The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What makes up the American Dream? Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald certainly had an opinion of that dream in the 1920s. The Great Gatsby is his interpretation of it and its limitations. More specifically, he wrote about the leisure class in their 20s and 30s, of which he was a member. Perhaps this classic novel is so widely read because it also tackles the theme of American character or lack thereof. Money and power does not always equal happiness for Jay Gatsby. The reader begins to question whether the illusions Fitzgerald’s characters believe real are worth the price they pay to find out.

Set in 1920s New York, The Great Gatsby‘s scathing satire of the newly minted “nouveau riche” class is narrated by Nick Carraway, a recent Midwest transplant and neighbor of the elusive, party-throwing Gatsby.

Gatsby is secretive and filthy rich, choosing to hide how he came by his enormous wealth from most of his weekly partygoers, who really couldn’t care less anyway. Fitzgerald is a master at weaving in the details of the poshness of the time period through vivid descriptions of the mansion’s décor, the attire of its visitors, and Gatsby’s own signature yellow convertible.

The reader views the story through Nick’s Yale graduate eyes and learns that Gatsby has loved and lost and still loves a married woman named Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby convinces Nick, Daisy’s cousin, to invite Daisy to tea. The ex-couple, upon being reintroduced, start up an affair.

Daisy’s husband Tom, not being a fool, begins to suspect his wife’s infidelity and in the process digs up the unsavory source of Gatsby’s wealth. Driving back from New York with Gatsby, Daisy strikes and kills a woman during an emotional conversation about their affair. Gatsby shoulders the blame for the killing.

What happens next is the one of the many reasons this book is worth reading again and again. Will Gatsby win Daisy back and be acquitted? Will his riches and power come to his aid? Will true love and material possession last?

Major Characters in the Novel

• Nick Caraway Nick, a young Midwesterner educated at Yale, is the novel’s narrator. When he moves to the West Egg area of Long Island, he joins the lavish social world of Tom, Jordan, Gatsby, and his cousin Daisy.
• Jay Gatsby The handsome, mysterious Gatsby, who lives in a mansion next door to Nick’s cottage, is known for his lavish parties. Nick, whom he trusts, gradually learns about Gatsby’s past and his love for Daisy.
• Daisy Buchanan Beautiful, charming, and spoiled, Daisy is the object of Gatsby’s love. Her caprice and materialism lead her to marry Tom Buchanan.
• Tom Buchanan From an enormously wealthy Chicago family, Tom is a former Yale football star who sees himself at the top of an exclusive social hierarchy. He is conceited, violent, racist, and unfaithful.
• Jordan Baker Daisy’s friend Jordan epitomizes the modern woman of the 1920s. A liberated, competitive golfer, she is firmly established in high society. She both attracts and repels Nick as a romantic interest.
• George Wilson The owner of an auto garage at the edge of the valley of ashes, George finds his only happiness through his faithless wife, Myrtle.
• Myrtle Wilson Myrtle dreams of belonging to a higher social class than George can offer. Vivacious and sensual, she hopes her adulterous affair will lead to a life of glamour.

Marvin Auditorium 101AB, Fri  Nov 16      2:00–3:00 pm, no registration required.

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Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

“You look really nervous,” Kate said, looking judgmentally at Kevin. Kevin looked up from where he had been picking at his cuticle. He felt more than nervous. He felt as if he was about to vomit.

“Not everyone can hide behind hairspray and accessories,” Kevin said. He assessed Kate’s carefully coiffed hairdo that had been dyed a striking shade of purple, and her perfectly applied makeup. Even her outfit was clearly chosen with care—a sharp black business suit with a shockingly bright green shell peeking out at her neckline.

“Settle down, kids.” Kevin’s dad was sitting stiffly on the other side of Kate, holding hands with Kevin’s mom. Neither Hunter or Madeline looked particularly relaxed. More like resigned to whatever they were about to face. “Whatever this meeting brings, we can handle it.”

“Or we’ll all die together.” Madeline added cheerfully, and smiled in a reassuring way at her son.

“I still can’t believe we’re here,” Kate said softly. “I mean, I’ve known all along that we would go to California as part of the grant for ‘Topeka is Awesome’. But I never really imagined we would show up for the mysterious appointment on Evelyn’s calendar.”

“Or that the appointment would be at a second-rate true crime publisher who might know more about this story than we do.” Kevin sighed. “Thanks mainly to my mom’s care packages of photos and letters, they’ve been kept in the loop better than we have these last few months.”

“I was just trying to help,” Madeline interjected. “I didn’t know when your father or I might get killed, and I wanted someone somewhere to know what was going on.”

“So call the freaking police like a normal person,” Kate said angrily. “Because this is ridiculous. And I’m more than a little frightened that whoever greets us at this appointment is still going to kill us.”

“No one has ever been murdered by this publisher before,” Madeline said. “I checked Wikipedia.”

“Mom, I think Kate’s just trying to point out that trusting a second-rate true crime book publisher instead of the police with the clues to uncover a historically evil cabal with a huge stash of gold might be…a little short-sighted.” Kevin said. Even in the midst of this tense waiting room,
he was trying to play peacemaker between his mom and Kate. If they survived this, he wanted them to get along.

“At least we’re prepared. I’ve read most of the true crime books at the library, especially in the white-collar crime section,” Madeline explained proudly.

“They have a section for that?” Kate asked incredulously.

“It’s really well-organized,” Madeline said. “I’ve tried to imagine where our book will sit on those very shelves.”

Kate stifled a laugh and muttered something about mental health that only Kevin could hear. She pulled out her phone to check for messages. She glanced at the screen, sighed, and put the phone back in her handbag.

“Nothing?” Kevin asked, watching her movement closely.

“No. Grandma said she would text me with updates, but I haven’t had any messages since our plane left Kansas City.”

“I’m sure she’s just busy. We left quite a mess back there last night,” Kevin soothed. “Explain to me again why you had a handful of smoke bombs in your handbag?”

“Cleo asked me to pick them up for his kidnapping scene. I forgot they were still in my bag, and when I was digging for hand sanitizer on the way out of that murder scene, I found them. I’m sure Cleo is grateful we didn’t drag his crew into that mess downtown.” Kate shrugged. “Whatever, at least leaving a room full of smoke behind made for a good exit strategy from that golden chamber.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Kevin agreed. “Or at the very least, fire alarms and firefighters. I’m sure they were shocked when they found the source of the smoke.”

“I’m just glad we were long gone,” Kate said. “I didn’t know your mom could drive that fast. Her driving to the airport might have been the most dangerous part of our night.”

Before Kevin could defend his mother’s lead foot, the door they had all been staring at opened. A short man with a wrinkled grey suit and a loosened necktie in a blue paisley pattern waved them all inside.

Kate and Kevin stood nervously against a wall lined with overflowing bookshelves in the dingy office, giving Hunter and Madeline the only two available seats. The placard on the desk said the man behind it was Ira B. Dresser.

The man had dumped a large manila envelope across his already crowded desk and began without introduction.

“You seem like nice people. I’m glad you aren’t dead yet. Unfortunately, we can’t publish this story without a big splash in the media. We don’t have a marketing budget. We rely on sensationalized news to raise the customer’s interest via sound bytes, and then we quench their bloodthirsty desire for the dirt behind the scenes that the courts and papers can’t or won’t report. If you want to see this expanded story in print, bring me a viral YouTube video, a successful Facebook petition, or get a key witness to commit suicide in the holding cell. Give me something I can work with, and I can get you a book deal. Plus you’ll have a media frenzy for your story. But this—it’s just a bunch of pictures, a man with a cough, and your word that there’s something bad going down in a secret room of the Capitol. This doesn’t sell books. This doesn’t tell a story. I’m sorry.”

Madeline looked crushed. Kevin’s dad patted her arm and thanked the agent for his time. Kate looked around nervously like she still suspected a bad guy to appear. Kevin dragged them all out of the office and back to the rental car they had parked outside.

“So what do we do now?” Madeline asked as Kevin started the ignition.

“I’ve got another appointment tomorrow. I can’t miss it, and I can’t take any of you with me. I’ll take a taxi and leave Madeline at the hotel,” Hunter announced with gravity. Madeline looked terrified, but nodded her agreement. Hunter couldn’t—or wouldn’t—share more. Whatever had brought Hunter to California with them, he would have to face it alone.

“Presuming I haven’t lost my job already,” Kevin said, “Kate and I have to present at the ‘Capital City Works’ conference tomorrow. In fact, we need to check in to our official hotel and register this afternoon.”

“You’re still going through with that?” Hunter asked, then started coughing again, reminding all of them that the chemical poisoning in his system was still a threat to his life.

“This is our job,” Kate said. “Presuming I survive this internship, I can’t update my resume if I don’t fulfill my only assignment just because I was worried someone was going to kill me. Who would hire me?”

“Please put your safety first,” Madeline pleaded with them. “Don’t try to kill anyone just to make a media splash. And don’t get shot again, Kevin. Your life is more important than a book deal.”

“Umm… Thanks, Mom. We’ll be careful. Kate and I can skip some of the educational workshops, but we should go mingle, and we definitely have to present the project,” Kevin admitted. “We’ll drop you and mom off at your hotel. You can lay low for a few days while we figure out what to do after the conference.”

Perhaps the pressure had finally made her crack, but the following afternoon, serious and professional Kate Sanchez sat at a banquet table at the back of the ballroom, messing with her iPhone and making fun of the other capital city projects as they were presented onstage.

Her phone made a musical beep, and Kevin elbowed her, frowning. He wasn’t behaving much better; he was exhausted and bored, trying to stay awake in the darkened room after a hearty catered lunch. They were scheduled 33rd out of the fifty presenters, based on ranking the states by population. Kevin could do without the governmental statistics, particularly when they were used so arbitrarily. They had been sitting through these brief presentations all morning and they still had to endure state capital project summaries from Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, and Arkansas before they could present their project and then sneak out the back.
Kevin daydreamed about his life a few short months ago, how he thought this conference was going to be his big chance to escape Topeka and find a great job on a coast. Now he wanted more than anything to get safely back home with his family and with Kate.

Kate’s phone beeped again, and Kevin’s phone buzzed. He looked down at it, annoyed, and then his eyes widened. He looked at Kate, saw her flash her phone screen at him, and read the same message that he had just seen on his own phone.

It’s headline time. Check the news. Be careful. We are safe. Love, Grandma.

It was the first message they had received from back home since leaving three days earlier. Before Kevin could react, both phones beeped and buzzed again.

CNN scrolling “Five dead in capitol shootout, suspected domestic terrorists held in Topeka, Kansas” with live helicopter coverage.

This message was from Kevin’s mom. At least it meant she was still safe in the hotel.

“I’ll take CNN. You take Google news,” Kate whispered. She was typing quickly and silently, bent over her phone.

“These headlines are crazy,” Kevin whispered back a minute later. “I’m not clicking through to the articles, but I see Topeka linked up with the words corruption, bribery, terrorist, explosion, conspiracy, cabal, organized crime, and helicopter pursuit.”

“I guess it’s going to be hard for them to hush this up,” Kate whispered back. “CNN’s headline is ‘Scandal in the Heartland: five bodies found in Topeka deadly golden mausoleum.’”

“And in ten minutes, we’re supposed to get up there and claim Topeka is awesome?’ Kevin laid his head down on the table. “Let’s just walk out now. We’re going to look ridiculous.”

“Maybe no one else has their phones on,” Kate said hopefully. But everyone else in the ballroom was just as bored, and soon people began to whisper and pass phones around tables. While the general population may not react to a capital city scandal, this room was filled with people who had spent the last year creating innovative marketing campaigns for their own capital cities leading up to today’s conference. The timing was impeccable—and terrible. The auditorium filled with the sounds of a raucous band tribute to the city of Little Rock as the Arkansas project presented their results. Time was running out.

That morning, Kate and Kevin had handed over their Powerpoint on a flash drive to a computer tech. As they marched up to the stage, they saw their main graphic, complete with cheerful sunflowers and the statue on the top of the Capitol dome looming on the screen behind them. They had their scripts in hand for their carefully timed seven-minute presentation. Kevin didn’t start speaking as planned; he just stared at the colorful Topeka map projected above him, looking sad. Kate purposefully dropped her script to the floor.

