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After the group had an unsuccessful attempt at telling the coast guard, John B decided they should just go to the motel themselves and find out who owned the boat. Everyone except Pope was keen, and Claire found his reasons understandable considering the plan was technically a break-in...even though they had a key...

Claire decided to go in with John B and JJ, instead of doing the sensible thing and keeping lookout with Kie and Pope, but only because she was still a little on edge after being in the water. She figured getting back on land would help.

"I thought the Chateau looked bad." JJ said.

"This place is a shit show." John B added.

"Motel or meth lab?" Kie asked.

"You be the judge." Pope said.

"This doesn't really look like the type of place someone with an expensive boat stays." Claire pointed out.

"No. Looks like a place someone with a Grady-White would get killed." Pope replied as the boat came to a slow stop at the bank.

"This is your captain speaking. HMS Pogue comin' in for landing." JJ mimicked, then jumped off and fixed the anchor in place. John B lended Claire a hand as she stepped out of the boat.

"Thank you, kind sir." She said in a fake British accent.

"You're welcome, m'lady." He chuckled, mimicking her accent.

"Hey, Claire, don't let him do anything stupid." Pope said.

She looked between both boys, then back to Pope and asked, "Which him are you referring to?"

Pope stared at her blankly and she shrugged. "Can't make any promises."

"Uh, be careful." Kie said to John B. JJ and Claire shared a confused look, before following him through to the motel.

"Why are all these mattresses outside?" She asked.

"After a hurricane, they ditch 'em cause they're mouldy." JJ replied.

"Oh, right. We had hurricanes back home, but never this bad."

"I always thought Australia was pretty similar to here, you know, with all the beaches and bad weather and stuff." John B said.

"Depends on where you live. I lived in Sydney, which is a big city and not tropical in the slightest." She replied. "Anyways, what was that about?"

"What?"

"You and Kie."

"Yeah, you know...'Just be so careful, John'." JJ mocked, then started smothering John B playfully.

"God, you're so weird." John B said, shoving his best friend away. "I don't know, okay? Maybe she wants us to be careful."

"Since she heard you're being threatened with exile, she's just been, like, 'oh! Be so careful, John B'." JJ continued. Claire rolled her eyes at his antics.

"Get off."

"'Oh, just give me that John D already'." He continued. "When are you gonna swoop on that, man?"

"That is a girl, and swoop is such a derogatory term." Claire scrunched her nose in disgust and JJ just rolled his eyes at her.

"Bro, you know the rule. No Pogue-on-Pogue macking." John B said. JJ and Claire glanced at each other briefly, before she avoided his gaze.

They'd already broken the rule multiple times over the last six months, but Claire tried to forget it ever happened. She'd convinced herself it was a mistake, but deep down she knew that there was something between them. However, now was not the time to be worrying about that.

"Besides, you're the one always hitting on her." John B continued.

JJ sighed. "Dude, of course I'm hitting on her. She's a super hot, rich, hippie chick slumming it with us." He said. "Why? I can't figure it out either, but who cares, bro?"

"You need help." Claire interjected.

"Yeah, and not like a little bit of help, you need a lot of help." John B added. "It's like every girl who just has a heartbeat, you're like...'Uhh!"

They both looked at Claire, JJ smirking and wiggling his eyebrows while John B raised his own in amusement.

"You both need help." She retorted, then grabbed the key from John B and walked up to room twenty-nine. "This is it." She said.

JJ knocked on the door in a weird pattern, and in a high-pitched voice said, "Housekeeping."

Claire chuckled then asked, "Should we try it?"

John B nodded. "Yeah."

JJ added something in Spanish as Claire fiddled with the lock, then said, "No power. No security cameras. No one's gonna know."

"We'll know." She muttered, then slowly pushed open the door.

The room had two single beds and there was a duffle bag sitting on one of them. It also had a little bit of a smell, which made Claire scrunch her nose in disgust. She tried to pretend it was all the mouldy mattresses around.

"Check the bag. See if there's a name on there somewhere." John B instructed as the door closed behind him.

