A Mystery Novel

~ČĤÁPŤĔŔ 15~

"Tyler, you can't come with us cause of your leg, you won't be able to run if you need to," Xander says, "stay here and keep watch, if anyone wants to come in, call me."

"Maybe I should stay with Ty, what if the killer tries to attack him? If I'm here, he'll be safe," Jacob says.

"What stops the killer from killing both of you?" Miley asks.

"I look intimidating," he says, Miley glares at him. He sighs and follows them to cross the street. They tentatively walk to the front door.

"Its locked,"  Xander says.

"Oh well, we tried," Jacob says, already walking down the porch stairs.

"Let's check the back," Miley says. Fortunately, the backdoor is open and they go in.

The house looks normal, nothing is out of place. Xander and Jacqueline search downstairs while Miley and Jacob go upstairs.

Thirty minutes go by and Jacqueline gets tired of looking, at this point, she's just admiring the decor and arrangement of the living room. On a shelf at a corner are antiques. Figurines, a really old looking camera with a red beeping light, family photos. His two kids look old enough to be in college.

"Jacqueline, focus!" Miley snaps, suddenly beside Jacqueline, making her jump.

"Sorry," she says then Xander's phone starts ringing really loud. They panic for a few seconds before they realize its just his phone.

"Why isn't you phone on silent you idiot?" Miley berates, "who's calling?"

"Tyler."

"Doesn't he know we're doing something important? Why's he calling?" She asks. The sound of the front door closing answers her question.

The three of them don't waste time in running out the backdoor.

The sound of the backdoor closing alerts Mrs. Foster, she moves quietly through the house, looking for the trespasser.

Jacob, who's still upstairs, realizes that he can no longer hear his friends' voices. He starts to go down the stairs but freezes in his tracks when he sees Mrs. Foster standing at the foot of the stairs. She can't see him though because she's looking in the direction of the living room so her back is to him.

He immediately turns around and tries to quietly run up the stairs, keyword: tries. He stumbles a few times, getting the attention of Mrs. Foster.

She walks into her kitchen and grabs the largest knife. This is not going to end well. She walks up the stairs.

Jacob enters a random room, he closes the door too loudly and tries to lock it. It doesn't have a lock but he does, bad luck! See what I did there? Lock and luck? No? Okay.

Anyways, he looks around but there's no where to hide. There's no space between the bed and the floor, the closet is too obvious, she will definitely check there, besides, its basically empty. He looks through the window which is just above the roof. He can climb unto the roof and stay there until she leaves.

Just as he climbs the roof and moves to the left so that Mrs. Foster won't see him, she opens the door to the room he's in.

She checks the closet first, her knife ready to do serious damage. She checks a few other places before she moves to the window.

Xander, Jacqueline, Miley and Tyler watch from Miley's lawn without knowing what to do. They frantically move their hands about, trying to tell him what to do but his heart is beating so fast and he can barely think.

He tries to move to the other side of the house in case Mrs. Foster decides to look out the window. One of the roof tiles shifts and he slips but is able to regain his balance before he falls off.

"Oh my God!" Jacqueline exclaims.

"Xander, we have to do something! She's going to kill him," Miley says, almost in tears.

"I'm trying to think, this is Mr. Foster's crazy wife we're talking about," Xander says, pacing around Miley's lawn.

Mrs. Foster sticks her head out the window and looks to the right. Xander knows the next thing she'll do is to look to the left and when she does, she'll definitely see Jacob and probably chop him up into different pieces. He's very sure she's capable of doing that. She'll just tell the cops he broke into her house, she thought he was a burglar, he tried to attack her, she had to defend herself. They'll definitely believe her.

Without thinking, he runs to the other side of the street to her lawn. She spots him immediately.

"Hey! Hey you! Get off my lawn!" She yells.

Xander goes to her front door and repeatedly rings the bell while knocking at the same time like Jacob's life depends on it.

"Ugh! Teenagers," she curses and leaves the room to answer the door.

Jacob and the others sigh in relief but gasp as another tile shifts. He slides down a little but grabs another tile, holding unto it for dear life.

"What?!" Mrs. Foster yells when she opens the front door.

"Uh.....is Mr. Foster home?" Xander asks.

"No, why?"

"Well, he was my math teacher in high school, I was just passing by and wanted to thank him for being an awesome teacher," he says, smiling widely.

"He's not here, get lost!" She slams the door shut and locks it.

Xander sighs, he's heart was beating so hard, he was sure it could break out of his chest any second.

Another tile shifts, this time, Jacob doesn't have enough time to grab anything, he rapidly slides off the roof and hits the hard concrete driveway.

"No!"

"Jacob!"

"Oh God!"

Jacqueline, Miley and Tyler run to his side of the street, there's already blood spreading on the driveway.

They immediately carry him off Mrs. Foster's driveway before she sees them.

~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~

Dat......did not end well. So did he like die or something? 🤷. Guess we'll never know, or will we?

Me out ✌. 💜 u lots 😘😘😘