“A couple people can’t speak for an entire community,” Kate leaned into the microphone. “Before I arrived in Topeka, Kansas, for my internship, the only thing I really knew about it was that those funeral picketers lived there. I wondered what kind of pathetic people wouldn’t just leave town rather than have to see that ugliness every day. I’m sure many of you have seen Topeka in the news today, for something else very ugly.” Kate took a breath and looked over at Kevin, who was staring at her. She winked at him before she continued.

“And as someone who escaped from that so-called deadly golden mausoleum a few nights ago, I’m glad to be alive, and I can say with some certainty that today’s headlines don’t reflect Topeka any more than the picketers.” The audience, who had been watching with interest to see Kate and Kevin fall apart onstage, were now tittering with excitement at hearing a first-hand account about the developing scandal.

“And now you’re all dying to know the bloody details. And you will soon, I’m sure. While you’re busy reading the terrible news headlines from your smart phones, it will seem incongruous to hear me telling you that Topeka is awesome. And truthfully, anytime that a city is in the news for a crime or a disaster, it’s hard to think about anything else, especially tourism. But as we have all heard today, this project wasn’t about vacations—it was about raising the satisfaction of the everyday citizen and increasing morale about the capital city to her residents.

“And maybe the things I’ve seen in Topeka aren’t newsworthy—certainly not on the level of the headlines coming out of the capitol today. Headlines aren’t everything. The regular citizens affect daily life much more than any celebrity. Volunteers make a difference in a community, more than big business or winning a national contest.

“Since I’ve been in Topeka, I saw an outpouring of donations when shelves of the food pantries went bare. I’ve seen people getting to know each other at community gardens and the bark park for dogs and the library’s checkout lines. Topeka is a city of action-taking people. From the electric vehicle recharging stations that are popping up everywhere, to the farmer’s markets and bike trails that support healthy living, this is a city that focuses on their citizens.

“I come from a tourist destination in Florida where everyone wants to turn a profit from the visitors and doesn’t care so much about the quality of life of those living around them. The power of friendly, caring people should not be overlooked. Topekans make their city awesome with annual events. The people I met seemed to set their personal calendars by neighborhood Fourth of July parades, hot air balloon rallies, and First Friday art walks. Each fall, when Topekans dress up as characters from the Wizard of Oz and screen the movie on the Capitol lawn, they award prizes for the best Dorothy the way other towns choose a beauty queen. They spend all summer experimenting with recipes for the Ice Cream Armageddeon at the county fair. Their art and history museums are excellent.

“But most don’t consider their town a tourist destination—that’s reserved for Kansas City, Wichita, or Omaha. People drive to Lawrence for their trendy shopping and art-house movies. But they drive home to Topeka, because it’s awesome to live there.

“Topeka is awesome because it’s hyper-local. They have parenting play groups, back-to-school supply drives, active PTOs in the schools, skateboard parks, and a zoo where kids know the names of the elephants and hippos and gorilla and giraffes. While I was out walking last week, I even spotted a little free library sculpture in someone’s yard, a small house of free books, inviting neighbors to take a book and return a book.

“For a pretty big city, Topeka often seems like a small town. Firefighters wave to kids from their fire trucks, and those same kids save stale bread to feed the geese at the cemetery pond. When you walk at the gardens at Lake Shawnee, the volunteers who maintain the landscaping are there to greet you. And at sunset on the trail at the history museum, you’re surrounded by the beauty of Kansas even though you’re a mile from the mall.

“The creativity and determination of Topekans is amazing, from developing the NOTO Arts District to filming 1500 Topekans lipsyncing to ‘Carry On Wayward Son’ by the band Kansas. Huge murals decorate the sides of buildings, and the farmer’s markets showcase food producers and start-up businesses. This community is already proud of who they are and committed to helping each person improve.

“The Topekans I met were passionate about what made their city awesome. From brown bread frozen custard at G’s and Pedro López taco sauce, to Uncle Sunny’s Barbeque Sauce and cartons of take-out delivered from Great Wall, these are a people who know how to enjoy life and to celebrate all the little things that add up to a fulfilling life. We’ve all got to live somewhere, and we can’t all live in the happiest place on earth—Disney has claimed that particular tagline and marketed it to death. In fact, many of the wonderful things in Topeka aren’t unique to this city.”

“As one cynical older citizen told me, ‘it could be a lot worse.’ But there is an underlying truth to his words. In Topeka, it’s not worse—it’s getting better every day. The news headlines only tell us the bad news, so sometimes all we learn from those headlines is that some things are worse in other places. We miss the beauty, the fun, the excitement, the opportunities and possibilities that are just outside our doors.” Kate looked at Kevin with some significance as she
spoke those last words. She appeared to be about to say more, then shook her head and turned back the audience.

“After today, everyone in the country is going to be thinking about Topeka. No publicity is bad publicity, but CNN crime headlines don’t do anything encouraging either. It’s probably the wrong time and place to admit this, but I’m not sure that Kevin and I succeeded in our project. We couldn’t find ways to make Topeka better, and we probably didn’t change anyone’s mind about it, except our own.”

Kate clutched both of her hands over her heart as she continued speaking. “Topeka has taught me about finding community, enjoying the scenery, taking chances, working to improve opportunities, helping neighbors, seeking out the local options, and appreciating friends. Topeka is teaching me to be awesome.”

Gesturing to the Powerpoint behind her, which had been on the same cheerful sunflower graphic during her entire impromptu off-script speech, Kate continued, “In hindsight, instead of trying to launch a marketing campaign, we should have just looked around at how awesome Topeka already was. If I could do it over again, I would just take my video camera around and show the people of Topeka how awesome their city already is. I’d show them the people who are working hard, being creative, giving their time, sharing their talents, mentoring children, and making their community more beautiful.

“I’d capture the random acts of kindness, the openhearted charity, the community spirit. Everybody loves a crime story, especially when the bad guys get caught. Selling the story of goodness is much more of a challenge.

“If I could, I’d tell each person I saw, each person I filmed, thank you. To each of them, I would say ‘You are the reason Topeka is Awesome.’ Kate swiped at her eyes, and Kevin couldn’t hide the shock on his face at seeing Kate become choked up about Topeka. He wondered briefly if the allergens were different in California since his own eyes were a bit watery.

“So, now you know the truth. Our assigned project from ‘Capital City Works’ was a failure. But Topeka is a success.”

No one reacted, everyone in the ballroom was still listening and watching the stage. Kate was out of words, exhausted and emotional. She looked over at Kevin for help, and he winked at her. He stepped up to the microphone and cleared his throat before speaking.

“As citizens of Topeka, Kate and I encourage you not to judge us by the news headlines you read. Visit us if you want—we’ll both be there to welcome you—but more importantly, I hope that you take the time to find Topeka’s community spirit reflected in your own city. Topeka doesn’t want a monopoly on awesome. We hope that as you travel home, each of you can find and share the awesome in your own communities.”

EPILOGUE

The national news picked up a soundbyte of Kate’s passionate speech about how much Topekans care about their city. Within 24 hours, YouTube featured eleven videos tagged Topekaisawesome. Within 48 hours, there were eighty-seven videos. And by the end of that week, there were over three-hundred. Most were confessional style— a single person telling the camera why they believe Topeka is awesome. Some promoted local businesses. Some gave shout-outs to lovers or friends. Videos about Topeka popped up from other cities— made by former students, old college roommates and far-flung relations caught up in the excitement. Many echoed the sentiments in Kate’s own observations.

For a few days, the #topekaisawesome hashtag even trended on Twitter, until the teenage stars of a new dystopian film got caught on hidden camera doing something scandalous and the cultural conversation shifted.

Madeline got her book deal and is currently working with a ghostwriter to pen what she hopes will be the true crime bestseller of the truth behind the Topeka Turpitude, as her agent is encouraging her to refer to the incidents in question.

Hunter received a lifetime supply of Omalizumab to counteract his poisoning in exchange for his testimony and cooperation in the FBI investigation.

The couple signed up for family counseling after they returned to Topeka and are planning to keep busy volunteering after Hunter’s retirement is official.

George and Amy went undercover on another assignment before Kate returned from Los Angeles. Their granddaughter saw them twice more in the next year— heavily disguised and with conflicting covers stories— before they disappeared while on assignment in Mexico. Kate suspects that this is also a lie, and wishes her grandparents the best, wherever they have finally retired.

Evelyn Blackmon’s gravestone was engraved with the words Ad Astra Per Aspera and most visitors assume she loved Kansas astronomy.

The money recovered from the golden mausoleum within the Capitol will likely be exhausted in lawyer fees and court costs, but anything remaining has been pledged for capital improvement projects. Proposals ranging from installing light rail to operating a gondola over the Kansas River are gathering steam.

Kate and Kevin came back to Topeka by way of Las Vegas. They didn’t elope, but they did lose $300 playing slot machines while they tried to figure out what to do next. Their plans include being interviewed extensively by the FBI and the media, updating their resumes and looking for new jobs in Topeka, and planning their first date. They are reserving tickets for dinner and a musical at the Topeka Civic Theatre.

Downloand and print Chapter 20 by Anne Pepper and Lissa Staley (8 page .pdf)

Thank you for reading the 2012 Community Novel, Capital City Capers. The book will soon be available to download to your ereader, purchase a print copy, or check out from the library.  Find out how to be a part of next year’s project, and watch for a new novel in 2013 at http://www.tscpl.org/community-novel.

About the Authors

Lissa Staley has written nine different first drafts as part of National Novel Writing Month, every November since 2003. Revision is not her strong point though, and this is her first published work of fiction. In addition to serving as the NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison for Topeka, she also works as a Book Evangelist and Librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. If you’ve ever thought you might want to someday write a novel, she can talk you into doing it—she has plot ninjas, snack rewards, and lots of stickers. Contact her at estaley@tscpl.org.

Anne Pepper is a mother, teacher, poet, librarian, and ice cream connoisseur. Trying new things is scary, so she does it often. She loves silence and understanding.

iRead, Mabee Library & Washburn FYE present the 2012 iRead Lecture – Joe Drape, Author of the 2012-13 iRead featured book, Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains With the Smith Center Redmen.

September 18, 2012
7:00 pm
White Concert Hall
Washburn University

Free and Open to the Public

Tickets available at the Topeka and Shawnee County adult services reference desk and in Mabee Library.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

Gold. Gold everywhere. On the frames of the doors, the murals on the ceilings, even worked into the grout between the tiles on the floors. “Dear lord,” Kate murmured. “It’s like Liberace’s wet dream.”

Kevin turned to his dad. “What in the world is this place?”

“Son. This is a room that was built with money given to John Brown by abolitionists in Albany, New York along with money that was placed in his trust by his business partner, Simon Perkins. These monies were first used to fund activities with the Underground Railroad after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. In order to disguise the fact that they were using this money, it was written down as operating losses from a business that Brown and Perkins had trying to sell wool from Western Massachusetts to England. Later, the money was used to purchase weaponry and pay for fighters from Ohio during the Bleeding Kansas struggle.”

The group continued to look around the shining room. “But Hunter,” Kate replied, “John Brown was, to be blunt, sort of a maniacal idealist. He wouldn’t ever let funds for his band of freedom fighters be used for such extravagance.”

“He didn’t,” Hunter continued, “As part of the deal that Brown made with Territorial Governor Geary, he had to turn over the money and the guns to the territorial government. That allowed the fighting to stop, and probably allowed Brown to make it back to Virginia with his skin still attached, which was becoming chancier by the day. Geary turned the money over to the state. When the Capitol was built, it was decided that there were better things to do with gold than just stack it up in a vault.”

They all looked at the gold stacked on every available flat surface. “Looks like they still had plenty to stack,” muttered Kate’s grandfather.

“This isn’t all leftover from then. Most of it is money that has been stored here by a corrupt cabal that has been involved with sundry plots to siphon money from various taxpayer funded projects since the New Deal,” explained Hunter. “Bianca and her goons were just the operatives of that group who were drafted for this particular swindle. This is far from over.”

Kevin began to shake with anger. These bastards had condemned his father to slow death, threatened his and his mother’s lives, killed a coworker, and beat the holy hell out of the first woman that he had cared about since high school. He was going to have someone’s guts for garters over this little affair.

