JULIET
Do you have any idea how long the flight from the Eastern coast of Italy to Vancouver, Canada is? Twelve. Hours.
Even on Declan's rather nice private plane, the trip seemed to last an eternity. How long had it been since Shawn went missing? Fifteen hours? A day? I could feel the microscopic sliver of hope I was retaining shrink with each passing minute.
About thirty minutes into the flight I gave up on sleeping. It was sort of the situation where I almost felt like I needed to mute my thoughts or something. They were so loud they kept me awake. Know what I mean? Oh! Have you ever heard the song "So Close" by the Eli Young Band? Well, it was just like that.
I'm not going to lie. During the seemingly endless hours on that God forsaken airplane, I suffered from my own special brand of psychosis. We're talking major emotional confusion. I jumped from feeling extreme guilt, to burning anger, to crippling sadness, to complete incomprehension, to just plain detachment about every three to thirty minutes.
Can you blame me? In under half a day I was violently and suddenly ripped out of my potentially perfect Italian paradise and plunged into what can only be described as a living nightmare. (How's that sentence for alliteration?). Now, I wouldn't exactly say that I was having an emotional breakdown. Well, in retrospect, that's actually probably a pretty good description.
It didn't help that I was literally the only passenger on the plane. I mean, I could have gone Orlando Bloom in "Elizabethtown" and spilled my soul to my flight attendant, but I see myself as much more of a Rachel from "Friends", confiding in my own, Hugh Laurie-shaped neighbor in the chair next to me. Unfortunately, Hugh Laurie was nowhere to be found. As a result, I ended up muttering to myself quite a bit-About what I can't even tell you.
Yeah. The more I describe the situation the more fitting "emotional breakdown" seems…
By the time the plane landed, a count of sleep depravation could be added to my list of mental hurdles. Luckily, I guess, I had reached the point of such complete, all consuming exhaustion that I didn't so much feel tired, it was just that my brain and my mind were going different speeds, know what I mean? Like, if I were to touch a stove I would get second degree burns before I thought to move my hand.
No big deal.
As soon as the plane's fancy little seat belt sign flickered off, I was up and out of my seat, bag in hand, sprinting to the door. I had to wait almost two minutes before the door was actually opened, which wasn't so good for my sanity. It was probably six in the morning or so by the time I hopped into a car (Declan must've called ahead to have one waiting. Why'd he have to be such a nice guy?)
That was probably the point in time where it hit me. What the heck was I doing? Where was I going? I had no idea what police station Gus and Carlton were at. Was I even going to go to the station, or would I look for Shawn myself? Had they already found him? Oh God! I thought. They could have already found him and I wouldn't even know!
It was then that I realized what I probably should have spent my twelve-hour plane ride thinking about.
"Where are you headed?" The limo driver's voice pulled me away from the verge of yet another nervous breakdown.
"Uh, the Mounties station," I told him, making a split decision.
"Which one?" He asked.
"Just whatever one's closest," I said, figuring that I could just ask for Macintosh and be redirected if necessary.
"You got it," The driver replied, pulling out of the small airfield.
Of course, as we've surely learnt by now, things don't ever work out that simply for me. Oh no, I couldn't just meet Gus and Lassiter at the police station. That's way too easy.
"What the-?" My driver burst out about ten minutes into our drive.
I looked out my window to see what he was talking about just in time to see a grey pickup truck whipping past our car. The truck was closely followed by two cars, one police car, sirens blaring, one apparently pedestrian car, both of which came fishtailing around the corner up ahead.
I really can't explain it, but for some reason, those three cars gave me this feeling.
I then said the three most idiotic words I've ever said in my entire life. "Follow that car."
How stupid is that? I had no idea who was chasing and who was being chased. For all I knew, I was getting my poor driver into the dangerous pursuit of an armed criminal!
My driver spun around to look at me. "Are you crazy, lady?"
Yes.
"SBPD. Follow that car!" The insanity just wouldn't stop flowing from my mouth as I pulled my badge from my purse and brandished it at the driver.
"Lord help me," He muttered, jerking his steering wheel to make a u-turn.
Yes, I know how stupid and unlikely this sounds, but I swear it happened.
We sped down the road, maintaining a safe but relatively close tail on the cop and civilian cars chasing the truck. The cop car's siren conveniently cleared the road of the few drivers out so early.
The pursuit lasted probably five minutes, ending when the two cars cornered the truck in a dead-end alley. I must admit, I was extremely impressed by my driver's ability to keep up.
"There you go," The driver announced, pulling up to the crowd of cars, "You better be one hell of a tipper."
"Thank you so much," I told him, jumping out of the vehicle.
I was immediately drawn to the commotion over by the perp's truck at the end of the alley. The pursuers had all exited their cars by now, and I arrived just in time to see one of them slam the suspect into the brick wall of the alley, slapping cuffs onto his wrists.
I wasn't surprised to recognize three of the four pursuers.
"Is that him?" I called down the alley, my eyes locked on the truck driver.
All five men spun around to look at me with a look of confusion on their faces.
"Juliet?" Gus called out.
OooOooO
Yeah, I know, guys…
So, y'all are ridiculously awesome. Being completely honest, I don't deserve you. I just hope you guys understand that I really am trying as hard as I can to get this written and published. Thanks so much for being so nice.
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