Chapter 19
The Reynolds boys were outside now. Greg had his mother in his grasp, a pair of scissors at her throat. His brother, Garrett, was close behind him, holding onto the duffel bags with the stolen presents. Mort, Logan, Seth and Jessica were following right behind them.
They were now outside in the parking lot.
"Get the car!" Greg ordered, still holding his own mother hostage.
Garrett was going to, when he suddenly stopped, almost in mid-movement.
Greg glanced his brother's way, "Whattt!? What's wrong?" he demanded impatiently.
"Uh..." Garrett shifted uncomfortably, "...the car keys. I left them inside...with the backpack."
"WHAT THE HELL!?" Greg yelled out with frustrated anger. Then he had an idea and turned to Seth, "Hey, you! Old man!...Gimme your car keys!"
"I will not!" Seth stubbornly stated.
As if to make his point, Greg poked the scissors into his mother's throat again and she let out a frightened little cry of pain.
"I MEAN BUSINESS, GRANDPA!"
"Seth," Jessica murmured under her breath, "do as they say!"
"Alright, alright!" Seth relented.
Reluctantly he reached into his pocket and tossed the keys over to Garrett's waiting hand.
"Which car is yours?" Garrett asked.
Seth sighed, "the station wagon."
"Figures it would be the old clunker," Garrett said disdainfully.
"Never mind that! Just go warm up the car for me!" Greg ordered his brother as he let the scissors slack a few inches off his mother's throat.
"Gotcha, Bro!" Garrett said, with a smirk on his face.
He seemed confidently smug now as he dangled Seth's key in front of everyone. Then he strode over to Seth's car. Next he threw the duffel bags in the back and opened the driver's door.
"Listen Greg, you've got what you wanted," Mort said, "the money, the gifts, transportation, even our weapons. There's no need to involve your mother any further."
"The sheriff's right, " Jessica attempted to step closer to Greg and his mother, but Seth held her back, "Why don't you just let your mother go and you and your brother can just drive away!"
"And give up our ticket to freedom?" Greg rhetorically asked, as he began dragging her away, "No way! Besides, my mom WANTS to be with her boys, right mom?"
"Gregory, please!" Laurie Reynolds choked out her answer, tears flowing down her cheek, "Stop this! Don't do this to your own mother!"
Meanwhile from the driver's seat of Seth vehicle, Garrett had just started the engine of the car when suddenly-
KA-BOOM!
The sky lid up and everyone was thrown unexpectedly to the ground as the station wagon erupted into a red fireball.
"Noooooooooooo!" From down on the ground, Laurie Reynold's let out a cry of anguish as she reached out a hopeless arm in the direction of the destruction, "Garrett! Oh My Baby! Garrettttt..."
The end of her agonized sobs blended into the heated, crackling air as Seth's car became engulfed in searing flames.
#
Considering this was a car bomb, everyone came out fairly lucky.
Everyone, that is, except Garrett, who had been in the driver's seat of the station wagon.
While the car continued to burn, Andy had gone off to call emergency services while Mort and Logan handcuffed an injured Garrett. Surprisingly, despite her ordeal, Laurie Reynolds actually fought with the law officials over them arresting her older son. She was clawing and crying out in shock and frustration, knowing that one son was dead and the other one was being hauled off to jail. It was Seth and Jessica who held her back, which was a difficult ordeal.
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Everyone had been examined at the Bar Harbor emergency ward. Mort, Andy and Logan were left practically unscathed. Greg and his mother had been closest to the car when it blew up. They suffered a few lacerations and Greg had two broken ribs, while Laurie had a broken ankle, but nothing which required a long hospital stay.
Seth and Jessica had been the next two people near the exploding vehicle. Although they didn't have burns, both of them suffered hearing loss and a persistent ringing in the ears at times. The doctor claimed it would be temporary. They were only prescribed Xanax to help relieve the anxiety and ringing.
