SMOKE SIGNALS     /     OUTERBANKS
ੈ✩‧₊˚ written by catie . . . © vqnillascented
chapter fourteen  ━━
' things that a young girl shouldn't know '

PETERKIN HITS THE GROUND, HARD, and Alex couldn't get a full breath in.

Shouts start to go up from the scene, and Alex slowly stumbles backwards, away from it all.

When tears start to brim in her eyes, she turns and starts running, heading in the same direction as the Pogues had gone just moments before.

She has no idea where they had gone, and after a few minutes of running around the boardwalk with no luck, she knows the only place left for her to go.

She steals an unattended bicycle from an open air storage unit, knowing that she needed it more than whoever it belonged to. She uses it to get all the way back to Figure 8, pulling onto her street slowly, nerves swimming in her stomach.

Luckily, her front door had been left unlocked, and she entered carefully. "Mom?" She calls out, but gets no reply.

Sneaking a peek into her mother's office, she finds it empty. She goes through the door to the garage in the laundry room and sees that her mom's car is gone as well. This helps ease her anxiety a bit.

She heads upstairs, needing to find her phone, which she had left in her hurry to leave a few days before. She had to call Kie.

But something in her parents' bedroom catches her eye, making her pause.

A cardboard box lay overturned on the carpet, right in front of the carpet, the lid having fallen off, allowing the contents to spill out onto the floor. The way that it was positioned looked like it had fallen from a high shelf.

Alex stepped past the threshold, into the bedroom. Her mother had always been protective over those boxes that she kept in the bedroom, not letting her daughters carry them inside during the move. Now that Alex thought about it, she didn't even let her father touch them either.

There were clearly so many secrets that her parents were keeping, from each other, and from her. This was her chance to possibly get to the bottom of one of the mysteries.

She knelt down in front of the fallen box, starting to sift through the papers. Page after page of legal documents flashed before her eyes, which wasn't much of a surprise to Alex, since her mother had been an attorney before moving to Charleston. She would obviously still have some stuff left over in storage.

But it was one particular manilla folder in the mess that caught her eye.

Right on the front, scribbled out on the tan colored center of the folder, was her mother's handwriting;

W. Cameron

Alex's heart leaped into her throat, and she opened the folder with trembling fingers. Forcing herself to focus through the rapid racing of her mind, she read the first heading;

Kildare County Sheriff's Department
Search and Arrest Warrent

Name of arrestee: Ward Cameron
Order: Due to a claim of an unrecorded confession by a trustworthy witness, I have reason to believe the arrestee committed the accused crime, of murder in the second degree.
Warrent filed by: Sue Peterkin, Sherrif

The paper fluttered to the ground, slipping from Alex's fingertips, which had now gone numb.

There was no missing the big red letters at the bottom of the page, in her mom's unmistakable, neat handwriting;

Dismissed.

A dry sob ripped through Alex, who was too shocked to actually shed any tears. She dug her nails into her knees, doubling over as the realization truly hit her.

Her mother had been complicit in whatever Ward had done to Big John.

Whether it was actually murder, Alex couldn't prove that, since the most proof was John B's word and this arrest warrent, but there was no actual confession, and clearly it had never been acted upon or investigated any further.

Until now.

That's why Peterkin had showed up to the air strip today. John B must've gone to her, or they must've found some more, undeniable proof. That's why she was arresting him.

That's why she had gotten shot.

And her mother had played a part in letting Ward walk free.

Alex's stomach twisted. She had never really known her mother, not really. How could she do something so awful? It made her feel sick to think that her mom, the woman that had raised her, that was supposed to be her role model, no matter how not-close they had been, would go against fairness and justice. What could've possibly made her make that choice?

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was getting hard for her to tell which, Alex was sitting in front of an entire pile of evidence.

And the envelope of money caught her eye next.

She picked it up, having to use two hands from the thickness of it. Peeling back the already opened seal, she would've gasped, if surprise was even an emotion that she could feel anymore, at the note written out on the inside of the flap.

Katherine,

Here is the compensation that you asked for, thank you for your help. Take this and get out of here, just like we discussed. Best wishes to you and your family.

Thank you, W.C.

Alex squeezed her eyes shut, unable to even look at any of it any longer. The move to Charleston had seemed a bit sudden, but she had chalked it up to her parents being spontaneous, plus her dad had told her that he had found better work in the city.

