They continued driving and passed through Rarden, another town in the forest, and a small industrial area before the woods gave way to Highway 32, which they turned onto to head for Piketon. All the while, Griswold was examining the necklace. She had donned a pair of black leather gloves and alternated between wiping bits of the mud off with a wet wipe and staring at it under a magnifying glass. Except for the sound of the car on the road, all was quiet.

             Finally, out of sheer curiosity, Jamie asked, “Find anything yet?”

            “Nope,” replied Griswold, “but I’ll let you know when I do.”

            “Cool,” Jamie said. 

            “By the way,” said Griswold as she continued to examine the jewel, “since we had to leave in a rush, I don’t know if I ever said thank you for your hard work. I really do appreciate it.”

            “No prob-”

            “Wait!” Griswold interrupted. “Yes, yes, yes! Brilliant! Yes! I found what I was looking for!” 

            “What did you find?” Jamie asked.

            “Proof of my hypothesis, of course!” Griswold replied. “Yes, there are still one or two things that remain unsolved, but, for the most part, my conjectures have been proven – ”

            She was interrupted by the sound of gunfire. Glancing back, Jamie saw three sedans, two gray and one white, about a hundred yards behind them. All three drivers were aiming handguns in their direction.

            “We’ll finish talking later,” said Griswold as she bagged the necklace and gave it to Bill. “Protect this.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” he replied as he pocketed the bag.

            “I’ll speed up and try to lose them!” Jamie said.

            “Excellent!” replied Griswold. “I’ll take them out if they get too close.”

            “What are you talking about?” asked Jamie. “There aren’t any weapons in the car!”

            “Just drive!” said Griswold.

            Jamie, regretting everything that led to this moment, floored the gas pedal, causing the car to shoot down the highway. Darting in and out of traffic, Jamie saw the three sedans behind her doing the same and gaining ground. She swerved back and forth as a second barrage of bullets came flying and embedded themselves in the rear window. At this point, most of the other cars had gone off into the grass to avoid them, so Jamie had some open road. She sped up again, but the sedans were still closing in and were about ten yards behind them. Jamie’s heart was racing and she was sweating profusely. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the cars. 

            She then saw Griswold grab the jar of rocks at her feet and roll down her window. Jamie watched in horror and awe as, after unbuckling, Griswold leaned out of the window and frantically threw handfuls of rocks at their pursuers, occasionally ducking back into the car to dodge fire. The rocks flew back and hit the windshields of the cars, cracking them in many places and causing the drivers to panic and swerve. This continued until Griswold ran out of rocks. It led to one of the sedans going off the road and crashing into a thicket of trees after the rocks broke its windshield, temporarily blinding the driver. The other two drivers struggled to see through their cracked windshields, but they still hung on.

            Jamie continued to swerve as the highway twisted through the hills. One of the cars began to pull up on their left side, the driver hoping to get a better shot. But just as he was about to lean out of his car, Griswold grabbed the pop cup from her cupholder, handed it to Bill, and told him to throw it at their pursuer. When he did, it absolutely destroyed the windshield and blinded the driver as the broken cup released a heap of mud that covered his face. He, too, then ran off the road and crashed into the guard rails.

            The last car was still chasing them as they drove out of the hills. As they made a sharp right turn onto Highway 23 to head for Portsmouth, the driver was pulling up on their left. Fortunately, Jamie’s right turn caused the back of their car to hit his, pushing him past the exit and spinning him across a median and into the opposite lane. Jamie drove on, but he caught up with them after making a u-turn and driving onto their road. 

            They were now in a long, two-lane straightaway of a divided highway with fields to their right and a few steep hills to their left. The driver, whom they could now see was overweight with gray stubble and short gray hair, pulled up along their right side and reached for something on the floor of his car.

            “Jamie!” yelled Griswold. “Sideswipe him! Now!”

            “What the hell? Why?” she shouted.

            “Just do it!” yelled Griswold as she flipped a switch on the dashboard.

            With that, Jamie steered right into the side of the gray car. They were jostled around and heard the ear-piercing shriek of metal grinding on metal. The man looked panicked and Jamie drove up further, lining up her tires with his. Two loud popping sounds were heard and the man’s car spun off the road before careening down a small hill and crashing next to a large billboard in a field. Griswold signaled to pull off the road.

            After she brought the car to a stop, Jamie, quickly pulling her hair back into a pony tail, jumped down the hill and ran to the crashed car. The man was getting out and running, so Jamie went after him while Griswold attempted to keep up. He ran in zig-zags and other erratic patterns, occasionally ducking and rolling to avoid her grasp, but he was losing stamina. After gaining ground and tackling him, Jamie had a brief scuffle with him. He tried to punch, kick, and bite her, but to no avail. He then tried to stand up and run again, but Jamie managed to grab one of his legs, tripping him and causing him to faceplant. She then jumped on his back and pinned him down.