Claire walked to the bathroom to see if there was anything worth mentioning while the boys continued looking through the bags. "Nothing in here of importance." She called out.

She exited the bathroom and walked over to where the boys were huddled over the nightstand.

"Maybe this is where they were fishing." JJ said. Claire peered over his shoulder and stared at the map.

"No, that's off the continental shelf." John B said. "That's Big Swell. Nobody fishes there."

"Okay."

While the boys continued to look around the room, muttering things that Claire ignored on purpose, she continued to look at the map, and noticed beside it a post-it note with a bunch of numbers on it. Deciding it wasn't important for the time being, she moved to check the window in case there was any unwanted visitors around. There wasn't so they were good.

For now.

"What did you find?" She asked, walking back over to John B and crouched down beside him.

He opened a safe and grunted, then punched in some numbers. "One, one, one, one, two."

"Punching shit at random. That will...definitely work." JJ said sarcastically.

"Wait," Claire said, walking over to the nightstand and picked up the post-it note. "Try this." She handed it to John who took it and started punching in the numbers.

"Six, one, six, six, six."

Then the lock clicked and the safe unlocked.

Claire scoffed. "It wouldn't accept one, one, one, one, two...but it accepts that."

John B opened the safe and Claire's eyes widened. There was heaps of stacks of cash, along with a gun and an envelope inside.

"Whoa..."

"Holy shit."

"Uh, JJ..."

"Mmm?"

"You're gonna want to see this."

JJ approached the safe and started digging through it, pulling out the gun.

"This is a SIG Sauer!"

"Put the gun back, JJ!" John B said.

"This is a fucking spendy gatt, man. Just...bam! Bam!" JJ started pretending to shoot it and making noises.

"JJ, you can't take that!" Claire said.

"Yeah, dude, we are not stealing anything!"

He pulled out his phone and handed it to Claire. "Just take a pic of me. Right here." He insisted.

"I'm not taking a picture of you with a gun, you idiot." She replied flatly.

"You want to make our own incriminating evidence? Is that what you're talking about?" John B asked.

Suddenly there was soft clatter against the window which caught Claire's attention, so she wandered over to the window and lifted the blinds up. Kie and Pope were standing on the ground below pointing and jumping around anxiously.

"What is it?" John B asked, appearing beside her. "Shit." He said then walked over to the window beside the door.

"What? What is it?" JJ asked.

"Police." He replied.

A second later there was a knock on the door and the three teens ran around frantically and quietly as possible, looking for somewhere to hide. The knocking continued and John B quickly opened up the window; JJ was first out but Claire shook her head in protest. John B sent her a pleading look with his eyes as the keys started to jingle.

If weren't for the sake of not wanting to be arrested, she definitely wouldn't have done this.

She pursed her lips and clambered out the window, awkwardly positioning herself beside JJ. John B clambered out immediately after and shut the window, then took his position across from JJ and Claire. There wasn't a lot of footing room on the ledge however, and much to her dismay, Claire was still visible through the window. She moved to stand in front of JJ, placing her feet either side of his and gripped the wall as best she could. In an effort to not look down, Claire locked eyes with JJ's, his warm breath fanning her face and sending a shiver down her spine.

She wasn't afraid of heights, but didn't exactly like the idea of standing on a ledge twenty-something feet which could lead to her potential death.

"I can't believe I let you dumbasses talk me into this." She whispered, glaring at both of them, but mainly at the boy in front of her.

JJ chuckled. "You secretly love the adrenaline, don't deny it."

Claire narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance. "If I die, it's on you."

"Guys, shut up." John B whispered.

The three of them turned their heads to look at Kie and Pope who were most definitely panicking. She caught a glimpse of just how far up they were and looked up, releasing a shaky breath.

"Since when have you been afraid of heights?" JJ asked her.

"I'm not. I just don't particularly like the idea of falling to my death." Claire replied, then moved her gaze over to the window and peered through the gap in the blinds to see what the police were doing inside.

"Oh shit..." She whispered.

The boys looked through the window as well and they saw the officers taking money from the safe, but it didn't look like they were sticking it in evidence bags.

"Do you believe–" JJ started, shifting slightly but the gun fell out of his pocket, cutting him off.

