A Shade of Cool

XIX: The She Wolf

The whistling of the kettle called out as we sat in a cafe in the early morning rise. The clatters of cutlery and chatters of people discussing their lives. There we sat; half awake, half asleep after a long night of discussing Stacey, Eric, Ana and the case. Our eyes weary and yawning, we slowly made our way through a breakfast of pancakes, bacon and syrup.

The overwhelming smell of coffee made me a bit nauseous and the shouts of orders from inside the kitchen made my head ring. I downed a couple of pills to calm my thumping head and held my head in my hands, slumped in the corner.

"You better eat something, it's a long trip home," Marissa told me. She seemed to be coping a bit better, I guessed it was the life of a student.

"Sorry," I grumbled, "I just feel shit."

"Well, you tried. She said no and you can't exactly force anything on her, can you?" Marissa said.

"No, not that... well, mostly that but I'm just tired, okay?" I replied, trying a stripe of bacon as Noah finished up his plate and sipped his vanilla milkshake without complaint. He never failed to amaze me that boy, how he could stay so calm all the time.

"What now?" He asked.

"I guess we just go home, talk to Ana and bury our heads in the sand," I said.

He cocked a brow and stirred his milkshake with his straw slowly as he looked at me up and down, "We've come too far now, Bud. No hiding away now."

"Didn't you hear what I said? They'll fuck us up, Noah," I looked up at him wearing a regrettable expression of annoyance. I hated being like this with him but the kid had such a calm response to everything. How could he be so calm?

"Yes, I heard what you said pretty well. But I'm just saying that it's a bit bad of us if we just drop this because we are scared of some rich kid. I know things about Eric and his family. Did you forget that I was his best friend?" He grinned.

Eyeing him, I lifted my head a bit more, "Carry on."

"Well let's just say they aren't benefitting in a legally financial way," He hinted with a wink, "Anyhow, they have a safe. Eric showed me and if I remember well the codes is...." He pulled a thinking face as he stared up at the whitewashed ceiling, "2203.."

"What's in there?" Marissa asked, leaning in.

"Files; bank details, private information, statics of their income, the usual," He smirked, "And drugs, lots of them."

"Drugs?!" I almost shouted.

Marissa and Noah quickly hushed me and gave me a sharp look as we received a few odd glances, "Yes," Noah spoke in a hushed voice, "Drugs."

"This is good, too good," Marissa smiled, "Just to think, with one phone call..." She sipped her coke as she thought about the event in her head. I had to admit, it sounded appealing, however, they could be ahead. They always were.

"When did you see this?" I asked him.

"About August," Noah recalled, "There was so much in there I doubt you could hide it all."

It would seem a risk, but I was sure we could pull it off. Just a tip off and his family would be in bigger trouble than we would be. This wouldn't be a small town cop situation, it would be a federal investigation. I thought for a second, Sure, we would get Eric back and stop his family from scaring us away or doing whatever they wanted to do to us but we had to remember that there were innocent people in his family who would most likely go down. Was it right to ruin a dozen lives for the sake of saving our skins?