“Point me in the right direction, pop,” Kevin said, his voice barely a whisper made slightly tremulous with fury. “I am well past the point of fooling around with these fools. This has gone on long enough. I was raised here. Topeka is in my blood, for better or worse and someone is going to bleed for this.”

“Now hold up there, cowboy,” Kate’s grandfather interjected. “You are going about this the wrong way. Who do you think you are? Batman? This is bigger than you. This is a conspiracy on the highest level and you don’t want to find yourself on the business end of an assassin’s gun.”

Kevin whirled on Grandpa George. “So what, let the FBI take over? They obviously couldn’t give two shits about this little affair. They decided to send 2 retirees to do their investigation and if it hadn’t have been for a freak supernatural occurrence that I can’t begin to explain, what precisely would they have done to keep the six of us from getting our asses shot off by Bianca and the goons who are currently assuming room temperature. I don’t have much faith in them.”

“Five.” Madeline was staring at Hunter, sorrow and rage fighting for dominance on her face. “Five of us. Let’s not forget that your father had a gun in his hand as well.”

“Maddy…” started Hunter.

“Don’t you dare ‘Maddy’ me, you son of a bitch!” shouted Madeline. “You were holding a gun on your son, you rotten bastard! Your son! Who’s betraying who, now? You were neck deep in alligators before you ever let on a single word about any of this. You can talk all you want about how you only wanted what was best and were being forced into a bad situation, but the fact remains that you stood not ten minutes ago ready to kill your son.”

After this outburst, some of the energy seemed to wash out of Kevin’s mother and she slumped to the floor. Hunter tried to get close, but she growled, “Don’t you dare touch me.” and he prudently took a few steps back. “I tried to get you out of this situation in any way that I could. I sent all of those clues to Evelyn to try to point her in the right direction, hopefully get the police involved. I didn’t know that she was going to decide to be Nancy Drew.”

Kate was feeling the shock wearing off and being replaced by cold anger and steely resolve. This was turning into a red letter day for familial betrayal. She couldn’t believe that her sweet, caring grandparents were hiding something as big as this from her for even a minute. The news footage of the smoking hulk of Evelyn’s burned out car flashed in front of her memory as she said, “Besides, Grandpa, how do you know for sure the FBI isn’t compromised. Someone with an intimate knowledge of Bureau affairs and you and Grandma’s investigating styles could easily have sent you here knowing that you would shake the bushes and find the clues that would lead us to the Capitol. There are plenty of nooks and crannies in this building to hustle us off to and have a merry little execution party. Then the apparent spirit of a 19th century abolitionist decides to lead us here, saving them all the trouble of finding a perfect place for mass murder. Nice and hidden, away from prying eyes, oh so easy to off everyone that had knowledge of this that was left alive.” She whirled on Hunter, “And if you think they would’ve left you alive after they killed us, you are the dumbest civil servant on the face of God’s green earth.”

George looked at Kevin and Kate. With the fire in their eyes and the set of their jaws, they could be he and Emily when they first found themselves partnered up and taking on the resurgence of the five families in the wake of the Castro assassination plot. “Alright, you two. I can see I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, but we need to think for a minute if you hope to come out of this upright and drawing air.” Kevin started to make another remark, but George stopped him with an angry slash of his hand through the air. “No, sport. I understand that you’re pissed off and you have every right to be, as do you Kate, but you are dealing with things so far outside of your experience that you don’t even know what you’re about to deal with.” He walked up until he was standing only a few feet away. Emily joined him.

“You’ve watched a lot of cop movies and spy movies I imagine, but all they are are movies. If you behave in a way that emulates them, you are going to get cold-slabbed, toe-tagged, and sent home in a body bag. Do I make myself clear?” A murmured agreement was taken as cue to forge ahead. “You need to be using your brains more than weapons. You need to rely on each other for back up, and if you see anything coming down the road that looks like it might get you in over your head, you turn the other way and run like your hair is on fire and your ass is catching. This ain’t reality TV, kids. This is real life, and one of the things about real life is that it can end abruptly when you least expect it. If you don’t believe me, step through that door and ask the bad guys for their thoughts on the matter.”

These words sobered up the two young people. The resolve hadn’t lessened, but George could tell that now they were thinking and that was good. Maybe they would live through this, even better maybe they would succeed.

Emily chimed in, “Now I hate to interrupt a good lecture, but we need to get a move on. Evelyn’s car being bombed is being handled by the state police for now.”

“Good point,” George thought aloud. “Since 9/11 though, a bombing brings folks from Washington like cow shit brings flies.”

“ATF first, most likely,” added Emily.

“Then FBI,” continued George.

“CIA will want a piece.”

“NSA won’t be able to stay away either”

“NSA?”

“OK, probably not. They’re a bunch of tech geeks these days, but Secret Service are a distinct possibility.”

“And once it comes out that the underlying crime is tax fraud, the IRS will be all over that.”

“The main point,” George said, exiting his reverie, “is that in less than 24 hours, there will be feds all over this. At that point, it won’t take more than 60 seconds for even the most wet behind the ears rookie to figure out that the 2 of you are most likely linked to it.”

Emily added, “After that point, you won’t be able to sneeze without a fed knowing what color the snot was”

“If you two want to make any headway in this, you need to be out of town by the time the sun comes up.”

“But where do we go?” asked Kate.

“I think there is someone here that knows,” snarled Madeline from her position on the floor. The look that she was shooting at Hunter should have by all rights rendered him as a smoldering shadow on the opposite wall. “If you want any hope at redeeming yourself in my eyes, this is where you learn a nice tune and sing it well, my loving husband.” The last three words dripped venom.

Hunter sighed, “What the hell,” he said. “Even if I don’t talk, they’re going to think I did. I need to save my own skin and get out while I can. And the best bet is for you two to go ahead and show up exactly where they were going to try to catch you. And then hope for the best.”

Hunter looked up at his son. His eyes were sunken, his shoulders hunched with a thousand unforgiven sins. “Well, kids, Are you ready to go to California?”

Download and print Chapter 19 by Jason Whisnant (4 page .pdf)

Keep reading!  Chapter 20 by Anne Pepper and Lissa Staley

About the Author

Jason Whisnant is a more or less balding (more), more or less broke (more) father, poet, tech geek and knitter. He was born in Kansas, went to high school in Oklahoma and Kansas, college in Kansas, and decided that it would be the most fun to stop growing up somewhere in the midst of all of that. He currently resides in Topeka full-time, but plans to leave someday to live anywhere he doesn’t have to drive by Westboro Baptist on his way to the damn grocery store.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

The SUV pulled up to the state capitol building just after nightfall. The full moon illuminated the Ad Astra statue atop the dome in a cosmic taunt: Why didn’t you put the pieces together sooner?

After standing guard over the capitol building for nearly ten years, the Kanza Indian statue was just another part of everyday life in Topeka. Kevin had forgotten it was call Ad Astra when the cardboard notes appeared. He had only been thinking of the motto on the state flag, and wondering how in the world it was connected to this scandal that seemed to have more to do with city infrastructure than anything else. It wasn’t until his mother had suggested going to the capitol building that Kevin even thought it might lead them somewhere.

“Your father has been sneaking off to the state capitol building nearly every day,” she had said, sitting stiffly in their cheap hotel room, generously funded by Kate’s grandparents. “He hasn’t trusted me enough lately to tell me why. All he will tell me is that just can’t get enough of that John Stuart Curry painting of John Brown.”

“The Tragic Prelude?” Kate’s grandfather asked.

“Yes. He likes me to think he spends an hour a day staring up at the thing for inspiration, but.”

“But you think he’s up to something else while he’s there” Kate said. His mother only nodded.

“The Tragic Prelude,” Kate’s grandfather said again, mulling something over in his mind. He seemed to Kevin to be a bit too excited about being dragged into their mystery.

“Does the Tragic Prelude mean anything to you?” Kevin asked.

The older man shook himself from his thoughts. “Damn fine painting, son, that’s all.”

So it was decided that they would head in after dark, apparently Kate’s grandmother was an ace lock picker. “I was a forgetful girl. Always locking myself out of the house when I was young,” she said when nobody believed it of her.

Kevin didn’t know these people very well, but he was quickly learning that there was much more to them than just a sweet old couple.

When the time came, they piled into the stolen SUV and made their way to the capitol’s underground receiving entrance where, true to her word, grandma picked the lock with a pocket knife and a bobby pin then used a similar method to disable the alarm that sounded on the door. Then she stood back and held the heavy door open for them, grinning with pride.

“Way to go, Grandma!” Kate said. The older women met her granddaughter’s high five with gusto.

“I haven’t done something like this in decades!” she said in return, having too much fun considering they were currently committing a major crime.

Armed with only a flashlight, Kevin led his mother, who still seemed to be in a little bit of shock, into the capitol basement and toward the stairs.

Kate and her grandparents followed close behind. The place was deserted and dark. The air conditioning kicked on and covered the sound of the footsteps with white noise. Kevin was confident they were alone in the building.

“Where to first?” Kate’s grandfather said.

“The John Brown painting,” Kevin said. “It’s our only lead. Anybody know where it is?”

“Second floor,” came in a chorus from those behind him. Apparently, Kevin was the only one who didn’t remember.

The stairway gave way to the large corridors of the second floor; lined with statues and larger than life murals that gave Kevin the creeps in the dark. The team walked the perimeter of the corridors until they happened upon the Tragic Prelude mural. Kevin stared up into the fanatical eyes of John Brown and saw there a man filled with fury and ready to kill. Kevin physically shivered with the impact of it.

The group stood in silence, all flashlights trained on John Brown’s face as if waiting for something to happen. Anxiety pooled in Kevin’s stomach. He was leading this expedition, and he had no idea where to go from here. He had hoped that somehow, he would see the painting and something his father had let slip would come back to him or that his mother would remember something else important and they could finally put a stop to whatever was going on. Instead, he found himself staring into the painted eyes of a madman in the dark, just as clueless as he had been before.

Kevin blinked. He thought, for just a moment, that the mural had moved.

It happened again, and this time he heard his mother gasp.

A wispy, three-dimensional figure was forming on top of representation of John Brown’s face. Kate grabbed his arm. He could feel her trembling.

It started with the head, and the other extremities, then slowly, softly glowing white cloud filled in the entire form of John Brown and a ghost-like figure stepped out of the painting, 15 feet tall, windblown beard, rifle, Bible and all.

Kevin could hear his own pulse, and forced himself to take deep breaths as the ghost of John Brown studied them all with eerie solemnity. He didn’t know how to defend them all from a crazed, giant ghost, but he did know the first step was to not pass out while it made up its mind whether or not to kill them.

Eventually, the ghost lowered his arms, tucked the Bible into his belt and slung the rifle over his shoulder. He pointed one long, brown finger at Kate’s grandmother, and motioned for her to follow him. The ghost stalked past them with a heavy, tromping, and very unghostly gait.

The group followed the ghost of John Brown up the stairs to third floor and to the doors of the Senate chamber, where he stopped and waited for them to catch up.

“I told you we should have been researching ghosts,” Kate whispered in Kevin’s ear.

“Are you enjoying this?” he said.

“I’m scared as hell, but isn’t it exciting?”

Exciting wasn’t necessarily the word Kevin would have used to describe the situation. “I always knew you were crazy.”

Kate’s grandfather cleared his throat and inclined his head toward the ghost of John Brown, who seemed to be waiting for them to finish their conversation before continuing on. He gave Kevin a particularly stern frown before turning around and disappearing through the wall into the Senate chambers. The doors opened behind him and the ghost’s shimmering silhouette could be seen standing next to the Senate president’s gargantuan, ornate desk. When the group had gathered around him once again, the ghost walked through the back panel underneath the clock.

There was a loud rumbling sound as the panel just below the clock right over their heads moved backwards and up into a low corridor. Kate’s grandfather was the first to follow the ghost, followed by his wife, then Kevin’s mother. Kate pulled Kevin by the hand as if she didn’t think that he would follow the ghost and the rest of them on his own.

After about thirty feet the old-fashioned carpeting gave way to stone, and the corridor slanted down at a steep incline. The air turned cold and damp, and smelled of wet moss. The ceiling was low, and being the tallest of the group, Kevin had to stoop to avoid scraping his head on the rocky ceiling.

