A/N: Hey guys, sorry about the wait, my internet's doing an internety thing that I don't have a clue about, so. . .hmm. But it'll be working alright soon and then I'll update all the time!!!
Chapter Twelve: What?
Icing and Harley were in the house they had been allocated, all the things from the Arizona hotel and the LA hotel were with them, except Levi, Venice, Barkley and Phoenix. Frequent calls went back and forth from both states police, asking where Phoenix was, and nobody knew.
Icing and Harley didn't even ask about it after they had been told he hadn't come, they sat in the living room of the house, waiting for the phonecall to say his body had been found. And true enough, two more days later, it came. He would be flown to Los Angeles, so the bodies, evidence, not that there was much, and information could be kept together. Icing and Harley knew that there was somebody out there, after them, and they wouldn't even open the curtains, go in the garden, separate from one another, even in different rooms. There was constantly an armed police officer at the house, and they left, only when they really had to, in a police car with tinted windows and more than one escort. They did leave, once, to go to the police station. They gave interviews and Harley identified the body. The police were commited, and sure, that whoever this was, and there was no clue yet, would not get Icing and Hraley.
Clementine is at the literary agency where she used to work, she's taken up writing full-time. She's showing her boss her new story, the romantic comedy, hopefully up for the Christmas number one. After her meeting, she catches up with Dini, an old friend at the office.
"It's been like hell, she's such a cow, I mean it, I could strangle her," Dini says as she and Clementine stand by the coffee machine.
"Then I'm glad I'm not here much," Clementine laughs, sipping coffee.
"So, what have you been up to? In your new found freedom from hell?" asks Dini.
"Not a lot, I write a lot, and we go out nights, we're not planning any trips since the Las Vegas incident, not for a while anyway. But it's great just to lounge around, write, and watch TV," Clementine descibes a hard life.
"Hmm, isn't it terrible about those kids in California though? Three dead out of six, unimaginable," says Dini.
"What?"
"You know that missing girl, Cedar?" Clementine nods. "They've found her cousins Easton and Blossom dead too."
"What?"
"Yeah. Right in the middle of their vacation too, and there's only three left. Police are putting them under protection, but they just want to get back to Texas, I saw it on the news this morning. Warnings in Los Angeles about a murderer all over the place."
"Three dead?" asks Clementine. Dini nods.
"Didn't you see the report?"
"California vacation? Texas?" Dini nods again. "I've got to get home."
"Icing, I want to go home," Harley says one night, only a few after news of Phoenix's death, clutching a pilliow under her chin. "The cops won't find them, they're not even trying anymore. I want to go back to Texas."
"I know, me too. I want to see mom," Icing says.
"Do you know when she's coming here?"
"The cops say the day after tomorrow," Icing tells her.
"I want to go home, we'll be safe at home."
"We gotta stay here, for our own protection," says Icing, stroking Harley's hair. Harley snorts.
"Now we're going to be in a house for the rest of our lives, scared to go out or even open the curtains because someone's killed our brother and sisters and our cousins. Scared to open a window and smell the fresh air because someone's after us. America's a big place, we could go anywhere, we could go abroad. I can't stay in California," she sighs, as if giving up.
"I'll ask tomorrow when we can go home," sas Icing.
At the police station the next day, Icing does ask when she and Harley would be able to go home, and when her mother would get there. The answers were the same as usual. Her mom would be there tomorrow, even though no one had heard from her, and they would be staying in California for the forseeable future.
"Can't we just go?" asks Harley, that afternoon, out of earshot of the policeman on duty. "We'll write a note telling your mom that we've gone home, and then she'll join us there. We'll be safe with her."
Harley kept talking like this all through the afternoon, and Icing was beginning to think it was a good idea.
"The car's out the front, we don't really need any of this stuff, we could just get in and go," Harley says. Her things hadn't been unpacked since they got in the secure house, they'd stayed in a suitcase, ready for when they'd be able to leave, but they couldn't see it any time soon.
"Is your stuff ready?" Icing asks, under her breath an hour and a half later. Both Icing and Harley had packed only the things they really needed into smaller bags, which they could put on their backs. Harley nodded. Icing went into the living room, where the cop was.
"We're just going in the garden for a while," she says to the officer, who looks up.
"In the garden?"
"Yeah, we can't stay inside forever, we'll get rickets, severe vitamin k disorders, we'll just be outside the window, we're far off the road and we won't be outside long, alright?" She woman nodded and shifted her position on the couch a little so she could see most of the garden, and still see the TV.
The two girls picked up their bags and left boldly through the front door, sneaking past the window so they couldn't be seen, and round to where the car was parked, about fifty yards from the house. Icing got into the drivers seat, and Harley into the passengers, she found the spare car key, kept under the backseat, and started up the engine.
Inside the house, the cop never moved her eyes from the TV screen, she didn't hear the car start, or move off down the road, into the night.
Clementine got into her car and turned it on, putting her foot down hard on the gas. The similarities between these six kids on vacation to Caifornia, from Texas, three dead, and the story Mort was writing was just too close for comfort. She had to tell Mort to write a happy ending, well, if that was possible, but she had to keep these last three kids alive. By the sound of it, their lives were not in the police's hands, they could do nothing, but Mort could.