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“What the heck?” Tommy blared, as they watched Chuck bolt toward the truck at the end of the driveway.
“That’s Chuck, Tommy,” Lola said. She grabbed his bicep and squeezed hard. “We have to follow him. He stole forty thousand dollars from the Inn, and so much more from other properties around the Vineyard. Susan and Scott have been after him for...”
“Let’ go,” Tommy said, his eyes darkening. He lurched toward the counter and grabbed the keys to his rental. “Let’s go after him.”
Lola and Tommy burst out onto the front porch. The moon hung low and its luminescence glow danced across the tip-tops of the trees. Chuck cranked the engine of his truck and tore down the driveway. As Lola cranked into the passenger seat of Tommy’s rental, she cried, “I guess that was the surprise of his life. Finding people living in his house?”
“I guess so,” Tommy blared. He buzzed the engine and tore down the driveway backward, narrowly missing Chuck’s mailbox down below.
“Do you think he left something in the cabin? Something he needed?” Lola asked.
Tommy cranked the truck into another gear and then shot from reverse to forwards, pointing the nose of the truck toward the taillights of Chuck’s.
“I imagine so. Who knows? He might have had some cash stowed away in the walls or something,” Tommy affirmed. “I’ve met guys who did the same elsewhere. But on Martha’s Vineyard? Gosh. Bad people really do pop up everywhere. Thanking my lucky stars, you were with me tonight when it happened.”
“Why?” Lola asked, breathless.
“Because he’s going to do his best to get rid of me on this wild goose chase, and I have a feeling you know the Vineyard like the back of your hand,” Tommy said with a cheeky grin.
Lola cracked her knuckles as Tommy smashed his foot harder against the gas. When they reached the end of the dirt road, Chuck turned right on Edgartown Vineyard Haven Road and chugged south and east, past the Island Alpaca Company. Tommy’s foot had no interest in giving up the gas pedal. His eyes meant business.
They shot toward the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest, where Chuck made a frantic right turn onto Barnes Road and chugged south.
“He thought he would lose us there,” Tommy said, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. “He was wrong.”
“Stay alert, because there are several ways he could lose us through here,” Lola said. “It’s all state forest around here, winding and curving roads, and—oh! Look! He turned left!”
Tommy yanked after him onto Sanderson Ave, then jerked immediately left again when Chuck went north on the same road. Lola clung to her seatbelt, as though that would keep her in one piece, and watched the trees as they whipped by in the grey darkness outside. When they reached Fire Road, Chuck burned right, and Tommy drove right on after him, never allowing him out of sight for long.
“Where do you think he wants to go?” Lola demanded.
“Too late for the ferries tonight now,” Tommy affirmed. “I imagine he has a boat docked somewhere on the island. Maybe he’s been sleeping there, biding his time.”
The race continued. Lola prayed that somehow, some way, a cop would notice them and decide to pull Chuck over. Unfortunately, now that tourist season had begun to trickle to a close, she knew the cops had begun to ease up, take a much-deserved break from the chaos. She had a feeling more than a few of them were crowded around a high-top at the Edgartown Bar, celebrating the end of summer.
“The island feels insanely small when you drive it at this speed,” Tommy said with a dry laugh.
Although Chuck seemed to try to go around eighty-five, ninety miles per hour, it was obvious that he just couldn’t, not without driving off the road. Just before he barreled into Edgartown, he swept south again, then courted Tommy and Lola around a few little side roads before heading west again.
“He can’t shake us,” Tommy grumbled. “What does he think he’s going to do? Teleport out of here?”
As they continued to chase Chuck, Lola texted Susan, Scott, and Christine with news of what they’d seen.
LOLA: Chuck Frampton is on the island. We’re chasing him in a car. Call the police? We’re heading west on West Tisbury Road.
CHRISTINE: What? How did you find him?
LOLA: He just rolled into his old cabin like he owned the place (ha).
SCOTT: Calling the cops now. Hold him as long as you can.
SCOTT: He used to dock a boat in Chilmark.
SCOTT: He might be headed that way.
SCOTT: AH!
