The Black Cadillac (5 page)

The day flew by, and classes kept Cody occupied. Although he hated reading, he was actually enjoying
The
True
Confessions
of
Charlotte
Doyle
. His brain was occupied for the time being, but other thoughts and ideas were also forming on the other side of it. By the school day’s end, Cody had thought of a risky, but important, plan. He couldn’t wait to share it with Zach but was also worried he wouldn’t understand.

The two friends met up after school and walked all the way to Cody’s house. On the walk home, they talked about a lot of things, but nothing had to do with Cody’s idea. Cody and Zach arrived at the house and walked through the front door.

He waited till they got to his house and upstairs in his room to tell Zach.

Before Cody could blurt out the idea, a knock on the bedroom door was heard. They both knew who it was—Olive.

“Sorry, Olive, Zach and I have a big homework assignment we need to work on. I’ll play with you later. I love you, though!” Cody yelled at the door.

“Okay, love you too,” the little girl’s voice squeaked.

When he knew she had left the hallway, Cody started talking, “Okay, Zach…”

Before he could say anything else, Zach said, “Dude, I know what you want to do. I’m pretty sure I know what your plan is.”

“You do?” Cody sounded surprised.

“Yeah, dude. I’m all for it. Let’s find the man in the black car,” Zach replied.

“Wow, man, how did you know?” said Cody.

Zach set his book bag on the floor and looked at Cody’s desk. “I just saw how much it affected you yesterday. Is this the car?” Zach was holding up the drawing Cody did last night.

“Yes, but I’m not sure. It’s just everything I can remember. It all happened so fast,” said Cody.

“It’s okay, buddy. It’s a start,” Zach replied. “So how are we going to do this? I mean, we are twelve years old, we don’t have any clue how to go about this, do we? And what are we going to do once we find the car?”

“I know, I know. If we are going to do this, we need to be smart. We need to put in the time and effort on top of our schoolwork. I understand if you don’t want to do this,” Cody explained.

“I’m in, dude,” Zach replied.

The boys continued to devise a plan. Both Cody and Zach were smarter than they appeared. Even though Zach was considered a jock and class clown at school, he could always think of ideas.

The first step was simple. The boys needed to find out if the man in the black car lived in Tippwood. They made a map of the city and drew a radius from where the vehicle pulled over. On foot or with their bicycles, they both covered zoned areas and would take notes of any vehicle that even remotely resembled Cody’s drawing. With Cody’s new camera, which he received for Christmas, they would secretly snap pictures of every car and license plate. They knew they had to be careful doing so. Step one of their plan was in place.

Over the next few days, with the weather decent, they rode their bikes together to different parts of the city after school. On a few occasions, Cody thought he saw the vehicle, but it never was the exact same car he saw.

In their first few days, the two of them took just three photos. They jotted down three license plates as well. Not knowing what the make of the car was made it very difficult. Together, they had covered just about a third of the city that had a population of sixty thousand people.

The searching became a wild goose chase. It really didn’t seem like they were going to find the car or the man. On one occasion, they thought they were getting close and actually found the car.

On Tuesday, the boys rode to a neighborhood just south of the church in their continuing coverage of the area. The boys found something.

While riding their bikes down Roosevelt Avenue, the boys noticed a black car in a driveway. Cody believed that the car on Roosevelt was the exact car. The boys stopped on the sidewalk across the street from the house.

“Zach, that might be the car.” said Cody.

“Are you sure?” asked his friend.

“No. Not at all, it just looks like the closest thing to my drawing and what I remember.” said Cody.

“Ok, what do we do now?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s write down this address and come back tomorrow. We need to think of something to say if we knock on the door. We need to find out who lives there.” explained Cody.

“Ok, let’s come back tomorrow after school. I will think of something.” replied Zach as he wrote down the address and license plate number.

The boys turned around and headed back up the street. As they were leaving, a curtain moved in the front window of the house. The boys failed to see it.

The next day, school went by fast and the two friends met up at Cody’s house after.

“Ok, ready to go?” asked Zach, walking up the driveway to meet his friend in the back yard.

“Yep. Let’s go.” replied Cody. “I came up with something that might work.”

The boys headed down the driveway and towards the sidewalk.

“What is it?” asked Zach.

“I’ll show you when we get there.” said Cody.

It took about ten minutes to get to Roosevelt and to the boys’ surprise; the black, long car was waiting in the driveway. The two stopped on the other side of the street.

“Ok, here’s my plan.” Cody said reaching in to his draw string bag. “We are going to act like we are selling candy for a fundraiser for school.”

He pulled out a box of candy from the bag.

“Ok, that will work.” responded Zach.

“It’s the best I could come up with.” said Cody.

Cody and Zach turned towards the house and started walking. The house was cottage-like with a long driveway. It looked like a normal house and it had two big windows with curtains on each side. The partial brick front went up past the front green door to the awning. The boys approached the house.

“Do you want me to do the talking?” asked Zach.

“Sure, I’m going to try to keep my head down a little in case I recognize the person.” said Cody.

Cody pulled his baseball cap down so his eyes were well underneath the brim. Zach reached for the faded doorbell with chipped green paint surrounding it. Before he could fully press it in, the front door swung open. An old lady was standing right in front of them.

