Chasing Sunshine | JJ Maybank

45 // The Bell Tower

"Okay...okay all right, no."

Kie's eyes followed Pope's form as he walked back to the car from the ferry docks, wide-eyed and muttering nonsense. "Pope can you act normal?" she sniped.

The three of us in the back sat up in alarm when he threw open the driver's side door and got back inside without really answering her. "So, um...okay bad news," he announced, shoving a heavy sheet of paper into Kie's hands, "Ferry's closed, and there's this."

I saw her reflection in the rear-view as her face blanched upon giving the page a once-over. I scooted forward to stick my head over her shoulder as she cursed under her breath and tilted the flyer so I could see the good old-fashioned wanted poster clutched in her fist, complete with a closely-cropped mugshot of John B and a handsome 25K reward for finding him. "Well this is...potentially problematic," I sighed and JJ poked my shoulder so I would hand it over while John B hissed behind me.

"What is that? What is this?"

I passed the flyer from Kie to JJ, collapsing back against my seat and ignoring John B's questions. I watched for JJ's reaction, which was only his mouth contorting into a mild grimace and he turned his wrist so John B could see what we were all talking about. "Well, John B, this is uh...this is a good framer of you."

John B's face fell from urgent curiosity to barely-suppressed panic and Kiara twisted in her seat to glance between us anxiously. Pope tapped his palm against the wheel of the car, still jittery from whatever JJ had given him during the course of this morning. "Okay, so the whole island's lookin' for John B right now," he stated, like the rest of us didn't already know that.

"That's a lot of money," Kie added.

"Congratulations, John B," JJ said sarcastically, handing the posting off to him, "You're now famous."

"Guys, we've got to get to the HMS," Kie suggested desperately, "We need small, no running lights-"

"We'd never be able to get to it," I muttered quietly, rubbing my hands over my face as I tried to evaluate our quickly-dwindling options.

John B added for clarification, "It's at the Château, Kie."

"And I wonder if the cops got the entire place staked out," JJ mused, turning to the rest of us and bringing his fingers to his chin to ponder sarcastically, "Let me think...oh yeah, no. They definitely have that place locked down."

Kiara shifted back and sucked in an irritated breath while rolling her eyes. "Yeah, copy that."

Pope shut his eyes, his hands still in a constant state of agitated motion while he talked over the rest of us. "Let me think, just a second." After only a moment or two, he must have thought of something, because his eyes sprang open and he turned around, clutching the head rest, and said, "JJ."

"What?"

"Does your dad still have that boat?" Pope asked him, "The cigarette boat, t-the Phantom. The one he used to race?"

"Maybe..."

"You could get right up the coast no problem," Pope replied excitedly, turning back around and fumbling with the keys dangling from the ignition. JJ, Kie, and him all started to think out loud all at once but the drum of their combined voices was pounding away at my skull. Add in the constant stress of being caught to the fact that I was exhausted and had nothing to eat except half a chocolate-chip muffin, and I had a recipe for an approaching migraine. JJ was trying to figure out where the keys to his father's boat were, Kiara was unsuccessfully trying to calm Pope down, who, we were coming to realize, could not handle his weed but John B's serious whispering cut through it all.