Life Ain't Always Beautiful
Chapter Twelve: End of the Line
I am gettin' rather suspicious of this Isabella character. I hear her sometimes at night gettin' up off the couch to get somethin' from the fridge, but I don't hear her limpin'. It sounds like normal walkin' to me. What a complete fake. If I knew Daddy wouldn't get onto me, I would march right up to her and BREAK her ankle. I wouldn't be as dramatic as that lady off Stephen King's "Misery", but I'd be pretty close.
I can't believe Aunt Ali had lung cancer. I knew she was sick, but I didn't guess she was that sick. Pretty scary. I hope she doesn't go like Aunt Evie did. I don't think I could handle another death in the family. I've been tryin' to take real good care of Uncle Rosco, makin' sure he gets his medicine and all. He doesn't seem to be so depressed now, but he might just be fakin' it to keep the rest of us from worryin' about him. He's been talkin' more an' actually gave me a hug yesterday for the first time since Aunt Evie died.
Today is the Parent Teacher Conference Day at all the Hazzard County schools. That means we got out of school early so that parents come drop in during the day during their free time an' talk to all the teachers about their children's grades. Daddy always goes, an' I usually go with him just to hear what the teachers think they're gonna say about me. I am a little concerned about leavin' Isabella alone in the house, even if we're goin' to have Uncle Rosco guardin' the house.
Isabella waited until Rosco was taking his noon-time nap before she decided to go sneaking around the house again. She had to get out of here! She was sick of the crazy kids always bothering her, the cat attacking her, people treating her like the plague, and everything else that happened while she was there. But she wasn't leaving empty-handed. No, she wasn't.
She had been around the house to know where the extra money was hidden away in the house. In a little tin box above the refrigerator. That was why she kept going to it at night, to make sure it was there and not moved to a different location everyday or whatever. Hey, some folks do that.
She counted a sum of four hundred dollars. What kind of morons left four hundred dollars cash just lying around the house? She stuffed it in her back pocket then decided she would check some sock drawers while everyone was gone. Only thing now was to find a way to get out of here. She had never intended on going back to the garage for her car, she was going to leave it there and pin the whole car theft on whoever was responsible for it at the moment. She just needed a NEW getaway car now . . .
The girl, Chelsea, was apparently smart since she didn't even have so much as loose change thrown on the desk. She decided to check her father's room. He had about fifty stuffed in a sock, like some people usually do. She saw a few pictures on the mirror of him and Luke in their younger days, along with an older grandpa-like gentlemen and a younger lady. Not to mention a sporty orange Dodge Charger with a big "01" on the side. Hm, real nice car, that is.
She still assumed Rosco was asleep so she decided to slip outside to the barn to see if there was anything there. She looked around for a minute then noticed a tarp covering something in the corner. Curious, she slipped the tarp off and---lo and behold! The orange car from the picture! The "01" was there on the sides, a Confederate flag on the top---a little redneck for her but she could fix that with a little paint job. She saw that the keys were in it---idiot boys.
She got a little confused when the door wouldn't open so she simply slipped in through the window in a rather unladylike manner. She then checked to see if the bank money was still hidden safely away in her purse, which she had been carefully guarding the whole time, added to that the money from the house, and cranked the car. If only now she could get away without being seen.
We came home to an empty house it seemed. Isabella was missin' from the couch an' Uncle Rosco wasn't anywhere to be seen. I called out for both of them but I didn't get an answer. Daddy said Uncle Rosco was probably just takin' a nap, so we split up to find Isabella. I headed outside to see if she had maybe hobbled her way through the garden or the surrounding woods. That was when I noticed that the garage out back was open.
"Daddy?" Chelsea called out in a loud voice to Bo to get his attention. "I think ya need to see this!"
Bo came jogging out to where his daughter was standing. "What's wrong, did ya find her?"
"No, but I have a hunch that she found you an' Uncle Luke's old race car," Chelsea replied as Bo got closer.
Bo could only stand there in shock as he stared at the empty spot in the garage that had been the General Lee's home for so many years. If Chelsea hadn't been standing right there, he might would have shed a few tears. "Doggone it, that tears it! Nobody gets away with tryin' to seduce my cousin and steal my car!"
I gotta another hunch that this is gonna be a lo-o-o-o-ng day . . .
Bo and Chelsea went tearing down the road in Bo's car, with Bo driving like he hadn't driven in a long time. Chelsea had her hand gripped on the side of the door and her seat buckled---and she never did that!
"Daddy, calm down, you're gonna hit the roof!"
"Too late for that!" He hit the steering wheel in frustration. "I can't believe that wench! She played me! She faked that busted ankle of hers to get into our home, take advantage of our hospitality, an' then steal General Lee!"
Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe Isabella really did steal that BMW all along. I wished we'd listened to her.
As if by chance, Enos happened to be driving along in his patrol car with Rachel right beside him when Bo came flying down the road. Enos, being the good friend he is, decided he had better slow Bo down a little before he hurt himself or someone else. So on came Enos's voice over the CB, his lights flashing as he followed Bo.
"Hey, Bo, this is Enos. Ya mind slowin' down there a bit buddy?"
"Just give 'im a ticket, Daddy!" Rachel said before Enos could switch off.
Bo grabbed his own CB mike. "Dang it, Enos, that Isabella woman stole General Lee an' I aim to get 'im back!"
Rachel gave Enos a look. "I told you she was a car thief. I told you! An' nobody believed me!"
"Possum on a gumbush, Bo! Ya sure it was her?"
"Sure I'm sure! I don't know where she is, but I reckon we oughta split up, don't you?"
"I'll check the Chickasaw County border, if you'll check the Chickamahoney border."
"Ten-four."
Rachel was grinning ear to ear. "Oh boy, hot pursuit!"
While Bo and Enos were trying to find Isabella, Isabella was high-tailing it through the backroads. She thought she was going to make a clean getaway across the Hazzard County border and then keep on until she got to Alabama, then Mississippi, and finally Louisiana where she would use all her stolen money to run her drug shipping business.
What she didn't expect to see was someone that sure didn't expect to see what he saw.
"Uh, Dad?" Jesse asked Luke. "Ain't that the car you an' Uncle Bo keep in Uncle Bo's garage?"
Luke's eyes flashed as he recognized it. "Yeah. What in tarnation is Bo doin' drivin' it?"
General Lee flew past Luke's truck and that was when he noticed something funny. "Hang on a minute, I know that wasn't who I thought it was!"
Luke turned the truck around real fast and started speeding after Isabella. Luke grabbed the mike on his CB and started calling out, "Bo, Bo, this is Luke, ya got your ears on?"
"Ten-four, Luke, whatcha got?"
"Am I seein' things or was that Isabella I saw drivin' the General."
"Nope, you're not seein' things, that was her! She was fakin' her sprained ankle an' took off in the General! I got Enos helpin' me find her, where is she?"
"Back off, little cousin, I want to take her down myself."
"But Luke!"
"Don't 'but' me, I said I wanna take her down myself an' that's final!" Luke hung up the mike. "Nobody steals my car!"
"Wheeeee, like a roller coaster!" Lizzy giggled as they flew after Isabella.
Luke caught up to Isabella in a matter of minutes. It pained him to have to do what he had to do but---he nudged the truck over and hit the General's side with his tire, making the orange racer almost go off the road. Isabella shot daggers at Luke and the kids, which prompted Luke to hit her again. That did the trick. The General Lee went flying into the ditch, for the millionth time in his lifetime. And like always, he seemed to be all right.
Isabella realized she was done for and she tried to climb out the car's window but found herself stuck. Before she could get un-stuck, Luke had already jumped out of his truck and was hauling her out. He jerked her to her feet and she glared at him.
"Mind tellin' me what you're doin', Isabella? Comin' into our lives, tryin' to break me up with my wife, faking an injury to take advantage of my cousin, an' then stealin' our car? Explain yourself!"
Frustrated, Isabella flung her long dark hair behind her shoulder. "Well, since you've caught me, I might as well tell you. I was telling the truth when I said I majored in business up north. What I didn't tell you was that I am in the drug shipping business, my whole family. I am inheriting the company from my grandfather, Leroy Moore."
"Moore?" Luke asked, the name sounding familiar.
"Yes. My father may not have given me a second thought, but he was still my father. And you and your family helped to put him in prison and into death row."
Luke almost blanked out. "Eli Moore was your father?"
Eli Moore---a name that everyone had almost forgotten about. The man that was like an identical twin to Cooter Davenport who killed his ex-girlfriends one month after they dumped him. The man that had nearly gotten Cooter arrested and executed. The man that had almost killed Luke and Ali the night he was arrested. And know this woman that was trying to ruin their lives was his daughter.
"Yes, it's true. My real name is Isabella Moore, not Sinclair as I told you when we met. I had planned on coming here to try and ruin your marriage, then rob the bank as a bonus for my shipping business."
"So---you killed Eve?" Luke asked her angrily, his teeth gritted in frustration.
"I didn't actually mean to do it at that moment, but yes. I was going to kill her sometime during my visit, but it happened unexpectedly at the bank. I panicked and figured the best thing to do would to be just leave, but not before taking at least something from the rest of the family."
"The only you're takin' with you is a pair of handcuffs and a murder charge."