Chapter 4
"Hey Jan, how's Mexico?" Kate Luther asked into her cell phone as she rode the bus towards the University of Alberta. Her father, Brian, and her stepmother, Jan, had left Edmonton a few days earlier for some fun in the sun at an all-inclusive adult swingers resort. Kate wanted to see how their trip was going, but she also wanted to check on Brian to make sure he wasn't drinking too much. He had really gotten into the scotch lately. She had called them on Jan's cell phone so that she could ask her about it.
"Mexico?" Jan asked in her prestigious British accent. "Kate, have you been smoking marijuana again? What in Sam Hill are you talking about?"
"Um, I think you must be the one smoking marijuana Jan," Kate said, giggling. "I'm asking how your trip to Mexico is going!"
"Kate, seriously. Don't play silly bugger. What makes you think I'm in Mexico?"
"Well you're not here, you and Dad left a few days ago for Mexico, didn't you?" Kate asked, getting worried now.
"Where did you get that from?" Jan asked. "I'm in Las Vegas with Maureen! She's looking for a new man. Look, this is bollocks, I don't have time for this. I'm completely knackered after gambling and drinking and groping male strippers all day."
Maureen was Jan's sister, and she was a bit of a wild woman. She enjoyed carousing and picking up men. Kate could only imagine what the two of them would get up to in Vegas.
"Are you serious Jan?" Kate asked. "If you're in Las Vegas, then where the hell is Brian? I was by the house the other night at like midnight, and his car was gone. The house was completely empty."
"Really?" Jan asked. "Well that's disturbing. I wonder where he went. He has been acting a little weird lately, he's been drinking about a bottle of scotch a day. Maybe you should go over to the house and see if there are any clues as to his whereabouts. He probably just went on a little adventure. But I don't know why he would lie to you about Mexico."
"Okay, I'll go over and take a look," Kate sighed.
They hung up and Kate decided to skip school and head out to St. Albert, a suburb of Edmonton, where her parents' house was. She had to get to the bottom of this. She hopped out of the moving bus and landed on the roof of a Honda Accord going the opposite way. The Honda seemed to be headed towards St. Albert Trail. She sat and relaxed on the roof, and pulled a history textbook out of her pocket to do some reading on the trip.
When she got to the house, she noticed a few things she had not seen when she was there in the middle of the night. Brian's BMW was still gone from the driveway, but there was a bunch of purple tinsel-like debris all over the driveway, and at least 10 differently-sized handguns littered on the lawn. Kate was appalled.
She gathered up the guns and entered the house. In the front entranceway, there was tons of paper littered all over the ground. Much of it was covered with Brian's handwriting, but Kate could not read it because his handwriting was very bizarrely shaped. Most of the paper was also covered in a strange purple goo the texture of snot.
Then she noticed something interesting. There was a map of Canada taped up on the wall, and someone had highlighted the route from Edmonton to Vancouver. Kate wondered if that was where he had gone. Her older sister Emily lived there. Her brother Brice lived there part time as well, although at the moment he was in Botswana training to be a shaman.
Kate figured she needed to investigate this further. She left the house, skateboarded down to St. Albert trail and looked for a car going in the direction of the Yellowhead Trail, which would take her west, towards Vancouver.
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