Scooter Grubbs

"No seriously, should we peel?" Kie asks again, nervous as they watched the cops enter the room.

Pope looks back at her, heart pumping fast, "Maybe."

From the window ledge, JJ and John B are looking at each other eyes wide, willing the other to calm down. They each take deep breaths as they hear the male cop order the female cop to check the bathroom inside the room.

John B moves to peek inside the window, while JJ just stays as close to the wall as she can.

"What are you guys doing?" Pope whisper yells from the boat, watching them.

"Oh my god," Kie moans, not believing the situation they're in.

John B puts a finger to his lip telling them to be quiet as he holds on to a drain pipe.

JJ's so nervous she actually wants to laugh, adrenaline pumping, but she bites her lip. throws Pope and Kie a keep it down sign, before re-gripping hard the drain pipe on her side of the window.

John B peers into the window again and sees that the cops are digging around in the safe.

He watches the male cop pull out some papers and hand it to the female cop. "Go ahead. Throw these in a bag, would you?"

"Yes sir," the female cop takes the papers from him and walks out of John B's field of view to presumedly bag the papers.

The male cops digs around more and pulls out a stack of bills. He holds it out to the female cop.

"Sir?," she asks, hesitant.

"Everybody's gotta dip their beak," he says.

"What the fuck?" JJ whispers to John B. She had decided to brave peeking in just in time to witness the cops being.. well.. dirty. She's not that surprised but still.

The female cop takes the stack of bills, "right, right. Their beak." She doesn't sound like she's comfortable with it, but she doesn't resist her commanding officer.

"Do you believe-" JJ starts to whisper but she jerked a little too hard and the gun fell out of her pants, making racket as it fell to the ground with a thud. She tried to catch it but after nearly losing her balance on the ledge, she grabbed the drain pipe. Her eyes clenched shut as she Internally slapped herself.

John B was internally slapping JJ on the other side of the window, Of course she didn't put the gun back. He mentally smacked himself for thinking she did on their rush to get out.

The silence was piercing as they waited , breaths held, hoping they wouldn't be busted.

The blinds of the window were raised up and They could feel their heart pounding out of their chest.

Pope and Kie went back to looking nonchalant, like it's a typical afternoon chilling in their boat.

Each second seemed to stretch on for hours as they waited.

JJ looked over at John B, feeling panicked, but John B met her eyes and put a finger to his lip reminding her to stay quiet. He looked more confident than he probably was and it helped her calm down. He maintained eye contact with her, lending her some of his confidence and strength, as if he knew she was struggling. Which to be fair, he probably did. She could never hide from him.

John B could see the slight panic in JJ's eyes and he wanted to grab her hand to calm her down, but settled for holding eye contact. It seemed to work as he could see her breath even out and her blue eyes lost its wild glint he knows means she's a second away from fight or flight mode. He's glad he's here with her because he's the only one who can calm her down when she gets like that, making his heart warm that she trusts him so explicitly, knowing that isn't something that comes easy to JJ. A spark of anger at the world for forcing her distrust it so much flashes through him, but he swallows it down.

After another moment, they hear the male cop address the female cop. "Alright… let's go. No one's here." The door opened and closed a second later and they let out a sigh of relief.

They gave it an extra second to make sure the cops weren't coming back, then John B opened the window and they climbed back through it. "Well that was fun," she said, but her voice was shaky.

"You okay?" John B asked her. He stood in front of her and squeezed her shoulders. She nodded at him.

Not wanting to stick around any more, they exited the motel room and made their way down to the boat. JJ quickly made a side trip to grab the fallen gun and put it into her pants again.

They untied the boat, climbed in, and Pope drove the boat away from the motel.

"You could've warned us sooner!" JJ chuckled to Pope and Kie, nerves gone.

"We would have except Pope was on the math team," Kie explained without explaining.

"You were on the math team?" JJ asked Pope, not really surprised.

"The cops took everything like it was a crime scene," John B cut in on the small talk.

"Did you guys find anything?" Pope asked, curiously.

JJ decides to show and tell. She stands up "Did we find anything. No I don't think so. Oh yeah we did," she says with a smile as she pulls out the stack of hundreds and gun and holds it up for them to see.

"What the hell?!" Pope says incredulously. looking at JJ like she's an idiot.

"Dude what?" Kie also exclaimed.

"Dude chill, come on," JJ rolled her eyes at them.

"Why would you take that from a crime scene?" Pope stressed at her.

"It's better than the cops having it," she said, remembering the cops pocketing some of the cash.

"You serious?" Kie eyes her. Judgy that one. But they don't understand. Kie is rich and Pope is comfortable. They're both gonna leave this place after school is over. They don't know what it's like to live hers or John B's life and NONE of them know what is to fear going home so much they would want to carry a gun just to feel even an ounce safer. Who are they to judge her? JJ doesn't say this though. John B doesn't say anything, though she knows he agrees with them.

"I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship," Pope stresses dramatically.

"Hey hey sh sh sh sh," JJ tries to comfort him with her hand on his back. She's not getting rid of the gun. "At least you have us right?" She says teasingly, unable to help herself.

"I'm living a nightmare," Pope groans and walks away from her.

They decided to return to the reporting station and try again at reporting the boat for a finder's fee. When they got there, the tent was still packed. They decided to wait it out and took a seat near some kids they recognized from their school.

As they sat down they saw a stretcher with a body being unloaded from a boat. A big lady ran over, crying.

"Who's that?" John B asked the group.

"It's Scooter Grubbs. He was out during the storm," one of the girls replied and pulled out her phone. "Check out this pic I got."

She pulled up a picture JJ wishes she never saw. "Dead body. Insane." And the girl sounded a little too chipper about looking at pictures of dead bodies. Maybe she should hang out with Pope, JJ thinks.

"Holy shit," John B mutters and something clicks in JJ's brain.

"What kind of boat did he have?" She asked.

"Somehow that dirtbag copped a brand new Grady White. Everyone's out looking for it."

The Pogues all looked at each other excited.

They quickly excused themselves and headed back to the chateau, not wanting to risk being overheard.

This day has turned out to be quite the mystery, JJ giggles to herself, if we got a dog we could be the next Scooby gang.