“Can I help you two?” she said in a raspy voice.

“Um, we are from Franklin Middle School and we are selling candy for a fundraiser.” blurted out Zach. “I’m Zach and this is Cody.”

Cody put his head up and motioned a small wave.

“Oh, well I’m not interested in your candy.” the old lady said.

The old lady looked at Zach and Cody, and then spoke again.

“I saw you two here yesterday looking at my house. What are you two doing at my house?” the old lady questioned.

“Um, like I said, we are doing a fundraiser for our school and we were scoping which neighborhoods we should go to. Sorry to bother you, Ma’am. We will leave now.” explained Zach.

“Wait a minute, I’m sorry boys. I just don’t like people snooping around. How much is the candy?” the old lady said, changing her mean tone.

“Um, a dollar for the box.” replied Zach. “And we actually have just one box left. It’s chocolate?” said Zach while nudging his friend.

Cody pulled the box of candy out of his draw string back pack and started handing it towards the door. The old lady looked at the box and made a face. Cody nudged his friend back.

“Well, I don’t like chocolate, but just hang on there.” the old lady said and then disappeared from the doorway.

“Let’s get outta here. We are obviously way off on this.” Cody whispered to his friend.

“Ok, just hang on. Here she comes, shh.” replied Zach.

The old lady appeared back in the doorway.

“Here you go boys, here is a dollar for your fundraiser, but I don’t want the candy, you keep it.” the old lady said trying to sound nice. She kept looking at the boys and around her front yard.

“Oh wow, thank you Ma'am. Thank you very much. By the way, is that your car in the driveway?” Zach said with a smile.

“Yes it is. Why? Stay away from it.” the old lady snapped.

“Oh, uh, we just thought it was a nice looking car. We were just admiring it. What kind is it?” replied Zach, still with a half-smile on his face.

“That is 1987 Cadillac Brougham in black sapphire metallic. That is my baby.” she snapped back.

The woman was peering out at her vehicle in the driveway. Cody nudged his friend to get going. Zach just pretended he didn’t feel it.

“Oh, well we like it. Thanks again for the dollar.” said Zach holding up the dollar bill.

“You are welcome. Now leave and stay away from my car. I mean it!” the old lady exclaimed and slammed the front door.

“Well that was weird.” said Cody turning around and heading back towards the bikes on the sidewalk.

“That was definitely weird and also a huge strikeout.” replied Zach.

“Yes it was. Let’s head home.” said Cody.

The two friends hopped on their bikes and headed back home. The search was becoming hopeless. The old lady watched from behind her curtains in the front window as the boys rode off.

The week went by fast, and the kids both told their mothers that they were working on a science project together and needed to collect things from around the city. It wasn’t known if their mothers knew they did not have a science class together.

By the end of the week, Cody and Zach were completely wiped out. They used Cody’s room as a headquarters for all clues and information. The old lady was definitely the highlight of the week for the boys. They had to be careful and hide all the maps, drawings, pictures, and notes in the desk drawer.

Cody had made a secret compartment in the bottom desk drawer. He found a piece of wood in the garage and stained it almost the exact color match of his desk. The piece was used as a divider in the wooden desk drawer to be disguised as the back of the drawer.

Everything was only temporary until they could think of another idea. His mom barely came into his room anyways, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. He definitely didn’t want Olive to see any of it. It was bad enough that his time with Olive was shortened from being out so much.

CHAPTE
R
VI
Pas
t
Memories

T
he strange dreams and nightmares kept on coming. It was only five years ago that a little girl named Sam Jennings was kidnapped and taken from a plaza just a couple of cities away. Authorities ended up finding the girl on the side of the road in the country an hour away from where she was taken. The man that took her was never found. Cody was roughly the same age as Sam and remembered the incident well.

The first dream always had floating questions in it like
Was
this
event
connected
with
the
black
car?
Why
was
the
sick
and
twisted
man
that
took
her
never
found?
And
was
there
ever
a
black
car
in
any
of
the
details
of
that
case?

Cody had a nightmare about another situation earlier in his life. He was younger at the time, and the incident struck fear into his heart. He would plead with his stepfather at the time to not leave him in the car in gas stations while he went and paid for the gas. His stepfather did that often, and Cody always feared he would be taken. This was right around the time the girl went missing. He hated when his stepfather would stop at a gas station, and he would actually cry. In the dream, while Cody’s former stepdad went to pay, a man jumped in the car and drove off with Cody strapped in the backseat.

Another nightmare was about running from someone. In these dreams, it was as if his feet were trapped in quicksand. He could never outrun the person chasing him. Cody was somewhat athletic and could run very fast, but in this dream, he was slow. That nightmare would wake him up sweating and panicking.

The dreams were so real and continued.

Another one was about sitting with his grandfather, whom he called Papa. He was close to his Papa, and they would laugh together playing card games. His Papa had lost his battle with cancer a couple of years ago, and Cody did not handle it very well. His conversations in the dream were about asking his Papa about good and evil.

Cody’s grandpa would explain to him that there were a lot of bad people in the world and to always be on guard. He explained to his grandson that when he passed, Cody was the man of the house, and it was his sole duty to protect his sister and mama. His Papa had moved in with them right after Olive turned two.