Josephine Routledge is the twin sister to John B Routledge. Their dad goes missing during the search for the famous shipwreck, the Royal Merchant. The twins and their friends, JJ, Pope, and Kiara, come across the sunken boat that holds a clue to the...
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John B drove us back to the Chateau, but I sat in the front while JJ sat in the back. The three of us remained silent the whole way home.
Pope and Kiara were waiting for us as we pulled up. Pope asked where we had been as I flopped on the couch and put my head in his lap. He simply raised an eyebrow at me as JJ started explaining.
"And we were right outside like this," JJ told, leaning up against the brick fireplace to show how the three of us were at Ms. Lana's house. "And all we hear is just, Bam! Bam! Bam!"
I jumped slightly, and Pope put his hand over my eyes, causing me to roll them slightly before pushing his hand off my face.
"Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at him, like, wait, first off, look at this shit."
JJ walked up to stand between Pope and Kiara and shook white flakes out of his hair. I sat up and used my foot to push JJ away from the couch as Kiara sends me a disgusted look.
"That's dandruff, disgusting."
"Okay, thank you."
Pope brushed off his shorts.
"Look at all that. All right? That's paint. At that point, I just, like, I'm waiting for death."
I patted JJ reassuringly on the arm as he once again leaned up on the fire place.
"Would you like to settle for that or do you want the less dramatic version?"
JJ glared at me, pushing my hand off his arm, and took out his vape.
"Okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?"
"Yep," I answered Pope's question with a nod.
"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?"
I pursed my lips as I thought about Pope's question.
"Anything that could help. Anything we can bring to a police report?"
"Burly."
I sighed at JJ's vague answer.
"Burly?" Pope asked incredulously, as if he couldn't believe that was all JJ could say about them.
"Yeah, you know, like-"
"That's not very helpful," Kie shook her head as she interrupted JJ.
"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."
I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, it's not like you haven't told us about eight billion times."
JJ ignored me and kept talking.
"I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers," he paused to take a drag. "They're square groupers."
"They're square groupers, like narco square groupers? Like Pablo Escobar square groupers?"