Lola chuckled and turned her eyes back toward the dark road. “Scott is freaking out.”
“I should say,” Tommy said. “To be honest, I’m freaking out, too. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. My anxiety is through the roof.”
“I watched you handle that storm like it was a light rain. This is only Chuck Frampton we’re talking about. He’s the equivalent of a rat. He doesn’t deserve your anxiety,” Lola returned.
Scott texted for more details about where they were headed so that he could inform the police. Not long after they entered West Tisbury, sirens blared behind them. Chuck cut north and then rounded west again, down North Road, until he managed to find a road that cranked out toward the Nantucket Sound. The sirens seemed to bounce off of every tree stump and howl into the enormous black sky.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just stop!” Lola cried, growing frantic with all the noise. “What does he think he’s going to do? Drive the car into the water?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him to be so delusional,” Tommy affirmed.
As they neared the water, Lola gripped the handle on the door, clinging to it for dear life. She wondered what the hell ran through Chuck’s mind at this moment. Someone had been at his house; someone had taken over his land. Surely, wherever he’d kept the money, it was stored somewhere in the belly of that place—and he was hungry for it.
“What kind of low-life scum do you have to be to take advantage of your family and friends like that?” Tommy grumbled.
When the road opened up a bit more, the police officers cranked around Lola and Tommy and barreled toward Chuck. Eventually, they cornered him at the road that overlooked the water. Chuck’s truck shot sideways and looked as though it was about to teeter off the edge and into the waves. Lola gasped and clutched her cheeks.
The cop who had driven and the cop in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle crept out of the car, both with their guns drawn. It looked directly out of a scene in a movie. As they surrounded Chuck, Lola and Tommy got out of their truck slowly, as well, totally captivated.
“Chuck, we need you to get out of the truck with your hands over your head,” the officer yelled out.
If Lola’s memory served her, the officer who had just spoken was one she’d gone to high school with. This meant that he had probably known Chuck his entire life.
How the tables turned.
With a last-second ditch in-mind, Chuck cranked to the side of the truck and tried to drop out the passenger side. Unfortunately for him, another officer raced around that side and latched him tightly, pulling his arms behind his back.
“Chuck, this is going to be a lot easier for you if you don’t struggle,” the officer blared.
“Those people. They were on my property!” Chuck cried. “I just wanted to go home.”
“Don’t play dumb, Chuck. You left the island months ago because you’re wanted in an investigation relating to several hundred thousands of dollars stolen off the island,” the officer said.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Chuck said.
“Then we’ll take you into the station and explain more!” the officer said, feigning cheerfulness.
He dragged Chuck back toward the police car. Lola and Tommy looked just beyond. To Lola’s intense dissatisfaction, his eyes connected with hers almost immediately.
“Lola Sheridan,” he said. “Good to see you again! You were always the best of the Sheridan sisters.”
Lola strung her arms across her chest and glared at him.
“You’ll tell them that I didn’t have anything to do with this, won’t you?” Chuck blared. “You’ll tell them that I just wanted to come back to visit my family? Scott sold Frampton Freight, without even consulting me! Can you believe that?”
“Shut up, Chuck. You’re going to get what you deserve,” Lola returned.
Chuck stuttered. “Lola, come on. After all, we’ve been through?”
“And what’s that been, Chuck?”
“You know. Scott and Susan. We’re practically family. We...”
“There’s a funny thing about family. Maybe you haven’t learned it yet,” Lola retorted. She stepped closer to him. She felt light as air, apt to float off the ground with rage. “Family doesn’t steal thousands and thousands of dollars from family.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just something to think about for next time. That is if there is a next time.”
Chuck cried out some curse words as he was shoved into the back-end of the police car. Lola shook angrily as Tommy swung a thick arm over her and held her close against him. He whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be okay. We got him.”
One of the officers approached, adjusting his hat so that his ears wiggled up and down.
“We’re going to need to ask you guys some questions,” he told them. “Do you mind stopping by at the station this evening? I know it’s late.”
Tommy looked at Lola. “You good?”
“Yes! Not a problem,” Lola said. “Whatever you need, officer.”