Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
“Can I make an embarrassing confession?” Hobbit said to Jules as he climbed in and closed the door of Jules’s car, before he even fastened his seat belt.
“Um,” Jules said.
“Hello, we’re sitting right here,” Shelly piped up from the back seat, where she and Meg were prepping Mr. H’s video camera.
Jules had picked them up first, before swinging past Hobbit’s.
They were meeting Tom and Belle one street over from Carter Dorbert’s house, where tonight’s party was being held.
The plan was to park there, out of sight, in case Suspect X recognized their cars.
They would then cut through a neighbor’s property and the woods between the two houses to hide themselves in the brush behind Carter’s backyard.
Both Rod and Sadie were showing up separately, of course. In fact, Rod was probably already there. The soccer team always arrived early at these events, to help Carter tap the keg.
“Yes, I know,” Hobbit said, a tad crossly as he turned to look at the two girls.
“I see you. You’re not invisible.” He looked back at Jules.
“Fictional me thinks you’re an idiot for still being in love with David when I’m sitting right here.
And real-life me knows you only see me as a friend.
I get that. I do. But deep down, what real life me feels is closer to fictional me than I thought. ”
“Hob,” Jules started.
“No, no, you don’t need to say anything.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to explain that.
.. After we did that scene, I needed a coupla days to.
.. I don’t know. Grieve? Decompress? Return to reality?
Maybe a little of all three? And I also wanted to apologize for going too far with the improv there, at the end.
Fictional-me’s apparently kind of a dick. ”
Jules knew exactly what Hobbit was referring to. Have a nice life!
“Nah,” he said. “Fictional-you was rightfully upset. Fictional-me’s the dick. And fictional-you was not wrong. I would take David back. Both fictional-me and real me. I think knowing that makes real-you sad, because you think I deserve better. And... maybe you’re right.”
“Oh, I’m right,” Hobbit said. “But, see, you’re also my best friend, so if David decided to drop out of UCLA, move in with you, and get a job downtown at Nate’s Sporting World, well, I will welcome him into our friend group and will hang out with him with only minor teeth-gritting and snark.
Kinda the way we’re hanging out with Rod these days.
” He glanced into the backseat. “No offense, Meggie, but your brother’s a raging asshole, too. ”
“None taken,” the girl said. “Because yeah, I know. He can be. But he has to try really hard to be, you know, one.”
“Well, bravo to him,” Hobbit said. “He gets an A-plus for his efforts from the judges here in the front seat. And don’t think we didn’t notice the fact that you’re unable to say asshole, missy. Give us a few more days and all kinds of colorful words will be rolling off your innocent tongue.”
Meg was giggling in the back, which was a very nice sound since her usual MO was pale and silent. As Jules glanced in his rearview, he saw that Shelly, too, was smiling.
“I really am sorry,” Jules told Hobbit, who rolled his eyes.
“I was apologizing to you, so just, like, shush,” he said. “We have things to do. Rapist to catch and kill.” He glanced at Jules. “Oops, sorry, you’re still pretending we’re not going to kill him.”
Now Jules was laughing, too. “We are not going to kill him. I am not pretending.”
“Okay, Grandpa, whatever you say,” Hobbit said, giving him an exaggerated wink before he broke character and laughed, too.
Jules glanced over at him as he made the turn onto the road where they were meeting Tom and Belle. “It was only two days, but... damn, I missed you. You’re my best friend, too.”
Hobbit smiled at him. “Hearing you say that is... Well, it even makes fictional-me really happy.”
Jules slowed, turning off his headlights as he saw Tom’s car parked at the side of the road—Tom and Belle leaning against the side in the deepening twilight, dressed in the chosen attire for the night. Long-sleeved hoodies in dark colors, jeans, hiking boots, hats.
“Okay,” Jules said as he pulled in behind them and put his car into park. “Let’s catch this motherfucker.”
Rod was ready for them—he’d turned on the bright outside patio lamps to give the video camera as much light as possible. He was with his soccer friends, sitting on the picnic table where Jules and Hobbit had sat just last week.
Because this party was being held at the so-called “party central,” AKA Carter Dorbert’s house, AKA the scene of the crime in which Jules’s Dr. Pepper had been drugged, they knew the yard well. And they’d planned in advance several options for video camera placement.