Ten uncomfortable minutes later, the corridor opened into a brightly lit, grand underground chamber, thirty feet high, the perimeter lined with polished copper columns and next to glazed brick walls. The floor was no longer paved stone, but a yellow tile that almost seemed to glow from the chandelier light overhead. On the far side of the room were two ornately carved wooden doors that rose in height to the ceiling.

15 feet in front of the doors was a stone dais on which stood a pedestal that resembled a carved bird bath with twisted, driftwood like perch in the middle. Next to it stood the ghost of John Brown. In the light of the room his form was barely visible, a wisp of shimmer and stern eyes.

Kevin stepped forward to examine the bird bath, ignoring the ghost as best he could. “Do you think this opens the doors somehow?” He said. The others were still taking in the grandeur of the antechamber. Kevin was certain now that whatever proof they needed must be on the other side of those doors.

Kate’s grandfather came forward and examined the bird bath as well. “I think you’re right, son. I’d say some sort of key fits into this protrusion here at the top.” He turned to his wife. “What do you think, sweetheart. How about we give that old ring a try.”

When Kate’s grandmother stepped up to the dais and slipped her magnificent anniversary ring off her hand, Kevin’s mother gasped and said, “He’s been looking for that!”

“Too right we have,” came a cold voice from behind them.

Kevin whipped around to find Bianca, two goons, and his father leaving the secret passage, all with guns trained on him.

“We thought dear little Kate had stolen it from us. We never suspected the sweet, innocent grandparents,” Bianca taunted.

Kate’s grandparents were grinning. “You probably should have,” her grandfather said. “We’re retired FBI. Came out this way when the little assignment I put my granddaughter on started to go awry.”

“What assignment?” Kate asked, looking a little confused. Kevin suspected she never knew her grandparents were federal investigators.

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” her grandmother said, “but your grandfather and I arranged this whole internship for you when we found out Bianca and her brood were involved with their embezzling scheme from the city. We wanted to keep a close eye on things. Finish our life’s work.”

Bianca was looking back and forth between Kate’s grandparents as if trying to recall their faces.

“You won’t recognize us,” Kate’s grandfather said. “We were before your time.”

“But that doesn’t make us any less of a threat to you,” Kate’s grandmother added.

Bianca said nothing, but aimed her gun at Kate’s grandfather instead of Kevin.

“Give us the ring,” Kevin’s father said. He still trained his gun on his son, despite the ring still being in Kate’s grandmother’s possession.

“What’s behind the doors, Dad?”

“Nothing you need to worry yourself about, Kevin. I was trying to keep you out of this.”

“And now you’re going to kill me? And Mom?”

“Your mother betrayed me.” His father was wheezing.

“I didn’t want to be a part of this in the first place!” Kevin’s mother said. “I liked my life here! I liked this city. I wanted to see it improved!”

“What’s she talking about?” Kevin asked his father. He only shook his head and steadied his aim.

“Your father helped orchestrate one of the biggest embezzlement scams this country has ever seen,” Kate’s grandfather said. “We’ve been tracking the group Miss Bianca works with for years. They’ve done similar deals, but nothing to this degree.”

“But what are they doing? What does this have to do with the pictures?” Kate asked.

“It’s a tax scam,” Kevin’s mother said.

“With a little bit of money up front, Miss Bianca and your father contracted certain companies and city works to participate in construction projects that were supposed to help improve the city. At the same time they orchestrated a sales tax increase to help pay for all the new construction, only to have all that money flow back to them,” Kate’s grandfather said.

“That’s a pretty story, too bad you told it. Now you’ll have to die,” Bianca teased.

“You should have killed us already,” Kate’s grandmother snorted.

“Why, Dad?” was all Kevin could think to say. “Why?”

“He was coerced,” Kevin’s mother said. “His cough.”

“They made you sick?” Kevin said.

“Helping them is the only way to get the cure,” his father said, and was immediately consumed by a coughing fit.

“I am afraid you are still under arrest,” Kate’s grandfather said, and before anyone could stop him, he popped the ring into the perch and turned it so the light from the chandelier shone on the key hole for the door.

Desperate to understand, and keep anyone from being shot, Kevin dove for his dad, tackling him to the ground.

Just then, the lights went out and three loud shots echoed through the antechamber. Kevin crouched over his father, who was still coughing, waiting to feel the bite of a bullet, but nothing came.

“Is everyone all right?” He asked, fumbling for his flashlight.

“Kevin, where are you?” his mother said into the darkness.

“I’m with Dad. I’m fine.” His flashlight turned on and he shone it around the room.

Kate’s grandparents were picking themselves up off the ground. “Who shot?” her grandfather said. “Who got hit?”

Kate still said nothing, but was staring into the space where the ghost of John Brown had been standing. It dawned on Kevin that that was why it was so dark. The ghost was no longer there to emit his ethereal glow.

“Kate, are you ok?” Kevin said.

“It was him,” she pointed to where the ghost had been, between the bird bath and the doors. “It was John Brown that shot them.”

Kevin shone his flash light on Bianca and her goons. All three were splayed on the shiny yellow floor in growing pools of blood.

Kevin stared in disbelief.

Kate’s grandfather gave a low whistle. “Well, would you look at that!”

The ring had only opened the doors a crack. Now Kate’s grandfather had pushed them open the rest of the way and was standing in a room out of a fairy tale, stacked floor to ceiling with gold.

Download and print Chapter 18 by Marla Holt (6 page .pdf)
Keep reading!  Chapter 19 by Jason Whisnant

About the Author

Marla Holt has a degree in creative writing from the University of Kansas and prefers to spend her time writing about silly things and knitting. She lives off of strict diet of coffee, wool, and British television. She writes publicly about yarn at http://tinydinostudios.com, but all her stories are currently up to no good in her private journal.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

Kate stood in the shower and sobbed. She knew her grandparents wouldn’t be able to hear her crying–only the water running. With her back to the spray, she could feel hot tears down her face and her eyes burned. Pretty soon my nose will be running. It’s a good thing nobody can see me blubbering like this.

What was the matter with Kevin, anyway? Running in and grabbing her. Kissing her, for crying out loud! Saying right in front of her grandparents that she’d been kidnapped…as if it wasn’t taking all her self control to act like nothing had happened. Kate’s hands shook as she tried to open the shampoo bottle. It slipped from her fingers and thunked down on her foot. She yelped.

“Had to buy the economy size,” she wailed, trying to balance so she could rub her smashed toes.

“Honey, are you all right in there?” Grandma called through the door.

“Yes, I dropped the biggest jug of shampoo they had at Walmart, that’s all.”

Get a grip, Kate thought furiously. She felt chills despite the steamy shower spray. She could practically hear that silky voice in her own mind, the woman saying, ‘Get him to finish this project and accompany him to L.A. You want your lovely grandparents to stay safe, don’t you?’

Even though the two goons hadn’t let her see the woman’s face, she was never going to forget that voice. Never. Whatever Kevin thought about his parents’ involvement, his mother’s voice wasn’t the one haunting her now.

She gingerly felt along her ribs where the one creep had kicked her. Not broken, but definitely a deep bruise. Kevin’s embrace had made her grit her teeth to keep from crying out.

She got out of the shower and wrapped her hair in a towel, began drying off as carefully as possible around the rib area. She asked herself why she hadn’t told Kevin the truth when they were alone in his truck to look at the notebook. She decided it was because she had no way to be certain she could trust him. That, and because he was an idiot. You’re lucky you’re good looking, she thought spitefully, then tears welled up again.

Her phone chimed on the vanity countertop. Cleo, at last–no, Serge. Tracked Cleo down in Chicago doing improv. He’ll get back to you.

Thanks, she texted back. Have him do it ASAP, OK?

Babe, you in trouble?

Looks that way. Details to follow later. Bye.

So, how fast could her panic-plan of kidnapping Kevin’s parents be pulled together…was Cleo going to fly in from Chicago for her after all this time? Was he still hanging out with the same pals/erstwhile kidnappers?

Lame. The whole thing was lame. Evelyn had set them up with an impossible mess to sort out, and who had what to gain by ‘Topeka Is Awesome’ being finished and presented? Was that really what her kidnappers wanted, or was there something else about getting Kevin to L.A. with the notebook that was the real goal?

Next step. Kate stared at her red-eyed reflection in the vanity mirror. Get dressed. Look at flights to LA, book after getting authorization from the grant administrator. Try to forget Kevin’s expression as he looked at his parents over dinner. What kind of lung condition did his dad have, with all that coughing? TB?

Your mind is going south on you, honey. Focus. She took a deep breath and started pulling on clothes.

Kevin drove, sparing only enough of his mind to the task as he absolutely had to in order to avoid running a light or into a another car. The rest of his mind he devoted to kicking himself. His mother was going to be killed for sending messages to Evelyn. He had confirmed that for Bianca Devore in a colossal blunder. He smacked his palm on the steering wheel, then swore at the shock of pain that shot up his arm.

If he could get his mom away from his dad and Bianca, just get her somewhere safe until all this was sorted out…where might that be, though. Not in awesome Topeka. He thought of the detective he had met with at the Police Department. Would some sort of protective custody work, or was his dad too tied in with them at headquarters, as evidenced by the ‘public service’ diversion he had arranged?

He swung the pickup onto I-470 and headed back toward his parents’ home. If his dad really had taken a sleeping pill, maybe tonight, right now, was his only chance to get his mom and flee. Unless Mom wasn’t at the house, and Bianca Devore had been the one using his mom’s phone to text him to set up the meeting in the park. He couldn’t see any other way but to try and find out if she was there.

He parked a block away on a side street and rummaged in the glove box for a flashlight. He felt a twist of heart when he remembered it was his dad who taught him to always have a working flashlight in any vehicle he drove. In case of emergencies. I’m calling this an emergency, he thought, pulling on the dark hoodie he kept behind the seat. He turned the dome light off, so he wouldn’t be illuminated when he opened the door to get out of the truck. He had seen that on a crime show on TV.

He cut through all the familiar neighborhood backyards, places he’d played cops and robbers, soccer, pickup football. Most people living here now were his folks’ age , before it had been young families with a herd of kids. All the houses seemed to have small dogs inside, who yapped hysterically as he made his way past.

He arrived at the back of his home. All dark, even the back porch light was turned off. Good, he could get up to the door by slinking along the holly bushes, and use the flashlight to get his key in the lock.

He hung up his foot on the sprinkler nestled in the bushes, and went down hard in the mulch. He lay there a moment to see if anyone stirred. No sounds except leaves rustling in the night wind.

He let himself in, and clicked the door shut. He quickly punched in the disarm code on the alarm keypad. A nightlight by the basement steps gave him enough light to make his way down the hall. The only sound was the heat pump cycling.

Until the text chime sounded on the phone in his pocket. He dropped the flashlight fumbling the phone out. Special ops, you ain’t, jack. He had just looked at the screen to see Kate’s text, Cleo can’t be here 4 two days, when the door to the hall bath opened, spilling light across him standing there.

His mother gaped at him. His father’s cough came from behind the closed bedroom door, followed by a snore.

He put a finger to his lips and motioned her forward. She was dressed for bed, barefoot. He took a close look at her face, even turning the flashlight on her. She seemed to be the real deal this time.

She started to say something, but he put his hand over her mouth. He took it away only after she seemed to relax, to understand he wanted her to be quiet. He took her hand and led her to the hall closet. He pointed at her feet, and she wordlessly pulled out a pair of garden clogs and slipped them on. He held out a raincoat and helped her into it, then led her out the back door, pausing only to rearm the security system.

Neither spoke until he let her into the truck and got in behind the wheel. As he pulled away from the curb, he said,” Mom, Bianca Devore is going to have you killed for the messages to Evelyn. Where can I take you that’s safe?”

“I don’t know that anywhere is safe…How much money have you got on you?”

“Maybe forty bucks. I mostly use my debit card.”

“You know anything electronic can be traced.”

“Really? It seems I’m a little newer to this cloak and dagger stuff than you are. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Oh, honey, it would take too long. It’s gotten so complicated.” She stared out the windshield, and as they passed under a streetlight, Kevin saw the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“All right, look. It’s not too far off from getting light and I have a full tank of gas. We’ll just drive around until Goodwill opens and we can get you some clothes. Keep thinking in the meantime how we can generate some cash, like payday loans or pawn something. I don’t know. Then we’ll figure out where to stash you. Okay?”

