Here’s the second installment of “Let’s Write a Mystery Together Online”. The first part can be found here if you want to write with us. I’ll take up after the last comment on last week’s post. Thanks to Jodie Will and M. Liz Boyle for contributing last week. Please add to the story in the comments. The more people who play, the more fun it is to write the story.
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Julia snatched the Cokes from my hand and set them on the table. “Cal, we’ve got to follow him.” Pulling out her fob, she raced down the stairs.
I had just enough time to fall into her truck before she tore away from the beach.
Flooring it, Julia got close enough for us to follow Aiden’s hatchback away from the beach and lake, winding higher and higher into the thickly wooded hills as the sun sank behind them, touching the half-stripped branches of oaks and maples with crimson light.
“How could Oliva destroy Aiden?” I said, my gaze glued to his tail lights.
“We have to find out.” Julie tightened her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
Aiden peeled off a gravel road and screeched to a halt beside the burned hulk of the Kelton mansion. He jumped out of his car.
Julia braked hard, and we both stared at the ruins.
“What’s Aiden doing here?” she said.
Julia slammed her car into Park and we jumped out, running toward Aiden’s hatchback. He was already picking his way down the grassy slope toward the charred remains of what was once the county’s richest mansion. The Kelton Mansion. Rumors and sketchy photos swirled with eyewitness claims of what had actually happened to the old place, but none of the stories were consistent. The most logical sounding story I’d heard was that last year after homecoming, the football players had a party there. The cross country team crashed the party, and somehow the whole place blew up, killing Aiden’s best friend Kyle, the same Kyle who is Olivia’s brother. When her brother died, Olivia became obsessed with figuring out who was responsible. She and Aiden had already been together for 2 years, and I knew for a fact he wasn’t at the party and couldn’t have had a part in the explosion. But Olivia could never know why Aiden was at the beach that night instead of the mansion. That had to remain a family secret.
Julia and I followed Aiden, scanning the area for anything suspicious. Suddenly Aiden hurled a brick at the burned skeleton of the mansion. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“No duh, but why does he look so guilty?” Julia asked me. I shrugged, wondering the same thing.
She slowly walked up to him. “What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
“Olivia is going to tell everyone the explosion was my fault. And the family secret is the only way to prove my innocence.”
“So she knows? And she’s blackmailing you?” I asked.
Aiden’s response was to chuck another brick at the black remains. “We have to come up with something. If everyone finds out, it’ll ruin the whole family name.”