And because sneaking through the brush wasn’t something any of them were particularly good at—except maybe for Hobbit, who’d learned quite a bit about stealth the few times he’d gone out hunting with his father and brothers—they relied on Rodney to distract his fellow soccer team members as they moved into position, and then shifted because video camera option one caught the glare from one of the patio spotlights and was rendered near useless.
Rod used the time-honored and totally obnoxious game of keep-away to distract, snatching the baseball cap off of one of his friends—oh, it was Rugby-Shirt Jimmy, who was wearing a somewhat staid green-and-off-white number tonight—and tossing it out of Jim’s reach to a kid named Larry as they all crashed and flailed and laughed their semi-drunk asses off in the big backyard.
But then the camera was finally in place, and they all were, too.
Hidden and watching.
Jules checked the time, as out in the yard Rod checked his own watch. It was nearly Sadie o’clock, and Rod tossed the wayward hat back to Jim and went back to sitting on the table.
But he was only there for a few short moments before he said something to his friends and got up.
And walked directly back across the yard. Right toward where he knew they were hiding.
What.
The hell?
Rodney stopped right at the edge of the thicket and unzipped his pants.
Or at least he pretended to, his hands over his crotch as he assumed the slightly spread-leg stance required to not pee on one’s sneakers.
“Relax, they think I’m taking a leak,” Rod said as he gazed down into Hobbit’s astonished face. “Where the fuck is Cassidy?”
“I’m right here,” Jules whispered. The stage makeup that Belle had brought along for them to camouflage their faces with streaks of brown and green must’ve really worked because he was right next to Hob.
It was possible Rod was embarrassed, because he ground his next words out through gritted teeth even as he pretended to keep peeing. “Sadie’s gonna be here soon, but Trent’s inside the house.”
They’d discussed the logistics of this sting operation extensively over the past few days.
With the exception of Sadie using the bathroom off the kitchen—either to relieve herself or to give Trent a chance to dump a little flunitrazepam into her wine—no way was she going inside.
There were too many rooms in Carter’s house.
Rod could easily lose track of her—plus Suspect X could take her out the front door.
Also, they needed whatever happened to take place out here, so they could catch X’s wine-spiking on video.
“Should I, I dunno, go in and get him?” Rod asked.
Hobbit was already shaking his head, but he acquiesced to Jules, letting him answer.
“Definitely not,” Jules said. “You’re not close friends, so... We don’t want him getting suspicious when he’s probably already on high alert.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Rod asked. “Just wait for him to maybe come outside...?”
“Have another fight with Sadie,” Hobbit suggested. “Make it loud. Draw a crowd.”
“Fuhhhck,” Rod said as he pretended to shake off his dick. “I hate fucking improv.”
“Grab Sadie and grope her,” Hobbit instructed, “and when you pull her in, inappropriately close, whisper to her: create a scene. She’ll know exactly what to do.”
“She’s gonna fucking hit me again,” Rod muttered.
“She’ll lead,” Belle whispered from where she was dug in on Jules’s other side. “Just follow where she goes. Be creepy. Be loud. Act like you’re shitfaced.”
“Whatever she says or does,” Tom said. “Don’t accept her no. Just keep pushing.”
“Get a beer, but then spill it on her,” Shelly suggested.
“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Hobbit said, admiration in his voice. He turned back to Rod. “You can do this, King of the Forest. You got this. Just trust Sadie.”
“Thank you so much for not really peeing on us,” Jules whispered as Rod pretended to zip his pants.
“Fuhhhck,” he said again, and went back to his soccer friends.
“I really hope no one else decides to pee in the bushes,” Tom said, almost conversationally from his spot over on the other side of Belle.
“Yeah,” Jules said, laughing a little. “Me, too.” Wow, that would really suck. They’d just have to hide here and bear it. Just quietly endure, God help them.
Belle was thinking the same thing. “We don’t move,” she whispered fiercely. “No matter what. We are catching this motherfucker tonight and a little urine won’t stop us.”
Jules smothered a laugh. “I’m getting that printed on our business cards. It’s our new motto. Cassidy and Co., Crimebusters. A little urine won’t stop us.”
Now they were all giggling, even Shelly and Meg whose stress levels had to be off the charts as the possibility of finally facing their rapist rapidly approached.
“Heads up,” Hobbit whispered. “Here’s Sadie....”
And there, indeed, she was. Walking onto the patio.
“Okay, you guys,” Jules whispered. They’d all stopped giggling fast. “Sadie and Rod have got this and we do, too. It’s show time.”