It was all lies. Everything that she had known, everything that she had ever been told, none of it was true.

She had no idea who her parents even were. Had her father known? That his wife was a greedy monster, who would take money instead of being fair?

God, she was going to be sick.

Alex carefully opened her heavy eyelids, quickly shoving the envelope inside of the folder, and then she rose to her feet, taking the evidence with her.

She entered her bedroom, rushing over to her dresser, her heartbeat pumping loud in her ears. Dropping to the floor, she yanked open the bottom drawer, and she stuck the folder all the way in the back, burying it under several pajama bottoms.

She would show that to the Pogues, and to the police, later. Right now, she needed to find out where her friends had gone, and what their next move was going to be.

Just as she was reaching for her phone on the edge of her bed, the sound of her window being opened cut through the silence.

She whirled around, her knees wobbling when she saw that it was Rafe, coming in through her bedroom window.

Taking a big step back, she stuck an accusatory finger at him. "Get the hell out."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Alex, I want to talk to you."

"No." She bit out quickly. "I'm not talking to you, I know what you did."

"I know you were there. At the air strip."
Alex swallowed hard. "W-what?"

"I saw you." He took a step forward, and she would've moved away, if her feet weren't frozen in place, like her bedroom floor had turned to quicksand. "And I know that you saw me, saw what I did."

A low whimper escaped her. "Get the hell away from me, Rafe."

He just took another step closer. "Don't be like that. You have to understand why I did it."

"I will never understand." Hot tears blurred her vision.

"I was protecting my dad." Rafe scoffed, like it was obvious.

This made her lunge forward. "He doesn't deserve protecting." She growled.

"What are you talking about?"

"He killed Big John. That's why Peterkin was arresting him." She croaked. "And you shot her, for trying to do the right thing."

He blinked at her, face blank for a moment, until slowly, a smile spread over his lips. "You're crazy."

"I'm crazy?" Alex's pulse was wild. "You shot the sherriff!" She was yelling now.

"I was protecting him!" Rafe screamed right back.

He leaned closer to her, getting all up in her face, seething, and she took the opportunity to land a hard slap to his jaw.

He stumbled backwards, rubbing the area, a wild look in his eyes.

Alex lifted her chin, standing her ground. "I told you to get the hell out."

"You know..." he mumbled, like he was mostly talking to himself. "You know that I can't let you go. Not when you saw...what I did."

Her blood turned cold.

She watched him glance around her room, only able to guess what he was looking for. Something to strangle her with? Or maybe something to hit her over the head with and knock her out? She would put nothing past him at this point.

So, she acted first.

She swiftly took the pair of scissors from her desk into her hand, holding them over her head, pointed right at him like a knife. "Don't you dare even think about touching me."

He cocked his head to the side. "You wouldn't."

She stepped closer, seething, "You have no idea the things that I would do."

He inhaleed sharply, and she took this moment of his weakness, snatching her phone up from her bed, keeping the scissors in her other hand, and making a run for the door.

"What the fuck?!" She could hear him roaring after her, but she just kept her focus on descending the stairs, crossing the main room, and slipping out the front door.

The sun was just starting to sink behind the horizon when Katherine returned home.

The house was eerily quiet, and when she shut the front door it echoed throughout the whole house.

"Alex?" She called out, but got no reply.
After dropping her shoes and purse at the entryway, she headed for the stairs.

She had visited the beach today, and had spent several hours just sitting in the sand. She needed to clear her head, lots on her mind to consider.

The hot summer heat had taken it out of her though, and she craved nothing more than her cool, comfortable bed.

She cranked up the AC as she passed the thermostat, then continued to push her tired legs up the stairs.

Any last ounce of exhaustion left her when she saw the sight of her bedroom.

She flew to the spilled out box, dropping to her knees and starting to shuffle through the papers. Her mind raced, trying to think of when this could've happened - and, if Alex could've seen it.

Taking her time, she counted for each paper and folder, going through the mental checklist in her head.

The first thing she noticed missing was the envelope of cash.

She spread out every last thing, hands flying through the mess as she searched, but it was gone, her worst fears come to life.

Jenna had been staying at a friend's house all week, through the divorce and all of that mess, and George had left, to God knows where, and he was definitely not coming over to visit.
If the papers had been taken, there was only one person who could've been the culprit.

