Rose's Journal

Chapter 12: The Lawsuit

The car ride back to Flynn's house was silent. Luke just sat there, overthinking everything he said and did, and Flynn just sat there, wishing she knew all of what was going on, so she could say something to Luke to make him feel better. She may not have been able to see him, but she knew he was hurting. They arrived back at Flynn's house after 45 minutes of nothing.

"Luke, I think you should go home," said Flynn, trying to figure out what to do next.

"No, really I'm fine I'm just going to stay here and help you," Luke wrote, trying to hide how upset he really was as to not disappoint Flynn.

"Luke. Go home. I'm saying this as a friend and as someone who doesn't want all of this info to be interpreted wrong because your head wasn't in it. Now go," said Flynn, trying to sound nice, yet slightly pushy so he'd actually leave. Luke complied, and Flynn saw him poof away because the whiteboard was gone. Flynn walked back into her house with the documents that she had gotten from Reggie's mom. She was going to begin to look through them, when suddenly one of the whiteboards appeared in the living room.

"Where is everyone? I thought we were all supposed to meet back here after we got the documents?" the whiteboard said. It was Willie's.

"Long story. Where's Alex?"

"Even longer story. Anyways, we should probably do some work here," Willie wrote on the board. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about what happened with Alex: he already felt horrible enough.

Flynn opened the file to see all the information from that night: the vendor's information, the couple of articles that were written about it, and the summary of the paramedic's report. However, one document caught her eye: a lawsuit against the hot dog vendor. She began to scan the document as Willie sorted through some of the other documents included in the file. Flynn began to read the lawsuit report.

"What does the report say?" Willie wrote on his board.

"Well, in summary, the lawsuit was filed in 1996 by Luke's parents and Reggie's mom against the hot dog vendor for wrongful death. They won the suit with a total of.." Flynn gasped, "$3 MILLION?" Flynn screamed, just staring at the number. $3 million?

"Okay back to it," Flynn said as she began to scan the document again. "Okay, this is suspicious. It says that they did not have access to Reggie's autopsy report, so they just used Luke's," Flynn furrowed her brow. "They said that Luke's report pointed to the death being from Listeria. Willie, can you grab my computer?" Flynn asked, "I need to look into this."

Willie handed Flynn her laptop and she began to search for Listeria, "Listeria is a foodborne bacterium typically found in processed meats and unpasteurized milk that is said to potentially cause death," Flynn read aloud.

"Well, hate to break it to you, but that kinda makes sense," Willie wrote, secretly hoping that this would be it.

"BUT, it says that it typically kills people in over 70 days, it's typically a problem with the brain, and it usually only kills older people and people with weaker immune systems. How would it kill three healthy teens?" Flynn retorted. This was proof that much more had gone down, so why wasn't this picked up earlier?

Flynn went back to the document and continued to read, "They reached a settlement only days after the original wrongful death suit. That's strange. If I was the vendor, I wouldn't so easily cough up $3 million, which he's probably gonna be paying off for the rest of his life. Plus, the idea that the Listeria from that hot dog would have killed them in that short amount of time is pretty ludicrous."

"So, what you're saying is, if we reopen the case, we could potentially fix everything?" wrote Willie on the board.

"I don't think it's that simple. He already plead guilty, so I highly doubt he'll reopen the case and the parents can't because they already got their settlement," said Flynn, "But, why would he plead guilty?"

"Maybe, you could look him up online? See if there's anything fishy," Willie wrote.

"Willie, you're a genius!" Flynn exclaimed as she reached for her laptop to begin searching for the hot dog stand, Sam and Ella's. No results except for the article on Sunset Curve. Next, she searched for the vendor's name. No results that linked him to anything. "Willie, I take that back. We hit a dead end," Flynn said, beginning to slump back down. This was going to be harder than she thought.

"Flynn, I found something you might want to see," Willie wrote on his whiteboard.

It was the receipt for a check for $600,000. It was written for Bobby. On the memo, it said "to follow the dreams our sons never got to."

"They gave him $600,000 out of the lawsuit? That's probably the money he used to start his career. That little bitch," Flynn's voice began to grow angry. Was this really what happened? Did he really go so low as to take money from the parents of the people he killed just to kickstart his own career? The idea was sickening. "Wow, drama must follow them or something, huh?" Flynn joked. She had a bad habit of making jokes in dire situations to calm herself down, "I mean this all is crazy, but the whole Caleb thing that went down and the ghost band thing? They must be magnets for shit I'll tell you. Crazy I say," Flynn put on a smile as she said this, although it felt wrong, "And the relationships, I mean Reggie and Luke with whatever the fuck is going on there, and you and Al..," Flynn froze, realizing she just put her foot in her mouth.

Willie froze as well at the mention of him and Alex. Was it that obvious that something was wrong there? Flynn couldn't even see them, yet she somehow knew their drama. Was it because Alex told her? But, there was one question that was more important to him than those: "Has Alex talked to you today? Is he okay?" Willie wrote on his board.

"No, I haven't seen Alex since you guys left for the hospital. What happened? Is everything okay?" Flynn asked, genuinely concerned about both of them.

"Yeah just a little relationship drama. It was kind of a stressful experience for both of us," Willie wrote on his whiteboard. He didn't want to tell Flynn EVERYTHING, but he somehow found himself drawn to.

"Well, if you ever need someone to talk to, Willie, you know where to find me," said Flynn, smiling at him, trying to make him feel better. Flynn looked at her watch, "Oh shit it's almost time. I'd love to stay and chat with you, and we definitely need to at some point, but I'm going to be late." Flynn picked up her keys and bag and jetted to the door.

Willie poofed in front of Flynn before she could run out the door. "Where are you heading off to?" Willie wrote on his whiteboard.

"A concert," Flynn said, smirking.