Ryan Ruiz - The Black Cadillac

His sister stopped and looked over at him with a puzzled look on her face.

“I don’t understand what you mean, Cody. You’re my brother, and I’m your sister,” she replied, so confused.

What Cody was trying to say to his eight-year-old sister was too much to comprehend.

“Never mind, Ol. You will understand when you’re a little older.”

The two siblings watched cartoons until their mom came home.

When their mom arrived home, she had bags of groceries in each hand. Cody ran to the door to take some of the bags.

“Thank you,” his mom said. “Hi, Ol!”

Cody took the bags to the kitchen and set them on the counter. Olive waved to her mom and focused her attention back on the television.

“I’ll throw in a frozen pizza for you guys for lunch,” said their mother, removing the box from one of the grocery bags.

“Yay! Pizza! Wahoo!” yelled Olive excitedly from the living room.

“I’m going to head over to Zach’s in a little bit to play basketball, and I will have dinner over there tonight,” said Cody. “But I will have some pizza for lunch!”

His mother just smiled and continued putting groceries away. Cody pulled out a round pizza pan from inside the oven and preset the bake time.

After lunch, Cody went to his room to get everything he needed for tonight. He took his drawstring off the back of his chair and added a change of clothes to it. He opened his desk drawer, finding a black pocketknife his former stepfather had given him for Christmas one year. Cody then went into his closet and pulled a hooded black sweatshirt off a hanger. After thinking of everything he needed, he headed out.

“Bye, Mom! Bye, Ol!” said Cody.

“Be careful and have fun at Zach’s! Tell Zach’s mom I said hello and I am going to call her for a lunch date,” his mother said.

“Bye, Code, see you tomorrow,” Olive said.

Cody headed out the back door for the garage. Opening the faded white-and-black-paint garage door, Cody saw an air pump in the corner. He grabbed the pump and made sure his tires had the correct amount of air. He saw a chain lock on the shelf near the front; he grabbed it and wrapped it around under the seat of his bike.

Cody wheeled his bike toward the gate. A familiar voice came from over the fence.

“Hey, son, where you going?” the voice said.

“Oh, hey, Mr. Durkbridge. Going to my friend’s house,” said Cody, opening the gate.

“Well, you have a good time,” said Mr. Durkbridge with a cheesy laugh.

“Okay, thanks, I guess. Bye, Mr. Durkbridge,” Cody said to his neighbor as he rode down the driveway.

Mr. Durkbridge watched the boy through the slits of the fence. Cody’s neighbor was always catching him off guard. Cody couldn’t worry about Mr. Durkbridge; he was just a creepy man that happened to live next door to him. Cody’s mind quickly focused on another task.

When he got to Zach’s house, his friend was outside shooting hoops.

“Hey, buddy, you almost ready?” asked Cody.

“Yeah, I’ve told my mom about the sleepover. She’s out somewhere now, so we are okay to talk,” said Zach.

“Okay, I want to leave in about an hour for Crestwood. We need to get there when it’s still daylight to find somewhere to stash our bikes,” explained Cody.

“Good idea plus we have a long bike ride. I have mapped out how we will get there,” said Zach, handing his friend a hand-drawn map.

“Very good. When we get there, let’s find a pay phone and call our moms to check in. We need to make sure they know we are at each other’s houses,” said Cody. “We can’t have anything go wrong and need to cover all our tracks.”

“We will be fine on that end, it’s the other thing I’m worried about,” replied Zach.

Cody picked the basketball off the ground and started dribbling it. Cody needed to clear his head before they left on their journey.

“How about a couple of games of horse before we leave?” suggested Cody.

“Sure, dude,” answered Zach.

The boys played basketball, and for the moment, they were just normal kids having fun. Though they wouldn’t admit it to themselves, what they were about to do was dangerous and stupid. The clock ticked closer to four.

When they finished playing, Zach ran into his house and grabbed his drawstring bag with all the supplies he packed in it.

The two friends hopped on their bikes and headed west toward the city of Crestwood. They were in for a long bike ride.

While riding their bikes, the boys traded back and forth leading the way. The ride seemed like it took forever. They finally arrived at the street Braxton was off, named Williams Street. It took a little more than an hour to get there. The time was 5:15 p.m. The boys still had roughly an hour before the sun was going down. They found a gas station store about one to two blocks away from Braxton. The boys parked their bikes outside and found a rack they could lock them to.

“You nervous at all?” Cody asked his friend.

Zach shook his head.

“No, I’m going to call my mom and tell her I’m at your house now,” said Zach, avoiding Cody’s question.

His friend walked over to the pay phone, popped in a quarter, and called his mother.

The phone rang a few times before his mom answered.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, Mom, just wanted to let you know that I am at Cody’s house and we are going to order some pizzas,” Zach said, lying to his mother.

“Okay, honey, have fun. Oh, is Georgiana around? I need to ask her a question,” his mother said.

“Um, I think she’s outside, Mom…” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll ask her tomorrow or next time I see her,” she told her son.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Zach chirped back.

“Sounds good, honey, love you, bye,” she said.

“Love you too, bye,” Zach said and then hung up the phone.

Zach turned to see their bikes already locked, and Cody was in the store. He joined his friend.

“Do you want something to drink?” asked Cody.

“Yeah, I am a little sweaty from the ride here,” replied Zach.

Cody grabbed two Yoo-hoos. He paid for them, and the boys went back outside.

“If we get into trouble, we run, Zach,” said Cody, repeating what he had said the other day to his friend.

“I know. We will run right back here to this store,” said Zach.

The sun was a beautiful amber color as it slowly went down. The boys finished their drinks and threw the bottles in the trash. The two friends walked across to the other side of the street. They were just a hundred yards away from where Scotty had pulled over a week ago.

“Let’s walk down Braxton on the opposite side and scope it out first,” Cody suggested.

“Okay, let’s see if we can see the black car first,” said Zach.

The sun was completely down, and it was getting darker by the minute. The boys walked toward their destination. A brisk breeze was in the air as they turned right onto Braxton. Right away, they noticed the car was not in the driveway. It was a golden opportunity to get a look.

The boys walked down and back up on the other side until there were just a couple of houses away. The few streetlights there were flickered on. Zach reached into his bag.

“Here. I put some new batteries in these, so we should have a full charge,” said Zach, handing his friend a walkie-talkie. “Keep the volume low.”

“Thanks,” Cody said, and he took the device from Zach. “I’m going to go in the back, you stay near the front and keep watch. Radio me if you see or hear anything.”

“Okay, I will go hide behind one of these parked cars,” Zach said, pointing at the street but hesitating.

“Hey, wait a minute, Code, I have an idea before you go back there,” said Zach.