a  medium sized bush and found it to be a wheel, rim, tire and all, worn obviously from drifting. I shone the light on the rim and realized it was one from Azuki's RX7, but the odd thing was, there were no nuts or bolts connected to the rim. At the speed Azuki was traveling during the crash the momentum of the car would have ripped the bolts out of the rear axil and probably the break shoe as well but this was clean, no damage to the rim, tire in usable condition, no holes, nothing.

I continued searching and found something else, a rear break line, cut in half, whoever did this wanted to kill Azuki, the tire with the loosened nuts and the cut break lines meant someone was in our garage last night. I took the tire and break lines and out them in the trunk of my car and got in and started driving down the mountain. It wasn't long before I heard the buzz of another car behind me, they were close, real close, so close their head lights were lighting up the inside of my car.

The head lights started flashing, and according to Ox if a car flashes their head lights at you up in the mountains it means they want to race you down the mountain. So I stepped on the gas and raced them down the mountain, the car got around me and was now in front, one of the rims was a different style compared to the other three rims, I could see the car was a RX7, at first I thought it was Aki drifting in the mountains as Ox told me she often fid at late hours, but then I noticed something, the paint color specifically, it was red, the front fenders were black and so was the hood and front bumper. The front windshield had a large crack in it and the side windows were tapped over with black  duct tape but what scared me the most was the license plate number "ZUZU9995" Zuzu was the nickname everyone had for Azuki, and the numbers stood for September 9th, 1995 the day, month and year Azuki was born.

I followed the RX7 down the mountain when I remembered something Ox told me, "Azuki always scrapes the rear bumper of her car on the final turn of the mountain before the strait that leads back to the city." I watched the RX7 as we came to the final turn and sure enough I could hear and see the scrapping of the bumper against the guard railing and onto the strait, I was at least 6 feet behind the RX7 when a Mustang darted through the intersection and cut me line of sight with the RX7, when the Mustang was out of sight, RX7 gone, disappeared into thin air, and I wasn't that far away either I would have still been able to see the cars tail lights, what did I see up there, I better head back to the bakery and tell everyone what I found up there, I doubt they'd believe that I a red RX7 with the same number plate as Azuki's.

Oooohhh, what did you guys think? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Stay tuned for the next chapter. Later.