Here's another chapter for y'all.
Chapter 21: Eavesdropping
The rest of the afternoon went on fairly peaceful at the Moo River Inn. Clients had slowed down surprising a lot for a Saturday. Usually it was their busiest day of the week. Even some of the men working at the Inn seemed to be absent. And the calmness was a little bit unnerving for Dave.
"It's quiet around here, too quiet.", Dave stated, looking out a window toward the docks. He had seen the van go that way several times already. 'I wonder what their up too?' "What do you mean by that Dave?", Timmy looked up from the comic book that he found in the room. "It just feels too quiet around here, Tim. It's alittle unnerving if you ask me." "Well, I like the quiet. It's peaceful.", Timmy returned to his comic book. Dave saw the van pull back up and some men load some more stuff into the back of it. "I wonder what they're doing down there?"
"Is that everything?", one of the men said loading the last of the boxes into the van. "Almost, the only thing we have left to do is just assemble the beds in the shipping unit. The boss said he wants these kids shipped out by midnight, and we don't have alot of daylight hours left. We need to get a move on."
Dave saw the two men get back in the van and drive back off toward the dock. He knew they were discussing something, he just didn't know what. And his curiosity was getting the best of him.
Tonya was sitting a the bar, watching something on T.V.. The Inn had pretty much died down since lunch time, when everyone starting making the preparations. 'Dirk, I hope you get here soon...', Tonya sunk her head into her hands. 'What if they don't get here in ti...', "Hey Tonya, what's going on around here? Where's everybody at?", Dave asked as he walked into the bar, breaking Tonya from her thoughts. "Huh? What'd you say sweetie?", Tonya said lifting her head up. "It's too quiet around here, where is everybody?" "I don't know sweetie.", Tonya lied, "I'm sure that their around here somewhere."
Dave wasn't buying it, he knew Tonya was lying, and Tonya knew that he knew that she was lying. Dave sat down at the bar, "Tonya, what's going on around here?", Dave looked her in the eyes. The guilt was eating Tonya up inside, but she just couldn't tell him. It would mean certain death, for both of them. She already risked her life once, she couldn't do it again. "It's nothing Dave, everything is fine!" Yeah, now Dave defiantly knew something was up. Fine, if Tonya wasn't going to tell him, he'd have to find out on his own.
When Tonya wasn't looking, Dave quietly got up from his seat, and snuck out into the hallway that adjoined the bar area. When Tonya looked up and saw that Dave wasn't there, she just assumed that he left it at that and gone back into the break room with the others and didn't give it much thought. The hallway was dark so Dave stayed close to the wall and quietly tiptoed down the hall was quietly as he could. He knew that if he was caught, he would be dead meat. But he just had to know what was going on around here.
Dave heard a voice coming from a door that he was slowly approaching. Far against his better judgment, he decided to stick his ear to the door and listened to the conversation that was taking place inside.
"Yes, uh huh, yes. Yes yes, all the preparations are being made now as we speak." 'Preparations...What preparations?' "Yes, I have arranged to have them shipped out tonight. When will you be expecting them? Next week at the earliest. Haha yes, just in time for the holidays!" 'What the hell is going on here? What are they doing? Who are they planning to ship out?', every instinct in Dave's body told him to run. To get the hell away from that door as fast as he could. But; before he could do anything, he heard foot steps approach the door and saw the door knob turn. Without a moment to spare, Dave quickly leaned up against the wall behind the door. Just as he pressed his body up against the wall as far as he could, the door opened and was just millimeters away from hitting Dave in the face. Without saying a word, Noir stepped out of his office and walked down the darkened hallway, completely oblivious that Dave was right behind his door.
As soon as he thought Noir was gone, he stuck his head out from behind the door, and peaked into the room. 'What the hell are you doing Strider? Get out of here before he comes back!', Dave's instincts screamed at him. Curiosity officially over came him when saw papers on Noir's desk. He quietly made his way into the room to get a look at those papers. He approached the desk and took a good look at the papers. 'What the hell is all this?' Words like shipment to Shangai, China from Seattle, Washington were on most of the papers. It took a moment for it to finally click. 'He-he's planning to ship us out to China! Oh my God! I-I have to warn the oth...', "Well, it looks like a little birdie saw more than he should have." Dave was quite certain that he just pissed his pants. He jumped around and saw Jack Noir standing in the door way.
'I'm dead...'