No answer. He flicked another glance her way.

“Okay, Mom?”

“You’re a good boy, Kevin.”

“Yeah.” He turned onto Gage Boulevard and headed north.

Kate was squinting at the flight information on her phone screen and copying it onto a yellow legal pad. “This is no way to live,” she grumbled. Her laptop was slag from the explosion, and she had no money for another one. Maybe she could print out the info at a Kinko’s or the public library in the morning. She rubbed her eyes.

Her grandpa was snoring and her grandma had taken refuge on the futon. She snored also, but with much less reverb. Kate had decided to try and persuade them to return to California, by claiming her project was heating up and she had to devote so much time to working on it that she couldn’t show them around any longer.

Would they be any safer back home? That’s where Bianca Devore wanted Kate and Kevin to end up, after all. There had to be some connection with California, with the appointments in California that Evelyn had noted. Who had set them up?

Kate flipped a page on the pad and started writing questions. She had filled the page when she threw down her pen and turned the page over. This side she divided into ‘What we know’ and ‘What we don’t know.’ That didn’t work any better; ‘What we know’ was dismally short.

She was roaming the kitchen trying to heat water for a cup of instant coffee without waking her grandma when she got a text from Kevin.

Need to meet you. What public place can you walk to after it gets light?

There’s a Quik Trip a block away on 21st.

Text when you walk out the door.

Suddenly, she did want to see him. Kevin might lack a certain amount of insight, but he was earnest. Or he seemed to be, she reminded herself. He could be lying to her as easily as not. Better to meet him but keep her mind on high alert. No more passion-laden kisses, for sure not in the Quik Trip.

As soon as the sky brightened, Kate put on her shoes and picked up her apartment key. Just as she had her hand on the doorknob, she heard a yawn behind her.

“Where are you off to, Katie-bug?” Her grandpa was standing in the hall by the bedroom door.

“Just a quick jog to get more coffee. You can sleep in.”

“Don’t be silly, we walk every morning at home. Get up, lazy bones.” He jostled grandma’s foot under the sheet. “We need to make a coffee run with Kate.”

At least they didn’t take long to dress. Kate tried telling them she could be there and back in the time it would take for them all to get there, but the old folks bounced around like a walk to the quickie mart was one of the things that made Topeka so awesome. Maybe I should include that in the project, Kate thought sourly.

She texted Kevin as they walked down the sidewalk, On my way, g-ma and g-pa along, sorry.

NO! My mom is with me. Trying to get mom safe.

“You shouldn’t walk and text, honey. I read about it being dangerous in the AARP magazine.”

“I know, Grandma. I’ll wrap it up.” To Kevin, she sent: Cancel then?

A long pause, then, Come on. But not everyone will fit in the truck.

So where had he thought he was taking her? And anyway, this way she could keep an eye on her grandparents instead of wondering if terrorists were breaking into her apartment while she was away meeting Kevin.

Kate looked at every car that passed by, and found something suspicious in every occupant. At least not that many people were stirring yet, it would be a couple of hours before work traffic really picked up. She kept a brisk pace. Her grandma wanted to dawdle and look at flower gardens but she herded them both along.

She spotted Kevin’s truck parked off to the side of the Quik Trip entrance, empty. When she pushed the entrance door open, she saw him standing at the drinks fountain holding a cup like he was deciding what soda to get.. His mom was wearing clogs and a raincoat next to him, trying on dark glasses.

Kate pointed to the jars of instant coffee and shooed her grandparents in that direction before she stepped closer to Kevin. This time he didn’t make a fuss.

“We need to get my mom out. When is Cleo flying in? Can he take her back to where he came from? If I can scare up money for a plane ticket?”

“Tomorrow at six. I guess he would. Maybe I can get him to take my grandparents, too, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a really good idea, Kevin.”

“More born of aggravation than inspiration,” he said with a lopsided smile. He kept looking at the rack of fountain buttons.

Madeline cleared her throat behind them. “Amy and George are coming over, kids.”

Kate’s grandmother was holding out a jar of instant coffee, her face a picture of indignation. “Katie, look at the price of this! Don’t you want to go to the grocery–oh! Hello, Kevin, Madeline. This is really such a small town after all, isn’t it?”

Kevin turned to face them, with a forced smile that faded as he looked past them. He reached out and snatched the jar from Amy, pulling her toward the coffee machines at the same time, George followed. “Here, it will be much cheaper to just get several cups hot to go. It’s pretty good coffee, plus they have a lot of flavor options.”

He pushed his mom toward the other couple, and snapped at Kate, who was trying to see what he had seen that spooked him, “Don’t look. Bianca and a couple of goons just got out of an SUV at the gas pumps.”

“What now? We’ll never get out of here. Take them all to the restroom?”

“Bianca can follow you there. I’m thinking…”

“Do it faster.”

“Try to stay out of sight. Try on ball caps or something. Wait, one of the guys is filling up. Ask grandma and grandpa to come look at Kansas souvenirs with you, that’s kind of in the corner. I’ll send mom, too.”

Bianca and the other man came into the store and headed right for the drinks. Kevin watched Kate disappear around the end cap of the aisle shepherding the others to souvenirs. He turned toward the coolers, and pulled out a long-neck bottle of beer from a six pack.

They can’t have noticed my truck, or they’d be looking around for me. He tucked the bottle of beer up the sleeve of his sweatshirt while he squatted to look at the magazine rack. He saw Bianca’s shoes head toward the restrooms.

The man with her was looking in the salty snack aisle. Kevin slipped to the back of the cooler service area where the utility sink was. He twisted off the lid of the beer bottle and let the beer run down the drain. He pocketed the cap and held the top of the bottle cupped in his hand with the rest of the bottle up his sleeve as before.

The man outside was still pumping gas. Kevin swung around the perimeter of the store, avoiding the inside man and Bianca, who had emerged from the ladies room talking on her cell. He came up just behind Kate, and said, “I’m going to boost their SUV. I’m heading outside now, you follow me with all the folks and hustle them into it. Give me the count of twenty to pull this off.”

Kate gulped. “Carjacking, now? I gotta say, you’re a lot more decisive this morning than you’ve been up until now.”

“I’ve been pushed far enough. Besides, are they going to report it to the police?”

Kate watched him thread his way out the door and around the gas pumps so he could come up behind the guy at the SUV. “Hey,” she said brightly to her grandparents and Kevin’s mom, “I think we get to participate in an impromptu scavenger hunt for the Topeka is Awesome project. Talk about the right place at the right time!”

Download and print Chapter 17 by Aimee Gross (8 page .pdf)
Keep reading!  Chapter 18 by Marla Holt

About the Author

Aimee L. Gross started writing as a child, and at age nine, mailed an application to the Famous Writer’s School without telling her parents. She still has the response, a letter advising her to wait to enroll until she became a grown up, ‘but keep writing.’

Despite a thirty-some year career in health care, she has continued to write, and has completed three novels so far.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

Kate. Odd how Kate was the first thing Kevin thought of after receiving one of the biggest shocks of his life. Odd how the most pressing thing in his mind wasn’t that his parents were involved in a murderous crime ring or even that his parents might be trying to kill him, but that Kate wasn’t here. He was burning to tell her this new angle. Or perhaps burning to just see her, be with her.

He was numb, he realized. Topeka used to be boring, the one place no one described as awesome. But now it had suddenly turned into a devious slaughterhouse where everyone he knew seemed to be involved. He hardly knew this place anymore, let alone himself.

“Are you sure you don’t know these people, Kevin?” Margaret asked him again.

Kevin realized his jaw was loose and he hadn’t blinked in a while. Instead of replying, he simply stuffed the pictures and papers into the notebook, tucked it under his arm, and left the room.

“Kevin – wait!” Kevin’s ears picked up the sound, but it didn’t register in his brain – he was thinking too fast. Shock wouldn’t stop him. He wasn’t the Kevin he used to be – the one who had dreams to leave Topeka but did nothing about them, the one who waited for others to prod him into action. Well, he wasn’t waiting anymore – least of all for Kate’s capturers to contact him.

Surely someone knew something about Kate’s kidnapping. Her grandparents’ – surely they were there, surely they knew something. Unless they were hiding something. Or were somehow involved. He shook his head. This must be what it felt like to be a police officer – suspecting everyone just because their lives were filled with crime.

He’d almost forgotten to knock on Kate’s door in his haste. When George opened it, Kevin was almost breathless. But what he saw inside the door took his last breath away.

It was Kate. There she was on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other; her head leaned back against the cushions. As she opened one of her eyes, Kevin could see it was focused on him. His legs lost all will to stand, and he fought to keep himself steady.

Forget the employee-relationship policy rules. Whatever he was feeling right now wasn’t in those books.

“Kate!” He said it with such fervor that it brought Kate to her feet. It was then his legs found energy to run toward her and pull her shoulders to his chest and her mouth to his.

Kevin wasn’t sure how long his eyes had been closed, how long his hands were gripping her arms, how long he was kissing her. Kate had pulled away and he realized she and both of her grandparents were staring at him.

“What got into you?” Kate’s words had a touch of sauce.

Kevin’s breath was fast as he looked her over for any signs of injury. “Are you okay? What did they do to you? How did you get away?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” Kevin noticed she wasn’t feeling the same ecstatic glow that he had. She simply looked shocked.

“Your kidnapping!” he spurted.

“Kidnapping? Kevin, you’re crazy!” George and Emily were still looking bewildered.

Kevin’s ecstasy was turning to frustrated confusion. He fumbled for words.

“Kevin, get a grip and tell me what’s going on!” Kate said.

“That phone call yesterday – you said you’d figured everything out,” he started.

“What phone call? When? I never said that!” Kate said. “Figured everything out? I wish!” she snorted.

Kevin frowned, but continued. “And then the call just ended. I came here, and you were gone. That’s when they called me – “

“They?” Kate interrupted.

Kevin hadn’t stopped, “– and told me to give them the content of the boxes or they’d hurt you.”

Kate looked like she was about to laugh but instead narrowed her eyes in thought. “Kevin,” she began, her face dead-serious, “I was only gone a few hours yesterday. Grandma and Grandpa wanted some time to rest, and I needed some time to work. Someone – they – must have known I was gone and bluffed you to get what they wanted.”

Kevin’s hands flew in the air. “A few hours! Why haven’t you called me since then?”

“Why would I?” Kate sounded almost defensive.

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed, Kate, but we’ve been spending some time together lately,” he retorted. The way this had all played out so trivially was getting to him. “Where were you, anyway?”

“Working on the Topeka is Awesome project. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Kevin, but we still have a job.”

“Don’t we normally do that together?” Kevin asked.

“Together?” Kate flounced back down on the couch.

Kevin was taken aback. She had said the word as if it she was talking about their relationship, not their job. And she had said it like she didn’t like it.

He felt the back of his neck prickle. Before Kate, he hadn’t kissed a girl since high school. This stung.

“Kate,” he said, realizing there were more important things at hand, “I’ve got to show you something.” He couldn’t tell her about his meeting with Margaret here, not with her grandparents in the room. Overly suspicious or not, he didn’t think they needed to be in on the situation.

“Okay,” Kate said, not moving.

“It’s in the car,” he said. “In a folder. From work.”

Kate raised her eyebrows and rose from the couch.

Kevin had tried to repeat Margaret’s words to Kate perfectly. Yet even as he said them, he felt like he didn’t understand them all. When he came to the last picture, it was then the seriousness of what he saw smote him. His parents. He trusted them, loved them.

All of a sudden he was angry. Angry at them for being in this. For not caring they were hurting their own son. For deceiving him that they were good people, that they loved him. For making it so he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even his own family.

“Do you think it’s them?” Kate asked. “I mean, we’ve been wondering who they are all this time. Could your parents be the ones behind all this?”

“No! It couldn’t be,” Kevin said it before he even thought. And then he remembered the coughing in the back of the phone call, just like his dad’s cough. Still, they were in the plot, but they couldn’t be the top.

“Then who is?” Kate asked. “We’ll never figure this out.” She flopped her head against the car’s head rest and sighed.

“It’s whoever wanted me to think you were kidnapped,” Kevin said. Not that that solved anything.

“Kidnapped!” Kate suddenly sat rigid. “It was all a bluff, just like you said!”

Surely she hadn’t just now gotten it.

