Upbeats 2: Crime After Crime Read online

Upbeats 2: Crime After Crime

  By Erin Sheena Byrne

  Copyright 2013 Erin Sheena Byrne

  License Notes

  Upbeats 2: Crime After Crime does not contain inappropriate material and is suitable for children, young teenagers and adults.

  Upbeats

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Observer Scene

  Author's Note

  To Jolie, my collaborator

  Chapter One

  My name is Brooke O'Mackey.

  I'm tall, athletic, pale skinned, blue eyed and I have shoulder-length, strawberry blonde hair.

  I'm fourteen, I go to high school, I'm not that fantastic with my grades but they're good enough that no one has to tutor me.

  Ask anyone, who has at least met me once, and they will tell you that I am fierce, fearless, determined and confident. And perhaps I am all that.

  I have never been scared of anything, no one can stop me when I'm on a path, I think I've forgotten how to cry, and I'm not afraid to say what I'm thinking.

  I live in a normal city called Rockwell.

  Rockwell is not a terribly big city: in fact, the city part is rather small. In the heart of Rockwell, slap-bang in the middle, reside tall, sleek buildings and skyscrapers. But, walk a few blocks and you're past it. Then you're onto the normal town stuff: the mall, the shopping district, the restaurants, cafes, diners, and older buildings like the banks, libraries and the high school I go to.

  If you saw my city on a map, you would see a large, misshapen rectangle with one of the long sides curving along the west coast. So, our winter isn't that cold, we don't get snow. But it is still cold enough to make you shiver.

  The opposite long side of the rectangle, the "country outskirts" as they are called, is made up of a vast expanse of farms, old country houses, woods, mountains, rivers and wildlife.

  The north end of the rectangle is Uptown Rockwell. That's where all the rich people live so you can pretty much imagine that it's clean, neat, fancy and really shiny.

  The south end of the rectangle is Downtown. Downtown is dirty, it smells, it's dangerous and no one under the age of eighteen is allowed (by their parents) to roam the streets of Downtown alone after dark. Cheap, old and practically falling-to-pieces apartment buildings line the filthy streets; drunks dance, sing and sway along the streets at night and graffiti is scrawled everywhere.

  Then, in between Uptown and Downtown, are the suburbs where most families live. The suburbs are neat with clean streets lined with tall trees whose leaves change colours in autumn and fall off in winter. The pavements are smooth and easy to ride a bike on. The front lawns are regularly mowed and the houses are smart looking double storey structures, vaguely identical, and well maintained. And the backyards are spacious and most have big trees with either a swing or a tree-house built-in.

  I live in the suburbs, in a neat, double-storey family house that lacks a complete family.

  My older brother, Arthur, is my legal guardian. He’s a detective.

  My brother cares for me, drives me around and whenever there are legal papers that need signing, he’s the one who has to sign on the dotted lines. But he is not the only family I had.

  There is also my dad, but he was never around much. He worked for the CIA (still does) and he was devoted to his work. He worked in a big city, like five hundred miles away, and we never saw him.

  He used to come home on weekends and holidays and he used to work closer to home. But that wasn't the case anymore...

  So our house is often empty.

  It used to be so happy and cheerful. Back when my mom was still alive, dad worked in Rockwell and left home every morning at nine and came home every night at exactly five. He didn't work on the weekends.

  Mom would have dinner ready, Arthur and I would come home from school, and we'd all sit around the table, exchanging stories from our day.

  And when I was upset, nothing was working out the way I wanted it to, she would turn the music up as loud as she dared and then we'd dance like idiots until she got me laughing so much, I’d forget why I had been upset.

  And my father loved her to bits.

  Whenever he'd had a tough day at work; “couldn't catch the bad guy,” as he would tell Arthur and me; Mom was the only person in the whole wide world who could get him smiling again.

  Then one day, she died. No one even told me she was sick...

  That was four years ago.

  Dad started working longer after that. I never even realized that the clock was ticking further and further: it happened gradually. Then one day, he was gone so long; I nearly got Arthur to drive me down to the office to see if he was still alive.

  I was a ten year old about to have a heart attack. Then my father walked through the door with a briefcase in his hand and an unsmiling face. I wanted to hug him and tell him how stupid I had been, but one glance at his face and I learnt to hold myself back from that day forth.

  That was the first time my dad came home after dark.

  Then he began accepting assignments that took him to other cities and states; something he had never done before.

  Nevertheless, soon I was used to never seeing him.

  And then he started changing offices. He used to call us often but, slowly, the calls got fewer and farther between.

  Now it was amazing if I even received a voice message on the phone.

  He was a grieving man. I could understand that. We were all grieving.

  But he didn't have to leave Arthur and me alone.

  There was a framed picture on my wall of my mother and me, taken when I was ten. Every time I woke up, I saw that picture. Sometimes, it made me sad, but it also reminded me of the good times I used to have with my mother.

  My mom was great. She knew all the right things to say, and she never just said anything: she meant it with her whole heart. She was the one who taught me that you never lie: if you are going to say something, then you are going to mean it. And promises are made to be kept.

  So there, now you know me. Or, at least, you know the motherless, just about fatherless, in your face, afraid of nothing and no one, girl from across the road.

  But there's so much more to me...

  I'm a superhero, I can stretch to impossible lengths, I've saved the planet once and I've got a deadly enemy.

  But I'm not alone: I've got a team: the Upbeats.