Marlowe's Massacre | ;

CHAPTER 11

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[.19.1.31.]

James had been working on an '08 Yacht's engine when the desk phone rang loudly through the shack. Teddy had been four feet away restocking the brake fluid of an orange Opel when James answered the phone. "Dill's mechan-" He started before being gruesomely shut up by Max's voice.

"What time do you get off?" Max questioned softly but James could tell something pinched at the back of his throat.

"Not 'til twelve, why?"

"I'm at the hospital. Raymond is in bad shape, I didn't want it to be a burden on you to come see him so I'll tell you over the pho-"

"I can make it." He murmured before shutting the phone hard on the desk. Grabbing his coat he made his way to the exit.

"James." Turning around Teddy appeared in his vision. "Is everything okay?" She asked and he wanted to tell her the truth eagerly but, his thought process had been raped of its worth long ago. School and work had circulated through his brain so many times that everything else became a bedimmed reality. His mind couldn't distinguish between his wants and needs.

"Yes, I'm fine. I need to go somewhere real quick. I'll be back." He lied. James wouldn't be back. A drive to the hospital took a good thirty minutes, him taking the backroads to walk it would triple that amount. All he could hope was that Teddy would nod her head and leave him alone, only to be left at Dill's shop until closing.

"Are you sure, there's still oil on your hands and grime on your cheek." She pointed out and James only admired his appearance awfully before going to the sink in the back to clean himself off. When he returned Teddy had slipped her dark hoodie on but had kept her hair pulled behind her head revealing to James three rows of gold hoops - all elegant in size - up her cartlidge. "I can take you where you need to go, if you like?"

And for the first time in a long time, James hadn't felt guilty or embarrassed. He hadn't thought about his aching headache or the homework piled up on his make-shift desk at home either. He slid himself into the passenger seat of Teddy's 2008 Hyundai Coupé and she drove him to the hospital.

~~~

André had read a newspaper once, eleven years ago smashed between Mr. Richard's drawers. It had been in French, a mandatory language he could only read because he fell short in pronunciation. It had been a day when the sun gagged yellow and the birds swallowed the wind that caught between their feathers. Little André hadn't yet picked up on his aggressive addiction - that would come seven years later - instead, he roamed the mansion to take a break from outside. He and Max had been playing manhunt with Raymond and Marlowe.

Up the second floor of the mansion André paused before he made his way into Mr. Richard's workroom, a modern suite pampered in bookshelves and equipped with organized papers hung up or stacked. That didn't surprise him anymore than the sky burning Prussian blue outside. What had caught his attention had been an overstuffed drawer. Making his way to it, he began piling the papers neatly before finding one unlike the others. It had been crumpled and torn at the edges multiple times before the decision to keep it occured.

When reading the article, he had learnt of a heartbreaking tragedy that had happened in France two months ago. Twelve schoolboys had mysteriously vanished, kiddnapped by what the USA referred to as human trafficking. The Gendarmerie Nationale launched into a calamity trying to pinpoint the kids for months before sliding the case unsettlingly on the back-burner with the other files no one yet solved. That is until the kids had been found in Algeria - almost two years later borders away in North Africa.