But Kate was still talking. “We can play the same game. What if – what if your parents were kidnapped?” She shoved her hair back in eager thought. “Obviously they’re important in this. And all you and I have to do is see who comes to pay the ransom – or rescue them – or whatever it is they do in a case like that.” Kate was actually smiling at her idea.

She sure could be dramatic. “Not to rain on your parade, but just how do we pull that off?”

“How should I know? How do criminals normally hire hit men and other people to do their dirty work?”

So at least one of her previous boyfriends wasn’t a criminal.

“Unless…” Kate put her finger in the air, “Unless we could try what this guy I dated in high school did.”

Kevin sighed. It was a boyfriend after all.

“He was friends with Serge. Remember him?”

It was getting hard to remember among all these other guys.

“Serge had lots of actor friends, and Cleo was one of them. Cleo came up with a get-rich-quick scheme. A job that paid for itself. Cleo knew plenty of underworld characters. So all Cleo and his acting buddies had to do was find a person with enemies, pull off a kidnapping, leave a ransom, collect, then put the victim back where he came from. Simple as that. No one suspected them because they never had anything to do with the people being kidnapped. No one got hurt. And they got to use their acting skills in the meantime.” Kate chuckled. “But of course, when I found all this out, I stopped dating Cleo.”

Well, that was good to hear.

“Come on, let’s give it a try. I don’t see you coming up with ideas on how to keep ourselves from getting killed in the meantime. If it doesn’t work, no harm done. But if it does,” she paused dramatically, “then we know who we’re really up against.”

Something about what Kate was saying was actually making sense. “So what do we do, just call Serge?”

Kate already had her phone out.

It had been well over a couple hours by the time the two began climbing the stairs to Kate’s apartment. Under normal circumstances, Kevin’s head would have been reeling. His own parents would be kidnapped by some hipster amateur actors he didn’t even know in exactly 24 hours in order to lead them to the people that were corrupting the city and ruining everything Kevin held dear.

But his head wasn’t reeling. Maybe it meant he couldn’t be shocked again, but he found that idea itself a little shocking.

Being so close to supper time, Kevin wasn’t sure if Kate’s grandparents would still be there. Good. That would give them more time to hash things out.

However, it was George’s face who greeted them at the door. “Oh good, I’m glad to see you guys are back. We’re just getting ready for company!”

Kevin and Kate glanced at each other.

“Hunter and Madeline called and wanted us to get together for dinner at their place.”

Hunter and Madeline? His parents? Dinner? Kevin was sweating.

George kept on talking, “However, Amy and I decided they might as well come on over here. Amy’s got the cooking bug and you know what that means.” George winked at Kate, but Kevin could see the color disappearing from Kate’s face fast. “Kate, why don’t you show me where the dishes are, and we’ll just set the table.”

“No need to set me out a plate,” Kevin tried to sound casual. His appetite was reading in the negative range anyway. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Oh nonsense,” Amy called out from across the kitchen, “You need to eat a healthy –“

There was a knock on the door even as she was speaking, and Kevin felt his stomach clench.

“I guess you’re staying now!” Amy said with a laugh as she pushed George toward the door to open it.

Kevin didn’t even attempt a weak grin.

Bitterness, confusion, discomfort, sorrow. If Kevin’s feelings were a multiple choice question, he figured his answer would be all of the above. There were his parents, sitting across from him at the table, involved in a murderous crime racket. After all these years. And he had been completely clueless. Of course he was clueless – he thought they loved him. Had they ever? Kevin kept his hands clasped to keep them from trembling. It had all been a fake. The way they got along so well, the Bible Study Fellowship, all that prayer they used to do, the way they would ask for forgiveness when they did something wrong. Well, they certainly weren’t asking for forgiveness from Kevin now. But the way they always seemed to care…

Disbelief. Add that to the list too. Maybe that picture hadn’t meant they were guilty. After all, Kevin had been with Bianca at one point, too, and he wasn’t guilty. Maybe the picture was really meant to show that his parents were in trouble with these crooks, too. But as much as Kevin wanted to believe it, it just didn’t make sense. The picture hadn’t shown his parents as Bianca’s frightened victims. Instead, they were more like cohorts, or even… friends. Now everything seemed to make sense. The way his dad had worked out the community service to keep the police chief quiet. How he so desperately wanted to know the news on Evelyn’s getting fired at the office. How, in fact, he had been nosy about the whole thing. How he and his mom didn’t seem to notice anything different had been going on in Kevin’s life – when he had been on the verge of death more times in one month than in twenty years.

“Kevin, do you want some more salad?” his mom asked. Kevin swallowed and refocused.

“No thanks, Mom,” he said, finding it hard to look her in the eye. Did she know he knew? Was that why the sudden dinner invitation tonight? Or was that just because they had become fast friends with George and Amy last night?

He looked over at Kate. She looked as if she was enjoying the irony of the moment.

“I’ll take the salad, if you don’t want it,” she said to him. “Come on, what’s the matter, Kev? Cheer up.”

Everyone turned to look at Kevin.

Kevin clenched his jaws behind a polite smile. He wasn’t sure why he liked Kate.

“Rough day, bud?” Hunter asked.

Kevin looked down. Did Dad know about Evelyn, Margaret… everything?

“I am pretty tired,” he said. Neutral enough. Kevin saw his dad narrow his eyes at him.

“Too much work?” Madeline asked. “Oh yes, how’s that Topeka is Awesome project going? I want to hear all about it,” she turned to Kate expectantly. Kevin felt sweat bead on his hairline. Kate wouldn’t be crazy enough to answer, would she?

Kevin decided to change the subject. “That has got to be the boringest car commercial ever,” he said, pointing to the TV across the room. Laird Noller. That reminded him of the name on the spar at Topeka High.

He saw his dad looking at him again. Kevin decided if he were talking, the conversation could only go the way he wanted it to. “News is on. Wonder what’s new. I bet there’ll be another story on the –“ Suddenly he stopped his rattling, as Melissa Bruner on 13 News informed the viewers that a car explosion had killed one, Evelyn Blackmon, on Burnett’s Mound.

Sweat welled up around his forehead again. “Can’t we turn that thing off?” he said. “I never saw the sense of watching TV with company here.”

“No, keep it on; I want to hear that story,” Kate said. He really wasn’t sure why he liked her.

“Hey, she’s the one that got fired from your work!” Hunter said.

“You know her?” Amy asked, eyes wide.

Kevin waved his hand to keep his tone casual. “Oh, she just used to work in the same place I did.”

“Did the city manager have anything to do with her losing her job?” his dad asked.

“Quiet or we’re going to miss the story,” Kate said, focusing on the television.

“Evelyn Blackmon, a previous city worker, was involved in a car explosion near Burnett’s Mound around 7 this morning. She died on the way to the hospital in the ambulance. Police are certain foul play was involved, and are holding Cameron Jute as a suspect.”

Kevin eyed the mug shot on the screen. Certainly no one he had ever seen before.

“I wonder how he could be connected with Evelyn’s death,” Kate mused aloud. Amy began clearing the plates off the table.

“Do you know, Kevin?” Hunter asked.

Kevin was hoping he would have given him a clue. But maybe Kevin could play his dad for information. Things were the other way around now.

“Maybe it had something to do with why Evelyn got fired,” Kevin said.

“But he didn’t have any connections with the city,” his dad said.

Kevin jerked his head toward Kate. How did his Dad know whether a Cameron Jute worked for the city or not? Kate had to have gotten it too. She was staring at his dad.

Kevin noticed sweat on his dad’s upper lip. Hunter wiped his lip with his napkin and cleared his throat.

Kevin tried to pretend like he didn’t notice his dad had said anything suspicious. He looked at his mom out of the corner of his eye.

Why was she smiling? There was certainly nothing happy or funny about the conversation. Suddenly her smile looked familiar in a strange way. And why wasn’t she moving? Her head was tilted slightly to the side, her fork raised halfway to her mouth, one hand curled under her chin. In fact, the whole scene looked familiar. It was just in the wrong spot.

Suddenly he knew. The photo. The photo from Margaret. The one with his parents eating with Bianca Devore. His mom was in the same position now as she was in the photo. And she was staring directly at him.

Before Kevin could think, his mom spoke. “Well, I’m through with murders. What about a game of Bingo, Amy? I just hope you don’t mind breaking out your piggy bank – I raise the bar pretty high when I play,” she laughed. “But, as I always say, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’”

Bingo. Bank. Bar. And that quote. It was the one Kate had found in the novel planted on Evelyn’s computer.

Kevin was wrong about not being able to be shocked anymore. It was as if someone had just kicked him in the chest. His mom was the photo-sending informant.

Kevin still couldn’t get his breathing back to normal since he’d realized who his mom was. Clearly she had been posing as a part of the operation in order to save her own life. And sending the photos was the only way she knew how to fix the problem.

But now this kidnapping? What had he done? The ridiculousness of the situation suddenly hit him. Should he call his mom and try to warn her? Shouldn’t he at least let her know he got the message? Wasn’t she trying to tell him so he would do something? Obviously they needed to talk.

He couldn’t call her. His dad would overhear them talking. He’d just text.

Mom – got your message at dinner. When can we meet when Dad won’t know?

Kevin waited; sweat welling on the phone keys. He almost jumped when the message popped up.

Meet me at the park across from our house. Hunter took his sleeping pills. Give me an hour to make sure they’re working.

It was almost midnight and the park was closed. And very dark. A few houses surrounding the park had their yard lights on, but Kevin found it difficult to see if any of the park benches were being occupied.

As he rounded a tree, he saw his mother on one of the park benches. He felt relieved. He didn’t like the thought of his mother being here alone. But being with his father seemed just as dangerous at the moment, too.

“Mom,” he whispered as he approached her, “I’m glad we could meet. Are you in any danger?” he asked.

“Not here,” she whispered back. “We can talk.”

“Why did you wait until now to let me know?” Kevin asked.

“There wasn’t a way earlier,” Madeline said.

“I just need to know what to do, Mom. Obviously you think I am qualified to handle this. But I’m just lost.” For some reason he felt the need to continue whispering.

“You are qualified, Kevin,” she said.

“Well, okay, so now I have the photos, and I know who sent them, but what do you want me to do with them?”

She didn’t answer immediately, so Kevin continued, “And what about the Ad Astra Per Aspera thing? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Kevin looked down as he heard his mom rummaging in her purse. What was it, another piece of cardboard? One that would explain the other two?

Kevin blinked when a light snapped on from his mom’s hand. “I want to show you something, Kevin,” she said.

He leaned forward, trying to adjust his eyes. He realized he was holding his breath.

Madeline fingered a spot near her collar bone, and began rolling her hands upward. Kevin squinted as he tried to see what she was doing.

Then his eyes widened in horror as he saw the face of who he thought was his mother come off and fall to the ground. In front of him was a long, pointed nose.

“Thank you, Kevin. We had our doubts about your mother’s sincerity,” Bianca Devore said. “We have plans to eliminate her.”

Kevin’s mouth was hanging open and he made no effort to shut it. He could feel his shudder make the bench tremor beneath him. Bianca stood, suddenly tall and erect. She leaned down to grab the mask and tossed it on his lap. “Here, keep it as a souvenir.”

Download and print Chapter 16 by Sarah Langley (8 page .pdf)
Keep reading!  Chapter 17 by Aimee Gross

About the Author

Sarah Langley, life-long lover of words, grew up finding rhyming words for every object she saw. She wrote numerous short stories, all of which were silly, but her young eyes saw them as masterpieces. Now she writes both poetry and novels because she loves the feel of a pen in her hand, the way a nib sinks into handmade paper, and because words (whether rhyming or not) are always stuck in her head like a favorite song.

When not writing, Sarah works as a clown. She and her brother (who also helps her with novel plots) have been twisting balloons for three years. But whether making balloon sculptures, spending time with her brother, or just living life, Sarah is always searching for inspiration to put those words in her head onto paper.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please.

“I guess you’re wondering what all of these photos mean. Let me explain a bit,” Margaret begins. “Maybe you didn’t notice these before, hidden in amongst the others. Evelyn was ambitious in covering her tracks.”

