Chapter 2 - When It All Goes to the Dogs
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"I don't know. I'm just saying it kinda sorta looks like her," Sketchy said as he gazed at the wanted poster, dollar signs evident in his eyes.
Herbal Thought immediately leaped to Max's defense. "That paper there speaks of wicked things. Max is a righteous woman with no malice in her heart for no one."
Original Cindy concurred. "I know my girl. She's a badass, straight up, but she's not a killer."
Sketchy, however, was insistent. "I'm not saying she killed anybody. Just that... I see a resemblance."
It didn't help Original Cindy at all that Sketchy didn't think Max a killer. But Original Cindy was definitely beginning to think him an utter moron. "No, no. What you think you're seeing is the fifty large reward in your pocket. But you better get your eyes right, and double-quick, too. Otherwise, what you're gonna be seein' is Original Cindy puttin' the smackdown—"
Herbal Thought quickly grabbed her by the arm before she could carry out her threat. He pulled her away and off towards the pickup desk, leaving her there to get a package as he walked away to deliver his.
Original Cindy reached a shaking hand across the counter to grab a package. The picture didn't kinda sorta look like Max. It was Max. She could feel it all the way down to her soul.
She's not a killer, she told herself repeatedly. She had a strong faith in that. But the flyer could mean that someone else had decided to hunt Max. Only a few days had passed since she had seen the marks on Max's neck. Maybe whoever had put them there was trying to find her…
Cindy shook the thoughts away. Working myself up over somethin' that's probably nothin'. Max is probably on top of whatever it is. She looked at the address on her package, and took off, intending to keep herself busy until lunch. Then she could ask Max herself what was on the up and up.
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Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Half an hour. A full hour finally went by before Original Cindy began to get worried again. Sure, her friend could always be counted on to be on the late side of time, but this was ridiculous. She took a quick, final glance at her watch before finally giving up and going to the pay phone. She dialed Max's pager number, and began to wait.
Soon, a distraction made his way into the hallowed pit of Jam Pony. Good Ol' Sam, Normal's prize stallion who had turned into a dud. And Normal certainly hadn't forgotten that fact.
"Wow, you got a lot of nerve showing your face in here, pal!" Normal barked at Sam, who was striding down the ramp with a type of confidence he hadn't displayed the last time he graced the business.
Sam turned a cold blue-eyed glance towards Normal and asked sharply, "Where's Max?"
Normal tossed Sam his own patented version of the hairy eyeball. "Well, she didn't come back from her morning run. Imagine that. I had some high hopes for you, pal, but you just turned out to be like all the rest, didn't you? Just a great, big, fat goose egg." Normal turned his back and walked away, immensely hurt that his good judgment had turned out to be so bad.
Original Cindy, on the other hand, was highly amused. She was curious as to why he was looking for Max, and also a bit suspicious at his timely arrival.
Sam, for his part, seemed to remember Original Cindy, because as soon as Normal brushed by him, he immediately made a beeline for her. "Cindy…"
That's Original, you job swiper. "Well, what have we got here?" she replied saucily.
"I'm looking for Max."
She resisted rolling her eyes. That much had been obvious from the start. "Welcome to the club." Fortunately, she was saved from saying more by the ring of the phone. "Yeah?"
"It's me." Max replied.
Cindy had never felt relief flood through her so fast in her entire life. "Max—"
Sam yanked the phone away from her.
Original Cindy's eyes bugged out as he put the phone to his ear. Sam didn't know how close he was to having his testicles extracted through his throat.
"Max. It's Zack," he said into the phone.
"Who?" Original Cindy blurted without realizing it. Suddenly, her heart dropped down into her stomach, and the moment of relief she'd had now vanished in a swarm of butterflies. Zack? Where did that come from?
Zack didn't reply. He just continued his conversation. "Never mind that. We gotta get you out of town."
Fear coursed through Cindy's body as she asked, "Would somebody mind telling me what's going on here?"
Apparently they did mind, because Zack continued talking into the phone in some type of code, consisting of numbers, letters, and animals of the forest. After he finished, he hung up the phone, looked at Original Cindy, and left without a word of explanation.
Cindy looked after him, stunned by the events of the last…five minutes. She took a deep breath, and dialed Max's pager number again. There were three rings and then…
"I'm sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up, check your number, and try again. I'm sorry. The number you have dialed…"
She slowly lowered the phone as the canned voice continued its annoying message. Five minutes. Five minutes and she had been completely shut out.
What's going on here?