Her eyes were wild as she started to put the papers back in the box, already trying to come up with an excuse to tell her oldest daughter, when she realized that the missing money wasn't even the start of it.

The entire case file, Ward's file, was gone.
Katherine saw red, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She dropped everything that was in her hands and clambered to her feet.

She rushed down the hallway, bursting into Alex's room, which looked mostly undisturbed, besides the wrinkled bed sheets and open window.

Katherine quickly got to work, flinging open every drawer and searching under every surface, praying that if Alex had found the papers, she had hidden them, and not taken them with her, wherever she had gone.

If she had taken them, there was no hope for Katherine. She had raised her daughter to be independent and investigative, and it would be the end of her.

Katherine was convinced she had been a saint in a past life, with how much shit she was continually able to get away with in this one, and she realized her luck had continued, when she saw a tan-colored corner sticking out from the bottom of Alex's dresser.

Once she had extracted the folder and made sure it was all there, Katherine let herself calm down, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.

The second that her mind started to clear, she started to think about what she was going to do with Alex.

What she might have to do.

A quick few texts back and forth with Kiara led Alex deep into The Cut, where the pogues had been hiding out for the past few hours, just sitting in Kie's parked car. 

Alex nearly fell over when she saw that John B was with them. She ran the rest of the way over to the car, slapping her hands against the side when she reached it.

Exclamations went up from inside, everybody clearly startled from her loud arrival.

"Sorry," she muttered, as Kiara popped the trunk and she climbed inside, trying to act normal as she realized that she would be sharing the space with JJ.

"John B," she said, keeping her voice soft, worried that if she spoke too loud she would set him off. "Are you okay?"

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. "You saw?"

Alex nodded, swallowing hard.

"Great, we have a witness." JJ said. "Can't we go to the police again and have Alex talk to them? Tell them the truth?"

John B leaned his head against the window. "They're convinced that I shot their sheriff, they are not going to listen to anybody who says anything otherwise. Not if all we have is her word."

Alex blinked. Clearly, she had missed a lot. "Why do they think you did it?"

John B threw her a glance. "Who do you think called it in?"

A wave of cold washed over her. Of course Ward had accused John B of murder, as if he hadn't done enough already.

"Tell us everything that happened to you after we left." Kiara turned around in the driver's seat, facing Alex. "Where did you go?"

"Well, I ran." Alex looked down. "I didn't know what else to do. I went home, and I-" Her heart lurched. "Guys, I...my mom was involved with Ward."

Silence ruled the air for a long moment, before JJ asked, "Involved, like, she was cheating on your dad, or...?"

"No. I wish." Alex shook her head quickly. "Apparently, She used to be his attorney, and she had the arrest warrant in her bedroom, and I found it."

"Arrest warrant?" Pope furrowed his brow. "What arrest warrant?"

Alex couldn't look at John B. "The one for Big John's murder."

"Oh my God." Kiara gasped.

"She somehow got it waved." Alex wished she could sink into the ground and just disappear. "That's why he never got any sort of punishment when it happened. That's how he got away with it."

"Fuuuck." JJ whispered.

John B's face was pale when Alex finally got the courage to look at him. Parting his cracked lips, he asked, "Do you still have it?"

Alex nodded, feeling her heart break for him. "I hid it in my room."

"If we show that to the police..." JJ tried. "Will that, like, do anything?"

"Maybe." Kiara chewed on her lip.

"I also have an envelope full of money with a note from Ward thanking her for her help." Alex said bluntly. "It's pretty clear what happened."

"Now, that...that might do something." Pope said.

Slowly, they all looked to John B, and they watched as icy determination washed over his face.

Kiara glanced out the window, catching sight of the setting sun. "We could go get it in the morning? Bring it into the station first thing? We all really need some rest."

Agreement went up from every seat, and then an uneasy silence fell over them. There was no way that any of them would be getting any sleep. But still, seats were reclined and people moved into more comfortable positions, hoping that if they just closed their eyes, they could wash away the horrible events of the day.

"Um, also," Alex broke the silence, staring up at the ceiling. "Rafe came to see me."

"What?" Kiara sat bolt upright, the other coming to attention as well.

Alex didn't move. "He snuck in my bedroom window."

"Why?" Pope asked.

"I...we..." Alex felt shame wash over her. "We might have been ever-so-slightly romantically involved."