 “Evelyn came to me after the third photo. I didn’t know Evelyn well. Although I’ve been City Manager for five years, I’m still figuring things out here. My last job in Bozeman seems like a dream compared to this one sometimes. Anyway, after the business with the Romanians, Evelyn was certainly on my radar. I never quite understood how she kept her job after that – I was told that the FBI was running a sting operation to catch the terrorists, but I never saw any evidence appear. Apparently Evelyn was suspicious, too.”

“But she told me she was so grateful to still have her job that she wasn’t willing to risk losing it. But again, that was before the photos started. She came into my office one day and showed me these three photos. She said they had arrived in three separate envelopes; all addressed to her, all well disguised in envelopes that made them appear to be junk mail or advertisements. You can see; these three are of recent city construction projects, fixing streets.”

 “None of them had a note inside, just the photographs. And each photograph has this sticker on the back that says ‘Topeka is Awesome.’ At the time, I agreed with her that it was strange, but she should have been concentrating on the actual Topeka is Awesome project and I tried to redirect her there.”

  “Then a week later she came back with these two photos. It didn’t take much digging for me to discover that these companies had bids on the construction projects in the first photos, it was public information. But these are both companies who get lots of repair contracts for the city, so even that didn’t raise alarm at the time. I assumed these were from a prankster that had read about the grant project in the newspaper and were trying to poke fun at the project. I sent Evelyn back to work, counseling her to figure out why Topeka is Awesome. I knew she had an intern coming for the project. Around this time, I tried to follow up on Evelyn’s involvement with the Romanians, worried that this might be related. When I called Human Resources, I was told it wasn’t something they could discuss, so I let it drop.”

“When Evelyn received these two in the same envelope, she started to worry. I don’t know if you recognize her, because this photo is about ten years old, but that’s Marilou Grabinski  at a staff holiday party. I think this same photo might actually be posted on the staff intranet somewhere. But Evelyn got it as a photograph in the mail, and Marilou Grabinski was the office manager at the Public Works Office. Or she used to be. She worked there for about forty years and only recently retired.”

“The other photo is another one printed from the staff intranet, I assume. It’s one of those cheesy posed photos that is sent out in a Human Resources announcement email, welcoming someone to a new position on their first day. This guy, Jacobson, I think his first name is Doug, was hired as Marilou’s replacement when she retired. I’ve met him a few times; he’s a friendly enough guy, though not entirely sincere.”

“I’m not one to jump to conclusions; Evelyn was getting paranoid though, and started to be convinced that the photos were supposed to send her a message. Evelyn kept hounding me to check into these photographs, but I wasn’t sure what I could really do. These are basically random photographs without captions, besides the “Topeka is Awesome.”  An anonymous source didn’t give me much to go on. I’m a straightforward person, and was frustrated that whoever was sending these was being mysterious. If they had some information to share, wouldn’t a telephone call or an email be quicker? Later we learned that Jacobson had married Paul Reston’s youngest daughter the week before his promotion. And Paul Reston is a silent partner in Cap City Excavating, and the manager there has two sons who run construction crews. But we didn’t know that then.”

 “These were the next three photos. They didn’t give us much to go on, but they seemed to be messages about money, at the very least. Evelyn was getting so paranoid that she couldn’t get her work done. She thought she was being followed, and she was suspicious of everyone. She was convinced that this was an informant trying to whistle-blow a corruption scandal. I tried to point out, repeatedly, that the whistle blower hotlines exist for that, not this grant project. But I couldn’t dissuade her.”

 “Evelyn got a photo every few days and kept them in the Topeka is Awesome notebook, filling in the other pages with more photos of the city that she drove around and took herself, so that they could blend in and not look suspicious. Some of these photos seem random to me, but Evelyn was convinced they were all meaningful and related. She kept telling me that there was a message here. We aren’t private investigators, or officers of the law, we’re business women and civic leaders. No matter how many clues someone sent us, I didn’t understand what action this anonymous informant wanted us to take. Coded messages and clues are not my thing. I’ve never had the patience for games and such; I prefer to use straightforward problem-solving techniques and move on to the next project. In that, Evelyn probably chose a poor confidant.”

“Then one day, Evelyn discovered that ridiculous manuscript on her computer. She didn’t write it, obviously. It just appeared on the hard drive overnight. She felt like it was a message to her, in code, that explained the photographs. She was convinced she could decipher it. I….well…I didn’t entirely agree with her. But I didn’t have a better explanation for why that document would suddenly be on her computer. Then she found the meeting plans on her calendar, appointments in California that she hadn’t set, with people and companies she had never heard of. The appointments were all the week of the conference for the Topeka is Awesome project.”

“It all seemed to be related, but we still didn’t know what to do. It’s not like photos that point to suspicious activity is something we could take the police. That’s what the informant should have done, after all, instead of sending them to us. And if this was an internal informant, which it seemed to be from the kinds of photos and information shared, then we didn’t want to talk to the wrong people, whoever they might be.”

“Evelyn was a wreck. The safest thing I could do was fire her. Although she never knew it was me who got her fired.  I had to try to protect her, and I thought that removing her from the situation would help. I realize now that she was too obsessed with the mystery, that it didn’t matter…I was trying to save her. Even though I failed.”  Margaret sighed deeply and rearranged the photos again, to reveal one image that Kevin hadn’t noticed before.

 “This last photo arrived after she was gone. All of her mail was rerouted to my office until I could hire a replacement for her position. The mailroom didn’t question my request. I had to open all of her junk mail myself, looking for more photos, rather than have my assistant handle it for me. I don’t know who that woman is, although her lipstick is too dark and those thin rimmed glasses on such a long sharp nose are unflattering. That ponytail makes her look younger than she probably is and a bit creepy, like she’s trying too hard. I never even had a chance to show this picture to Evelyn. And I don’t recognize the location, it’s not even a public place like the rest of the photos have been. –Out of all of these photos, this is the last one we received and the one that I have the hardest time fitting into the puzzle. I don’t know the people in this photo either, or if they are important.”

“I’ve been thinking of these last few weeks as Evelyn’s rogue activities. I guess from the police radio calls I heard, she might not have survived that explosion this morning. She texted me just before, and hasn’t texted again. Evelyn was convinced she was supposed to take the photos and the manuscript to these appointments. She was desperately looking for the clues to give her direction. She was safer at work, as it turned out.”

“The physical violence began after she left the office. She was furious that she wasn’t in charge of this project anymore, that she didn’t have access to this notebook and these photos. She was determined to solve the mystery, and claimed she would bring down the bad guys, whatever that means.”

 “I know she was impressed when you and Kate found the clue in the manuscript and led her to the key at the Topeka High spar. I don’t know what she got involved with out there at the end, and I don’t know who was trying to kill her, or who might have been successful this morning. I had to stop trusting her. I’m sure she would look at those last two clues and assume they meant something important. She’d probably think “To the stars through difficulties” was just encouragement to overcome everything she faced and head to Hollywood, to those appointments in Los Angeles. That’s up to you and Kate to decide though.”

Kevin shook his head, coming out of the intense concentration as he had listened to Margaret’s narrative and studied the photographs.

“What?” he asked, sounding confused, “Los Angeles?”

“Yes, of course.” Margaret replied. “The conference to present “Topeka is Awesome” is in three weeks. It’s your job to represent the city there.

Kevin was still staring at the last photo, the creepy woman with the ponytail and the couple at the patio table.

“Do you recognize those people?” Margaret asked, suddenly noticing with interest that his gaze hadn’t moved from that last picture.

Kevin shook his head and said, “No.”

He looked away from the photo of Bianca Devore sitting casually across from his mother and his father on the back patio of his childhood home, and turned his face up to meet Margaret’s eyes.

Download and print Chapter 15 by Lissa Staley  (8 page .pdf)
Keep reading!  Chapter 16 by Sarah Langley

About the Author

Lissa Staley has written nine different first drafts as part of National Novel Writing Month, every November since 2003. Revision is not her strong point though, and this is her first published work of fiction.  In addition to serving as the NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison for Topeka, she also works as a Book Evangelist and Librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. Contact her at lissastaley@gmail.com.

Just discovered us? Start reading with chapter 1 please!

Kevin didn’t even try to call Kate back. He pulled on some jeans and a tee and raced to his pick-up. He covered the distance between his apartment and Kate’s in record time. He pounded on her door until Grandpa George opened it.

“George!”

“Well, Kevin,” said George amicably. “Hello!”

“Where’s Kate?” asked Kevin, bewildered.

Grandma Amy walked up behind George and greeted Kevin then softly instructed her husband, “Invite the boy in, dear.” George glanced back at her then pulled the door open and gestured for Kevin to enter Kate’s apartment.

“No!” exclaimed Kevin. “I mean, thank you, but I’m not here socially. Just tell me where Kate is. Is she okay?”

“What do you mean, dear?” asked Amy, puzzled.

“She . . .” began Kevin. His phone rang again. It was Kate. He turned his back to George and Amy and answered it. “Kate!” he whispered. “What’s going on?”

An inhuman voice replied, “Kate is unavailable to speak at the moment, Mr. Emile.”

“Wha…? Who is this?”

“That’s not your concern at present,” said the voice. “Go home, Emile, and wait for us to call you. I’m sure Kate will appreciate your cooperation, as will her grandparents. They look so concerned.”

Kevin’s heart beat faster. It scared him to know someone was watching them at that very moment. He kept the phone pressed to his ear and turned around to look at George and Amy who were in the doorway, looking at him expectantly. Kevin offered them a weak wave and turned away again.

“What do you want? I’ll give you anything. Just don’t hurt Kate or the Shaws!”

“I think you know what we want.”

“No, I …”

“The key, Mr. Emile. The real key, this time.”

“Oh.” Kevin felt like someone had just drilled a soccer ball into his stomach.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have it.”

“But I don’t!”

“Then retrieve it.”

“I can’t. I don’t … ”

“Then I’m sorry it’s come to this …”

“No, wait! I can tell you what was in the box it opened.”

For the first time, the voice on the other end didn’t answer immediately. The silence continued for long enough that Kevin began to wonder if the call had dropped. He looked at his phone. It still showed the call being connected. “Hello?” he asked tentatively. “Hello?”

“It seems Kate here is confirming your claim. Very well, Mr. Emile. What was the message?”

“Not here,” said Kevin.

“Are you sure that’s the message?”

“No. I mean I’d rather discuss this someplace else.”

“Agreed. Go home and wait for our call.”

Kevin listened for further instructions for a few seconds then looked at the phone and saw that the call had ended.

George asked, “What’s going on Kevin? Is Kate in some kind of trouble?”

Kevin faced him and Amy again, not sure what to say. “Uh … I have to go now,” he offered and bounded back to his pick-up and sped toward home.

At 6:30 Sunday morning, Kevin’s phone rang again. “Hello?” he answered groggily.

“Kevin, I have to meet you right away!”

Kevin sat upright immediately. “Evelyn? I thought …”

“I don’t care what you thought, Kevin. Just meet me at Burnett’s Mound.”

“But it’s closed!” protested Kevin.

“Only to vehicles. You can still hike up.”

“Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.”

“You never did get out much, did you?”

“Well, I …”

“Never mind, just hurry up, Kevin. It’s critical that you don’t delay.”

“Fine!” mumbled Kevin and pulled on his hiking boots. He hadn’t bothered to undress from the night before. It crossed his mind that he ought not to go anywhere until he heard from the people who had Kate. But it also made perfect sense to meet Evelyn while he waited. If he did hear from Kate’s captors, then he could always ditch Evelyn if he needed to.

Kevin would have enjoyed the Sunday morning hike if he’d been on Burnett’s Mound under better circumstances because it was a beautiful sunny morning, not yet full of the oppressive humidity of recent days.

He found Evelyn sitting on a rock looking out over the city to the north and east, toward downtown. She held a metal box in her lap. It looked almost identical to the one found they found at the Wren statue the other night.

“What’s that? Or do I dare ask?”

She looked up at him and then unlocked the box with a silver key. Inside was a piece of cardboard, which she pulled out. In black letters were the words “Per Aspera.”

Kevin looked from the cardboard to Evelyn’s face to the cardboard and back to Evelyn’s face, his mouth open slightly. He wanted to say something but his brain could formulate nothing.

Evelyn didn’t speak at first either. She, too, eyed the cardboard for a while before closing the box and standing up.

She shrugged. “I guess now we know,” she said.