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Original Cindy paced restlessly around her apartment. She hadn't been able to get any sleep the night before. She was too worried.
Max was missing.
She never came back to work that afternoon. She hadn't shown up at Crash that night. A quick call to Kendra proved that Max hadn't gone home either. And Logan's answering machine was full from all the messages she'd left. Nothing left to do now but wait…
And worry.
She paced into her kitchen, and glanced at the few pictures on the refrigerator. Max had a brilliant smile in the one photograph she was in. Could a killer smile like that?
"Stop that! You will not think like that!" Cindy shouted to herself in the empty apartment. "Thinkin' your boo is a killer is just as bad as thinkin' she's…"
Dead.
The thought terrified her like nothing she'd ever faced in her life. But facing the possibility that the reason Max was missing was because she was…
She quickly grabbed her jacket off a chair in the living room and ran out the door.
The streets of Seattle were cluttered with hopeless people, like usual. Original Cindy felt like she was just another one of the throng: alone, searching for something missing. She'd only gotten about a block before she saw the first flyer, stapled to a telephone pole.
Wanted for Murder, she read underneath the picture of Max. Not a perfect representation of her perfect-looking friend…but it would do. She quickly ripped the flyer down and tore off all the words around the image. She walked up to the first person she saw, and asked, "Have you seen this woman?"
The young woman popped her gum as she peered at the paper Cindy had shoved in her face. "No, but…isn't that the killer?"
Original Cindy glared at her, as she snapped, "No, she ain't. She's my friend and she's gone AWOL."
The woman shrugged. "Sorry, man. Can't help."
OC already had begun to move onto the next person she could see…and the next…and the next. A few of the people she had asked had recognized Max, but only from the flyer. She'd begun to think she should have taken the picture from her refrigerator, but she didn't want anything to happen to it, since it was all she had.
The sun burned high and bright overhead, as she worked her way through the streets. Hours went by, and as the sun began to sink towards the broken horizon of the city, her heart sank lower in her chest. She searched well into the dark of night, but she knew it was futile.
Like looking for a needle in a stack of needles, she thought to herself as she walked through the door of Crash. Then she smiled halfheartedly as she saw some of the familiar faces within. Or like looking for one active brain cell in this place.
Herbal Thought was trying to console a moaning Sketchy, who was pounding his head on the bar top. OC walked over to them, leaned on the bar next to Sketchy, and asked, "What's the problem, boo?"
Sketchy looked up, and peered at Original Cindy through a haze of alcohol. "You all are slackers and ruffians. I don't know how Normal can put up with that mayhem every day."
Original Cindy thumped him on the back of the head.
"Ow!"
"S'what you get for calling me a slacker, you moron." Original Cindy shook her head. Even with the cloud of disillusionment that was circling around her, Sketchy never hesitated to be a momentary ray of sunshine…or radioactive glow. "So, what? You ain't man enough for Normal's job?"
Herbal chuckled as Sketchy tossed Cindy a withering glance. "You think you might be?" He ducked as Original Cindy took another swing at him.
"Don't go there if you want to keep some of those precious little pieces of your body you keep stored south of the border," she teased. As she saw Sketchy's face begin to lighten, she rolled her eyes, realizing he'd given himself an idea.
"No, really, Cin. Are you man…er…woman enough to fill Normal's shoes? Really? Just for…say…tomorrow, at least? Normal should be back then. I swear," Sketchy pleaded.
"No."
"I'll pay you!"
"With what?" Original Cindy asked, knowing his pockets were at least as empty, or more so, than her own.
"I…uh…I'll be your love pimp."
"Not enough scrilla in the world, boo," she replied, taking a swig of his beer.
Sketchy dejectedly pulled his beer away from her, and signaled to the bartender to give OC one of her own. "Damn. It was a thought." He swallowed a mouthful of beer, and then another idea entered his brain. "Hey…what about Max?"
"Don't even go there, Sketch," Original Cindy growled.
"But, I—"
"Don't!" She picked up the beer that had been set in front of her and downed about half of the contents, coughing a little as some went down the wrong pipe.
Herbal looked at Original Cindy with concern in his eyes. "You haven't heard from Max yet?"
Original Cindy shook her head slowly. "I'm worried something's happened. Like some money grubber like our friend Sketch here got his hands on her and turned her in to the po-po's."
Or worse. Although, remembering Max's last experience with the police, she wasn't sure what would be worse. Suddenly, she realized that both Sketchy and Herbal were looking at her strangely. "What?" she asked exasperatingly.
"You didn't hear?" Herbal asked.