Startled, Claire lost her footing and squealed. Without hesitation, JJ grabbed her waist and held her close to him and let gun fall, clattering loudly to the ground. She wrapped her arms firmly around his neck and released another shaky breath just as the blinds opened. Pressing her body closer to his, Claire closed her eyes and attempted to steady her heartbeat while the three of them waited in dead silence for the cops to leave.

Eventually, the door slammed shut and Claire felt herself relax slightly.

"I hate both of you." She said, as they made their way back inside, and down to the boat.

"Well that was fun." JJ chuckled as they cruised home. "Could have warned us a little sooner."

"We would have, except Pope was on the math team." Kie replied.

"You were on the maths team?" Claire asked.

"The cops took everything like it was a crime scene. Did you guys find anything?" Pope asked, ignoring her question.

"Did we find anything? No, I don't think so...Oh, yeah, we did." JJ held up the gun and the stacks of cash he stole from the safe.

"What the hell?" Pope exclaimed.

"Dude, what?" Kie added.

Claire rolled her eyes. "I still can't believe you took that."

"Why would you take that from a crime scene?"

"Better than the cops having it."

"Seriously?" Kie asked, looking at Claire disapprovingly.

She shrugged. "I tried to stop him."

"I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship." Pope said anxiously.

"Hey, hey, hey. Shh, shh, shh, shh, "JJ started, "At least you have us, right?"

"I'm living the nightmare."

When they got back to the dock, there seemed to be more people around than usual. After attempting to talk to the security officer on guard, the group witnessed Ms. Lana Grubbs sobbing hysterically over her husband, Scooter Grubbs, who has been found dead. He also happened to be the owner of the Grady-White.
The teens went back to the Chateau to discuss their next move, Claire thinking that there really shouldn't be a next move, but she figured they'd gone this far so why give up?

"Okay. So, um...we didn't see anything. We don't know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia."

"Actually, Pope's right for once. See, I agree with you sometimes." JJ said. "Deny, deny, deny, deny."

On each 'deny' he pointed to each of his friends, landing on Claire last. She pursed her lips but ignored him.

"Guys, we can't keep that money." Kie said.

"Okay, not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara."

"We should give it to Lana Grubbs." Claire suggested.

"Yeah, otherwise it's bad karma."

"Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too. We gotta go dark." Pope said.

"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree."

"I don't agree." John B said, patting his best friend on the shoulder.

"What? Why?"

"Just think about it. This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about, right? Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat who's never had more than forty bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden he's got a Grady-White? Just sayin'."

There was a comfortable silence as the group of friends sat and thought about the events of the day. After a few minutes, JJ and Pope had decided to go fishing, and since neither Claire, Kiara or John B had much else to do, they followed. Claire learned against the railing beside Kie, while John sat on top of it.

"All right, so think about it, Pope." John B said. "How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?"

"Prostitution." Pope said.

"Square groupers, bro." He corrected. "Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean? JJ?"

"They were straight smugglin'." JJ said adamantly.

"Smugglin'. And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck."

"Hell, yeah."

After the boys were done fishing, everyone went back inside and continued their discussion in John B's room.

"For the record, if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it...it probably belongs to someone else."

"Minor details." Kie said. Claire chuckled.

"They could come looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid."

Claire shrugged and said, "It's not like we haven't done catastrophically stupid things before."

"Stupid things have good outcomes all the time," JJ said, flashing the money around, "All we need to do is figure out a way to get into the cargo hold of that wreck. Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal."

"How exactly do you suggest we do that?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

Kie shrugged. "Kegger?"

And just like that they left the Chateau and headed to the Boneyard.

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The end of this one was a little choppy but hopefully it wasn't too confusing. I struggled a little writing this one but I hope you still enjoyed!

P.S. Just wanna say thanks for 300 followers! I never thought I'd even get 1 when I first started writing but I'm really glad that 300 people like what I write?! It's crazy but I love y'all endlessly so tyyyyyy 💙💙💙

P.P.S. Don't forget to vote and share and also comment your thoughts because your feedback really does help me out!