Play@YSDC

William can't make out any details in the darkness.

OOC,Spot Hidden roll (60% skill) in the ditch: [dice]0[/dice]

Howard couldn’t be totally sure, but it looked like their erstwhile driver, Oscar.

Spot hidden 26%,[dice]0[/dice]

Lawrence couldn't see a thing in the darkness, and being crouched down in a ditch certainly didn't help.

Howard decides to take a risk, and stands up.

"Oscar? Is that you?" he calls out.

He begins to leave the ditch and approach the man.

“Yes, sir,” replied Oscar as he approached. In the headlights of his car, the white bandage wrapped around his head gleamed. He raised a hand in greeting as he got close enough to recognise Howard.

“What happened here? What happened to yur friends?” he asked.

"We got kidnapped by some very nasty people," says William, emerging from the ditch, "and the sheriff was being forced to help them. We managed to escape, but Brophy betrayed us, which shouldn't really have been a surprise."

Howard

"Can you help us Oscar? We need to get out of here."

Oscar watched, somewhat agape, as William and then Thomas emerged from the ditch.

He looked from them, to Howard, to the truck. “Was that Brophy?” he asked, pointing to the smouldering body on the flatbed.

"No, that was James," says William. "The last thing he did was save my life by pulling me out of the truck. Brophy's lying dead in the ditch. I'm going to need to go to the hospital."

"We shouldn't go to the local one" warns Howard. "We need to put some distance between us and this place."

Lawrence climbed out of the ditch last, relieved to hear a familiar voice after the day's chaotic events.
"Thank God you're here, Oscar, things have gone terribly, terribly wrong."
Lawrence pauses for a moment, before speaking again:
"Well, I think you can see that, plain as day."

Oscar looked from Lawrence to the smouldering truck and back again. “You don’t say!” he replied. He shook his head and continued, “Ah can take you to the hospital. Do you want to do anything for your friend afore we go?”

"I think it's too late to do anything more for him,' says William.

Oscar glanced over to the truck. “Yeah, ah guess you're right.”

He turned and stopped, bent over and picked something up off the floor. He looked it and passed it to William. It was a wallet. “Is this yours?”

"Let me see," says William, examining the wallet and its contents.

William recognised it in a heartbeat. Jokingly, it had been referred to as the ‘wallet that never opens’ and it had belonged to James, who, despite his family’s wealth, was always careful about spending money.

Inside, tucked away in a pocket, was his valedictorian ring and two roughly scrawled notes; one for Emily and one addressed to James’ father.

"This belonged to James," says William in a sad tone. "We'll take it back to his father in Massachusetts. There's a letter for him as well, and one for his girlfriend. We'll deliver those."

"Oh, god," Lawrence said, somewhat panicked as he placed his hand upon his forehead, "William, what are we gonna tell them? We obviously can't let James' family know what actually happened to him."

"We don't have to tell them all the details," says William. "We just tell them that Brophy is responsible for his death, and that he died saving my life. That's enough of the truth, along with whatever's in the letters. I won't read them myself, that would be an invasion of privacy."

“We don’t have to tell them all the details? So we just tell him that James is dead, and he’ll just have to accept it? You know Old Man Fraser better than that!” Howard snaps. “He’ll blame us and probably get the police to start looking at us!”

He shakes his head.

“No, we never found James. He’s gone. He went with Brophy to Cuba or some place and doesn’t want to come back. Just burn those letters!”