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Later that night, Mort was the one who picked up Seth and Jessica from the hospital and drove them back to Jessica's. Jessica began brewing some tea while Seth and Mort sat at the quaint kitchen table.
"I consider us all lucky today," Mort was saying, as Jessica filled the mugs with tea and placed a plate of cookies on the table before sitting down, "the injuries could have been much worse."
"AYUH!" Seth was shouting but not realizing it.
Mort sighed, "Doc! You don't have to yell! I can hear you!"
"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Seth yelled back.
Jessica answered back, "THE SHERIFF SAID YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL!"
Mort cuffed his hands against his both ears, as of shutting off the noise, "Mrs. F...you're yelling too!"
Jessica looked embarrassed, "Sorry. It's just I can't hear myself talking with all this incessant ringing in my ears!"
"WHAT?" Seth wanted to know.
Mort shook his head back and forth, "It's like I'm getting a sneak peak of the two of you, thirty years from now!"
"WHAT?" Seth and Jessica shouted as Mort shook his head.
"THE CASE IS OVER!" Mort improvised.
Surprisingly, Jessica began shaking her head vigorously. While Mort and Seth had puzzled looks on their faces, she rushed to get a pad and pencil. Returning she began vigorously writing. Then she showed the pad to them:
Boys weren't murderers...if they planted bomb in Seth's car, they would know NOT to use it as getaway vehicle!
"So it isn't over," Mort groaned.
He looked Seth's way, but Seth was silent.
"WHAT'S THE MATTER, DOC?" Mort shouted, "YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IT WASN'T THE BOYS WHO TRIED TO KILL YOU, RIGHT? WHY THE SILENCE?
Seth grabbed the pad and was writing furiously. When he finished, he turned the pad over so that they could both read it:
HEARING NOT GOOD MEANING NO DATE WITH JESS AGAIN!
#
The next day, the ringing in their ears had subsided somewhat.
Mort was at Jessica's place early the next morning for breakfast. They sat at the same kitchen table, trying to figure out who was trying to kill Seth.
Then they heard a knock on the back door and it opened. It was Seth.
Jessica immediately smiled, "Seth! Come in!"
"HOW ARE YOU?" Seth asked as he gave her a peck on the cheek.
"I'm much better," Jessica said only slightly louder than usual, for now she was able to hear herself talking, "just a bit of ringing every now and then."
But it wasn't the same for Seth just yet.
"DID YOU HEAR ME?" Seth asked, "NOD IF YOU CAN HEAR ME!"
"I can hear you, Seth!" Jessica informed him.
"WHAT?" he asked, "YOU'RE NOT NODDING!"
"Oh boy," Mort commented, his mouth in a straight line, "I'm guessing it's takes some people a little longer to recover than others!."
Jessica smiled as she leaned into Mort, "Maybe his hearing will get better when I make him some...(she whispers) pancakes!"
"PANCAKES?" Seth suddenly looked alert.
"Humph!" Mort grunted, "NOW his hearing is like a supersonic radar!"
#
"So Mort," Jessica asked, once she got Seth settled down for breakfast, "Any new leads about who could have planted the bomb? Or any information on the bomb itself? The size and the placement? The triggering mechanism?"
"That's a mouthful of questions, Mrs. F., " Mort responded, "I don't have much. The device had been magnetically attached underneath the chassis, not far from the gas tank. It had been equipped with a tilt fuse which means-"
"-I know what that means," Jessica said, "it's was activated by the vibration of the car starting up, but it's really the luck of the draw. It could have been detonated by the slam of a door, or if the car went over a bump. Not a very sophisticated device."
"That's right," Mort acknowledged, "it's pretty primitive, in fact. And the problems is, you have to be careful not to set the fuse before the bomb's in place."
"So what does that mean?" Jessica asked.
Mort heaved a sigh, "it means that the bomb had to have been set just before we got out into the parking lot."
At last, Seth put down his eating utensils, a look of frustration on his face.
"WHAT ARE YOU TWO CONSPIRIN' ABOUT? STOP WHISPERIN'!" he insisted.
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