The Heritage of Sephtis: The Returning

18: Too Many Witnesses

    “Don’t worry about that. It’s just an amber alert.” Finn said frantically trying to stop the woman from looking at it. “They may be effective but they’re really annoying. I wish you could just choose to turn them off.” Of course, Finn could disable them if he really wanted to, but it was easier to pick up cases when he knew what was happening around him. The woman laughed awkwardly.

    “Yeah, they can be a bit obnoxious sometimes.” She sighed, but didn’t pick up her phone. Finn had bought some time.

    “On the topic of annoying, the radio is a bit loud can we turn it down some?” Finn looked out the window, looking for exit signs. Hopefully they would be out of the car soon, before they got discovered at least. The man driving turned the knob and the radio faded to a dull whisper. If Marshal had outdone himself, well Marshal had already outdone himself, but if he’d really worked at it, he might have even got radio amber alerts out on him. He couldn’t risk that.

    About an hour passed, and they finally reached a town. The driver pulled into a diner parking lot, and parked.

    “We’ll be stopping here. You’re welcome to eat too or go ahead on your way.” The woman offered.

    “We’ll be going.” Finn got out of the car and ushered the other two out.

    “Well good luck with getting a car, I hope the rest of your trip goes better.” The woman got out of the car and so did the driver. 

    “Thank you.” Jack smiled at the woman before Finn pulled him and Jaden to the side. He watched the couple walk into the dinner, and then in a hushed tone began speaking.

    “Marshal’s lost it and put out an amber alert for me and you kid. And it includes your car.” Finn jabbed a finger into Jaden’s chest. “Aren’t you glad I made you get rid of it?” Jack looked at Finn, concern filling his eyes.

    “Why would he do that?” Jack asked.

    “I don’t know, he never makes any sense to me. We just need to get a car as fast as possible and get out of here.” Finn pulled out his phone. “And on that note,” he put his phone to his mouth, “car rental.” Then he started walking down the street, when Jaden yelled out to him.

    “How are you going to pay?”

    “I’m not. I don’t carry a wallet.” He stopped and turned. “You are.” He turned back and continued walking.

    They arrived at the car rental business, and walked in, Finn taking notes of how many and what kinds of vehicles were available. Of course when he walked into the office, and realized there were less cars outside than workers he knew they were out of luck. The man at the desk looked at them, phone against his ear, and stood up.

    “One moment please,” he spoke into the phone, then pulled the phone away from his face.

    “You have no cars left.” Finn said bluntly.

    “I’m sorry we-” The man at the desk stopped and looked at Finn. “How did you-”

    “Thank you anyways.” Finn turned Jaden and Jack around and dragged them out by their arms. “Obviously we have a problem. This is the only rental place in the town. The town is barely big enough to have one of these. We can’t stay much longer, we’re probably going to have to pick up some more people to get us to another town. We really shouldn’t even be in public right now.”

    “Why don’t we just lay low by hiding in plain sight. Why would we be walking around as if nothing mattered if we were actually the people from the amber alert?” Jack looked up at Finn hoping for approval.