           Speed-walking with a camera bouncing on her chest, Griswold eventually caught up. After making it to where they were and using her inhaler again, she knelt down in front of the man and, in between breaths, said, “You’ve got some serious explaining to do. Who’re you working for and what do you want?”

           “I don’t know anything,” he growled as he tried to wrestle Jamie from his back. “Let me go!”

           “You so sure about that?” asked Griswold as she snapped a photo of the man. “Because, if I remember correctly, I happen to have a picture of you, your car, and your license plate. Considering what you’ve done, wouldn’t it be a shame if I happened to give all of these to the police so that they could arrest you and your accomplices?”

            The man went quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Valden...his name is Robert Valden.”

            “Well, that was surprisingly easy,” Griswold said.

            “He’s been on my ass ever since I borrowed money from him,” the man said. “If you’re going after him, it gets him off my back.”

            “In that case,” said Griswold, “I’ll just ask a few more questions.”

            “Whatever,” the man said.

            “Why did Valden send you after us?”

            “He said it was because he needed some necklace you stole from a police station.”

            Griswold’s eyes grew large. “How did he know we had the necklace?” she asked.

            “He hired some guys to get the necklace back for him. They were on top of a building a few streets away scanning the area when they saw a bunch of cops chasing a crazy, naked guy. Then they saw another cop leave the building before driving away. After sending a guy into the station to check on the necklace and learning it was gone, they told Valden. He then sent us to find you guys.”

            “Did Valden say why he wanted it?”

            “No. He just told us to track you down and get it back.”

            “Alright. Any more information you can give us on Valden?”

            “No. He’s really secretive. I don’t even really know what he does. Most of the time, I just get calls from his cronies. I’ve only ever heard his voice once.”

            Griswold paused before asking, “When was that?”

            The man’s face became strained as he thought. At last, he said, “It was on the call where he first recruited me. Maybe...three or four years ago?”

            Griswold finished writing down what he said before saying, “Thank you good sir. I believe I have everything I need. You can let him go now, Jamie.”

            As she got off of him, Jamie quietly asked Griswold, “‘Good sir?’ Really?”

            “No need to be uncivil,” Griswold whispered back. After the man stood again, Griswold said, “By the way, would you like us to send a tow truck?”

            The man looked puzzled. “Sure?” he said.

            Jamie went back to the car and made the call on a black mobile phone. The man thanked Griswold and went to wait by his crashed car. Griswold then joined Jamie at the top of the hill. 

            As Griswold put her camera amongst the other crap in the backseat and let Bill know that the coast was clear, Jamie took a look at the car’s hubcaps and was shocked to find a bunch of thick spikes sticking out of them. Griswold, noticing Jamie’s expression, said, “Yeah, I had one of my engineering friends back at U.C. fix up Cheryl to do shit like this.” With that, she flipped a switch on the dashboard, causing the spikes to retract. She then spent a few minutes covering the cracks and bullet holes in the back window with duct tape and switching out the car’s front and rear license plates for a different set. After all was finished, they got back in the car, Jamie starting it up.

            Turning around on the road, Jamie, Griswold, and Bill drove north on Highway 23 past expansive fields. They eventually arrived in Piketon, a small town located in an open valley. After briefly driving through its commercial district, they drove through a residential area with few trees until Bill pointed out a small, one-story house with a charcoal gray roof and white, wooden siding.

            Jamie parked the car and she and Griswold walked up to the front door. After Griswold knocked, a tall, thin man with a black goatee and short black hair answered the door.

            “Evan Mortimer, I presume?” asked Griswold.

            “Yeah, that’s me,” the man replied.

            “Mind if my partner and I step in to ask you a few questions about your friend, Bill? We’re hoping to help him out of his current predicament.”

            Evan silently motioned for them to come into the house. Griswold asked Evan about his night down at the lake and he gave a story very similar to Jasper’s, corroborating the details of Bill’s drunken behavior and the mysterious splat on the shore. When he mentioned the search for Jasper’s keys, though, Griswold perked up.

            “While you were looking for the keys, did you see or hear anything suspicious?” she asked.

            “I mean, I heard an animal rustling in the bushes near where Bill found the keys, but nothing other than that,” Evan replied.

            “Thank you very much for your time, my dear,” said Griswold, tipping her fedora. “That went very well,” she whispered to Jamie as they turned to leave.

            As they walked to the car, Jamie asked, “What now?”

            “Honestly,” said Griswold, “it’s been a long day and I don’t think we’ll be able to get any more useful information at this hour. I say we call it for today and start fresh tomorrow.”

            With that, they got back in the car with Bill and drove back to Portsmouth for a late dinner.