"Hear what? Would one of you get your head out of the swiff clouds and drop me the word, please?"
"They caught the killer," Sketchy said.
Cindy's heart fell for the billionth time that day.
"Dude turned himself in," he continued. "The news whores have been blowing all the channels up with the story."
A slow smile crept across Cindy's face. "Dude? Dude! That's… that's wonderful. Wonderful!" She leaned across the bar and yelled to the bartender, "Another round for these two awesome men over here!" She pulled all the loose bills and change she had out of her pockets and dumped it on the bar in front of the stunned men. "Sketchy…I owe you," she said, grabbing his face, and planting a kiss smack on his mouth. She smiled and dashed out the door.
Sketchy rubbed his lips and turned to Herbal Thought. "I think I've just been repaid."
Herbal thwacked him upside the head.
"Ow!"
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Original Cindy couldn't say that she slept the deepest sleep in the world that night, but at least she got some sleep. Enough to drag herself back to the grind Friday morning. She was still concerned that Max hadn't made an appearance yet. Cindy just hoped that she'd taken Sam…Zack's…word and gotten out of town for a few days. It would make sense. She'd told Sketchy and Herbal Thought both that Max wasn't a killer, but she definitely was a badass. And a badass like Max really didn't need to be hanging around when trouble was going down.
OC did all her runs without complaint that day, trying to keep busy. Although, she did get a short laugh when Normal staggered back into Jam Pony and Sketchy gave him a hug like she'd never seen before. And it was also highly amusing the quick way that Normal shoved Sketchy off. A short exchange, and Sketchy was gone with a package faster than Original Cindy had ever seen him go before.
"Where the fire truck is Max?" Normal yelled out from his post.
Original Cindy sauntered over to him. "Normal, you lookin' like that stick is shoved a little higher than usual."
Normal blanched. "Where is Max?" he repeated, softer this time.
"Homegirl got the word that some fool was tryin' to put her face to the killer's down at doughnut central, and now she's lookin' for some payback." OC grabbed a package and turned, grinning. "Wouldn't want to be that poor bitch she's huntin'," she added as she walked away.
It was a long run. So were most of the others. It seemed like Normal was doing his best to take all of his troubles out on her, but she didn't care. She was beginning to feel good.
Finally, the end of the day came and she walked back into Jam Pony…and saw Max.
Her friend was standing at her locker, pulling her jacket out, getting ready to leave, just like she'd done every other day since she'd started at Jam Pony.
Sensing that someone was looking at her, Max turned, and saw Original Cindy standing there slack-jawed. She grinned that bright grin of hers and called, "Hey you!"
Original Cindy didn't move. "Where the hell have you been?" she snapped.
"Here and there," Max replied vaguely.
"Here and there?" Original Cindy repeated in disbelief. "Here and there? Do you know how worried we were?"
Max's face softened, and an indescribable look came over it. It was almost as though she was…pleased. "You were worried?" she asked softly.
"The city's hard up for this killer, and you disappeared, and Sam came back, only to turn out to be Zack, and started speaking some mumbo jumbo about needin' you to bounce out of here. I was worried," Cindy finally admitted.
Max slowly shrugged into her jacket and shut her locker door. She stepped over to her best friend and wrapped her arms around her tightly.
Original Cindy brought her arms up and hugged Max back. As Max kept holding the hug, Cindy began to think that all might not be good, especially when she felt Max begin to tremble. "Max?" she asked.
Max pulled away, her eyes bright and shiny, but the rest of the mask firmly in place. "Nothing," she answered. "Just…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. It's just…something came up."
"Anything I can help with?" Cindy offered immediately.
Max shrugged. "You can come to the hospital with me."
"The hospital? Why?" Something was up.
Max shrugged again, and looked away. "Logan had surgery yesterday, and…"
"Logan!" Cindy exclaimed. "Oh, my God. That's why I couldn't reach him! You was with him all this time? Is he okay?"
"No. But part of the time. And yes. Now. So you gonna come with?"
"Of course, boo. As long as I get to stop on the way and pick up some inappropriately dirty get-well present," OC said, grinning.
Max laughed cheerfully. "That we can do." She swung one arm around Original Cindy's shoulders, and waved to a gaping Sketchy as they left the building. "Oh! I almost spaced! With that flyer haunting me yesterday, I decided that it might be best to get a new pager. Remind me to write down the new number for you later."
Original Cindy smiled. Shut out for a day, but ultimately let back in.
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Chapter 3 - In
Coming August 24