Kevin exploded with a cross between a groan and a scream which he directed toward the sky: “Arghhhhhhhhh!” He clenched and unclenched his fists a few times. Then turning to Evelyn, he continued, “What?! What do we know now? I know nothing! What does this …” he yanked the cardboard of Evelyn’s hand … “this piece of cardboard tell us, dear Evelyn? If you know, won’t you puh-lease fill me in because right now none of this makes any sense!” By the time he finished, he was spitting as he spoke.

“I can see you’re upset, Kevin,” began Evelyn, trying to grab the cardboard back from him. Kevin growled at her and she backed off. “But, I think it’s time you know the whole story as I know it.”

Kevin mouthed the words, “Thank you.” He poked the cardboard into his jeans pocket. He noticed Evelyn eyeing him carefully when he did so.

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“What?” he repeated.

“Never mind. We should leave the Mound, though. It’s probably not safe to be here.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Not safe? Not safe?! I should have known you’d say that! Because whenever you turn up, weird things happen. I get shot at, threatened, driven on wild goose chases all over town to find meaningless pieces of cardboard in stupid little metal boxes that open with keys found from clues left in a supposedly useless manuscript that may or may not have been planted on your computer in order to get you fired or not … Who really knows why you were canned, Evelyn? Besides you, I mean? I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you — which I suppose would be a bit further than normal at this point because a good push down this big hill and you’d roll pretty far … But still!”

Evelyn started to laugh. At first she just chuckled but then it grew into a hearty deep laugh that didn’t stop for at least a minute.

Kevin didn’t know what to think. So he hiked toward his vehicle.

“Kevin, wait!” Evelyn called after him.

He paused and looked over his shoulder at her. She caught up to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You were just so funny back there. I’ve never heard you say so many words at one time like that. You, Kevin Emile, who’ve been so quiet and controlled for four years I hardly knew when you were in your office, are suddenly throwing a lengthy tirade at the top of a famous Topeka landmark without a care who heard you or how undignified you looked.”

“Mmmm,” Kevin responded, loosening up. “Yeah, I can see how that would strike your funny bone a little.” He allowed a small smile to creep onto his face.

“Okay, so I get that you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either right now, to be honest.”

Kevin started walking again. “I’m listening,” he told her.

“I’m sure you’re wondering where I got this key and how I knew about the box up there as well as the box at the Wren statue.”

“What do you mean by ‘this key’? Isn’t that the key from the other night?” Kevin stopped and looked at her, surprised.

“No. This is the key I found at the Lardner monument.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows.

“I went back there after we met at the Sheriff’s office the other day and continued the search I wasn’t able to complete the other night when we ran into each other.”

Kevin opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything. He had nothing to say yet. Evelyn’s surprises were sure to keep coming so it was probably best to brace for more and then respond to them all at once when she’d finished and he had answers. Oh, how he hoped he would have some answers soon!

“Let’s keep moving,” prompted Evelyn. They started hiking again. She didn’t continue her story right away because they were on the steep grassy slope now, and it was rather difficult to concentrate on maneuvering down the path ahead and talking at the same time.

They reached their vehicles. Kevin asked, “Where to now?”

“Your office.”

“Won’t they see us there?”

“Who?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Whomever ‘they’ is, Evelyn?”

“You have a point. But we need to go there. That’s where the binder is, isn’t it?”

“What binder?”

“City Works Project 3A799-2, of course!”

“The ‘Topeka Is Awesome’ project binder?”

“Yep. That’s the one!”

“I seriously don’t get it!” Kevin exclaimed.

“I know. So let’s get over there so I can explain it to you.”

Suddenly Kevin wasn’t sure at all of this whole scenario. “Hunh-unh,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Nope. No way. Not doin’ that. We aren’t going to my office, Evelyn. That’s my final answer.”

“You don’t understand, Kevin. I need that binder!”

“I don’t care. We’re not going anywhere near my office until I get some answers.”

“Fine!” snapped Evelyn, sighing. “Then where do you suggest we go?” she said a calmer tone.

“Denny’s?”

“Okay,” agreed Evelyn. “I despise their food but let’s go.”

“Well, actually, I don’t really want to go there either. I said that because I knew you wouldn’t like it, and I’m mad at you!”

Evelyn chuckled again, breaking the tension. “Kevin, you’re an odd character, you know? Okay, so for real this time. Where would you suggest we go if we aren’t going to your office?”

“Panera Bread is open.”

“Excellent. Sounds great. Meet you there!”

“Shouldn’t we go together?” asked Kevin.

“No, it’s safer if we’re separate. You never know who’s watching.”

Kevin remembered the eerie feeling of being watched at Kate’s apartment and shuddered. “I see your point. Okay, meet you there,” Kevin said as he opened his pick-up door. He pulled away and rounded the corner when a huge explosion rocked his vehicle. He slammed on the brakes and threw his pick-up into reverse, fearing the worst. He backed up until he could look down the street from where he’d just come. His heart dropped into his boots.

A ball of flames rose around the blackened shell of Evelyn’s car.

Neighborhood residents emerged from their homes to satisfy their curiosity. Kevin heard sirens in the background.

He decided the best place to be was somewhere else and sped away.

When he got to I-470, he turned east onto the interstate, then decided on a whim to hop on Highway 75 and head south for a while and meander through Montara and Forbes Field before making his way back toward home. He drove around for at least an hour.

He thought about Evelyn and Kate and wondered why he hadn’t gotten a phone call yet about Kate. He thought he’d been on the verge of more answers from Evelyn at last but now he only had more questions. And a stupid piece of cardboard in his jeans pocket.

He couldn’t stand being alone any longer. He decided that after a hot shower, he would drop in at his parents’ place until he heard from Kate’s captors.

Kevin unlocked his door and stepped on a manila envelope that had been shoved through the mail slot. It slid on the floor and his foot slipped out from under him. He took an awkward tumble.

“Ow!” he yelped as he jammed his elbow.

He didn’t bother to get up but plucked the envelope off the floor as he sat there. It was blank on the outside, no identifying marks of any kind. He ripped it open and then thought, only after it was too late, he shouldn’t have been so eager to do that. It could’ve been a trap of some kind.

But it wasn’t. At least he didn’t think so as he pulled out a piece of cardboard with black lettering on it along with a folded note. He caught a faint whiff of perfume that lingered on the note. It reminded him of Evelyn.

He opened the note and read:

Dear Kevin,

I hope it’s you reading this. If not, then I suppose it’s too late to ask whoever is reading this to stop.

Anyway, I don’t know if this is the right move or not. This whole mess has me so “confuzzled.” Enclosed is the cardboard we found the other night.

Please follow my instructions carefully:

1. Go to Lardner’s Monument at Mount Calvary Cemetery and find the key hidden there. You found the one at the spar. I believe you can find this one, too.

2. Go to Burnett’s Mound near the base of the pole at the top. You’ll find a metal box like the one we found at the Wren statue. Open it and retrieve the message inside.

3. Take that message along with this cardboard to Margaret at the office along with the “Topeka Is Awesome” binder as soon as you can. Don’t wait for business hours. Call her immediately and have her meet you there.

She’ll know what to do.

That’s it.

Sorry I can’t tell you in this note why I’m asking you to do this. I also know you probably don’t trust me, and I have no way to prove myself to you, so I am just going to have faith that somehow you’ll know this is the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

Evelyn Blackmon

“Well if that don’t beat all!” exclaimed Kevin. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or groan. He was pretty sure Evelyn was really dead this time, and yet she was still able to show up and make weird things happen in his life.

Obviously she’d written this note before this morning. Who had dropped it off? It’d arrived while he was out with her at the Mound so someone else had delivered it. Very odd!

He didn’t understand why, but for some reason he trusted Evelyn — finally. A tinge of regret flashed through his mind. What if he’d trusted her at Burnett’s Mound this morning? Would things have turned out differently?

“No point second guessing myself.” He stood up. His leg felt a little sore. He might have tweaked a muscle during his tumble.

He decided to skip the shower. He didn’t even wait to reach Margaret before he left his apartment. He did think to grab something work-related, though, so that just in case anybody were watching — and he was fairly certain somebody was — it would seem as if he were heading into the office for a routine task. He’d been known to do that here and there during the previous four years. Still, he couldn’t control his nervous swallowing and the strong thump-thumping of his heart in his chest as he hopped in his pick-up. His hands trembled slightly as he gripped the wheel. The note from Evelyn and the two pieces of cardboard were safely tucked in the back of his jeans under his shirt and remained firmly wedged between his body and the seat as he drove to the office.

He stopped in the parking lot to call Margaret.

“Hi Margaret, it’s Kevin.”

“Good morning, Kevin. What can I do for you?”

“It’s important. I need you to meet me at the office. It’s regarding the ‘Topeka Is Awesome’ project.”

“Ah. Okay. Well, I can meet you there in about twenty-five minutes. That soon enough?”

“Sure. That’ll work.”

“See you soon.”

“Sounds good.”

Kevin decided it might be safer not to park in his usual spot near the office so he left his pick-up a couple blocks away and hoofed it to the office. He knew he couldn’t totally hide himself in broad daylight from anybody who could be tailing him so he concentrated on walking briskly and being hyper-aware of any vehicles or pedestrians he encountered on the way. Fortunately, nothing unusual came up.

He unlocked his office door then shut it behind him and plopped in his ancient office chair, behind his two flat screen monitors, glad for once that he could actually do so. It meant he was alive and that was a great thing to be glad about, considering what had happened to Evelyn this morning. He breathed deeply and relaxed for a moment.

Bang! Bang! Kevin jumped out of his chair, grabbed the binder, and dropped to the floor.

“Hello?” Margaret called from the hallway. “Kevin? Are you in there?”

He must have dozed off for a couple minutes. The sudden knocking on the door startled him awake and had thus sounded louder to him than it really was.

“Here,” announced Kevin, from the floor behind his desk. He watched the door crack open and a petite pair of feet walk in.

“Oh, there you are. What are you doing on the floor, Kevin?”

“Honestly, Margaret,” replied Kevin, “It’s because I’m just a bit scared — you really startled me — and it seems safer down here!” He saw no reason to put on a brave front with this woman.

“I see,” she said, plopping down on the floor next to him. “Well, I don’t blame you! It’s been one nightmare after another around here. I’m glad Evelyn finally got through to you. I was beginning to wonder.”

“She’s dead, Margaret.”

Margaret nodded. “I know,” she whispered. Her lip quivered. A tear rolled down her cheek. She pulled a tissue out of her slacks, lifted her thick, round glasses and wiped her eyes. She sniffled. He wondered how Margaret already knew about Evelyn but felt it would be inappropriate to say anything right then, so they sat for a few moments in silence.

Margaret drew in a deep breath and looked at him. “Spill.”

“So, you know what’s going on?” he responded.

Margaret nodded. “Show me what you’ve got, Kev.”

He paused. Nothing he could pinpoint logically indicated why he should give her his full confidence but divulging everything to Margaret seemed like the right thing to do.

“Okay.”

He pulled the two pieces of cardboard out of the back of his jeans and spread them next to each other on the floor along with the binder.

“Excellent!” She clapped her hands together once in excitement.

“What does all this mean?” asked Kevin.

“Well, let me show you.”

Margaret pulled a series of photos out of the binder and arranged them in a specific order on the floor.

Suddenly Kevin understood why everyone had been so desperate to possess the two seemingly worthless pieces of cardboard that in combination read “Ad Astra Per Aspera.” He placed them in their proper spot within the collage of photos. There it was in front of him in black and white — the answers to so many of his questions.

Download and print Chapter 14 by Crystal Green (12 page .pdf)
Keep reading!  Chapter 15 by Lissa Staley

About the Author

Crystal K. Green fell in love with words at a young age and has pursued writing and language learning ever since. Writing inspires her to enjoy life and appreciate each day. Crystal’s current project is a series of supernatural thrillers based in Kansas and Missouri about an unseen race known as the Wisendren. The first two books, which are being edited and revised for publication, she crafted during NaNoWriMo. She has completed first drafts of five other novels and two movie scripts along with dozens of poems, short stories, and essays. Two of her poems, So the Story Goes and Being Alive Is, have been published through the National Library of Poetry. In addition to writing, Crystal does freelance graphic design and database work. She can be reached at crystalkgreen@gmail.com.