✔Secrets of Saltwater Bay

🐶Chapter 7

Beneath the glimmering moonlight, we held each other close in bed. Our limbs entangled with one another, tucked away under the blanket. We were safe and sound from dangerous killers. At least, that's what I thought when I drifted off to sleep with my boyfriend in my arms.

Cozy dreams faded away in the cool breeze as I opened my eyes at three in the morning. Blinking away the tiredness, I rolled over and reached over for my boyfriend. But when my arms met nothing but the warm sheet where his body laid, dread shot through me like electricity.

I shot straight out of bed and fumbled through the dark for the light-switch. Casper was gone. He didn't leave a note or text either. That meant he must have left willingly, but why would he go without telling me? Did he just not want to disturb my slumber? Maybe he just went down to the kitchen for a snack or to the bathroom?

Jeez, all the investigating had gotten me more paranoid than Casper. I needed to be sure he was okay.

Perturbed by my boyfriend's absence, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and called him to figure out why he abandoned me in the middle of the night. When his familiar ringtone blared through the bedroom, my heart sunk. I located his iPhone in the bed under one of the pillows. His password was easy and not as complicated as I'd suspect a wannabe detective would make it.

It was my birthday. March 18th (0318)

I noticed a strand of new texts from Katherine. Or, suspect #1, as my boyfriend had programmed into his phone. She was desperate to speak to him in person for some reason. Her texts were too vague for me to know exactly what she wanted to show him, but apparently it wasn't something that could be shared through a text message.

Casper told her to meet him at the stop sign on his street. That ambitious idiot! My heart pounded as I dashed down the hall. I didn't know what Katherine's wicked scheme was, but I'd be damned before I let her try to dump his corpse in Saltwater Bay. I didn't alert Casper's parents yet, not when I thought I could handle everything on my own without him getting in trouble. Maybe that was stupid, but I didn't want to scare them if I was wrong about her.

I was out the door faster than a marathon sprinter. The chilling night breeze caressed my skin as I tread through the grass. Casper's bike was no longer parked alongside mine in the fenced in backyard. Hopefully, he just set out on his murderer-catching mission. I'd still have time to catch up to him.

Before I took off on my own bike, I heard a dog barking. The sound was very close but none of his neighbors had a dog on this block. At least, not that I was aware of. I put the thought out of mind when I reached the sidewalk and peddled as fast as I physically could.

Casper was smart. He knew what he was doing. He must have had a plan created before he left. He wouldn't throw himself into the hands of danger unless he knew what he was doing. Casper wasn't that irrational. Too ambitious? Absolutely. But he'd never do something without a plan. Why he didn't bring his phone was beyond me, but perhaps that had been intentional. Maybe he wanted me to find it and his texts.

Relief flooded over me when I spotted Casper near the bob-wired fence of the Thompson's house, but it was short-lived. As I inched closer to the stop sign, I saw that my boyfriend wasn't alone.There was a gun directed at his chest.

What was I supposed to do? How could I help him? My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to figure what I could do.

I had an advantage. The gun owner had yet to take notice of me, so I made sure to keep it that way. Carefully, I crept over into the neighbor's shrubs to hide myself and my bicycle. I slipped my phone out and quickly dialed 911 to get police routed out to our area. Casper and I couldn't handle the psycho ourselves. We needed backup ASAP.