"What the hell?" Kiara barked out a laugh that didn't have an ounce of humor in it.

"Ever-so-slightly?" JJ's voice was quiet. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Like," Alex didn't look at him. "We hooked up a couple times, but we weren't, like, together. And we're definitely not anything anymore. Fucking pyscho."

"Jesus, Alex, really? Rafe?" Kiara groaned. "I could smell the psycho-ness from a mile away."
"Well, I only smelled his height and those abs, okay? I'm sorry." Alex tried to joke, the mood in the car getting impossibly heavier.

JJ cleared his throat, "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Oh, sorry." Alex murmured, a strange feeling twisting in her gut.

Nobody said another word for the next few hours.

Apparently, Alex had been able to drift off, at least for a bit, because the next thing she knew, she was being woken up by the sound of the radio coming on and the sun shining through the car's many windows.

"Good news for residents of Outer Banks," the man over the speakers starts, before launching into a tangent about the weather and power lines. It's only when he changes subjects that Alex's ears perk up.

"And still, no arrest in the shooting death of Sheriff Susan Peterkin."

Alex's breath catches. Death. She had suspected it, the shot was a direct hit to her chest, but she had tried to hold out hope, hope that was now shattered.

Tandem police sirens plow down the road, one after another. Alex sits up at this, watching through the back windshield as the two white cars drive right by their hiding spot.

When she faces forward again, she sees that everybody else is also awake, just staring off into the distance, in their own heads.

Kiara reaches out and cranks the radio down, the man still going on and on about Peterkin.

"Alright, let's game this out," JJ says, sitting up. "Maybe you guys can help, being the smart ones and all, but..." he lets out a breath. "Who are the cops going to believe? Ward Cameron or us?"

"Maybe us, if Alex can get those documents." Pope answers.

"Yeah, but even that doesn't really help clear John B." Kiara adds. "Ward could've killed Big John and John B still be the one who shot Peterkin, there's not really an automatic tie in."

"Shit," Pope sighs.

Alex shifts in her seat, trying desperately to come up with her own plan, but failing.

"Yucatan, allright?" JJ grabs John B's shoulder. "I'm saying that's the only option."

"Enough with the Mexico bullshit." John B snaps at him. "Alex will show the paperwork and she and Sarah will say that they witnessed the whole thing. They'll both tell the same story because they were there, and Ward will go down. That seems like enough proof to me."

A pause, then Alex says, "How am I going to get back to my house? We can't exactly just drive up to Figure 8 with a wanted criminal in the trunk. No offense, John B."

"None taken." He sighs.

"You could..." Pope thinks for a moment. "Walk?"

Alex huffs. "I've done it before." She mumbled.

"Try and get in contact with Sarah while you're there, will you?" John B asked. "None of us should risk calling her, but we need her for the plan. Also...I have to know if she's okay."

Alex's heart softened. He really cared about her, didn't he? If anybody was going to sweep her best friend off her feet and into this mess, Alex guessed she was glad it was John B.

She smiled at him. "I'll text you as soon as I find her."

"I'll go with you."

Alex turned to face JJ, who was watching her expectantly. "You don't have to."

"I want to." He blurted, quickly scrambling to add, "You shouldn't go alone, what if something happens."

"He's right." Pope says. "You'll be better off if you stick together."

"Alright," Alex took a deep breath. "Why the hell not? Let's go."

As she and JJ started to climb out of the car, John B said to them, "If anybody asks about me, you haven't seen me since yesterday morning."

Alex simply smirked back at him, before lifting her chin and looking up at the sky, "Was that the wind?"

This earned a small smile from John B, and snort from JJ, and Alex felt good about bringing even just an ounce of lightheartedness.

And then, she headed towards the main road, JJ on her heels.

catie speaks!

OMG OMG OMG

this was probably the most intense chapter in this book so far, and i loved every second of writing it!!!

sorry that it took so long to come out, i had some personal stuff to deal with in febuary, but i'm hoping to be back witb fairly regular updates now 🤞🤞

GET READY FOR A PLOT TWIST NEXT CHAPTER!! a little *gasp* moment!!!! 

thoughts?

predictions?

i'd love to hear them 🤩 please vote and comment if you enjoyed, follow to he notified when i update! & i hope you have a really great day!!!

virtual hugs,
catie