Murdersdale 12

Jedidiah was scared still, unable to move for a moment. He cursed himself for allowing his skills to dull a bit; he was supposed to be sharper than this. How come he had lost concentration and awareness of the situation around him?

"Who do you work for?" He dared to ask.

"That's a stupid question to be asking when you'll be dead in the next ten minutes, don't you think? Heh, I'm beginning to think you're not even worth the hype. Here I was thinking I was up against a genius of sorts," the man said with a smug look.

Jedidiah would have loved to wipe that grin off his face with a sucker punch to the abdomen, but he was well aware of his condition and the overwhelming handicap he'd gotten himself in. He gripped Miranda's thigh firmly - was that just for his own satisfaction or to assure her that things were under control?

Neither seemed meaningful at the time, so he just shrugged it off and laughed. There was no other way he could react at the moment, so he just smiled and looked at the man.

"We'll see about that."

"Get down!" The man shouted.

"No."

All eyes turned to Miranda - actually, just Jedidiah and their abductor did. Her statement was shocking, and a defeaning silence followed for a while.

"What the hell did you just say, Miss?" The abductor bellowed angrily.

"I wasn't mincing words. No, I'm not getting down from this carriage. If you want to kill us, you might as well do it here and now..."

The man was taken aback.

"...unless you're scared," she said, scoffing and laughing with a mocking tone.

Jedidiah wasn't in support of her approach towards the problem at hand - he didn't want to get shot right there and also thought they had a better chance of living if they weren't shot in the goddamn carriage. But she'd saved his life before, so he decided her to give her another chance.

The man stuttered. "O-Of course I can shoot and k-kill you both now. G-Get... Get down now!"

Jedidiah interjected. "That stutter isn't convincing. Tell me, sport. Are you afraid that someone will hear the loud gunshot and come for you? Will see what's going on here? So you'll be arrested and hanged?"

He gave a weak smile. "I cannot be arrested..."

The moment the words left his lips he realized that he'd made a huge mistake. "Er, forget..."

"That was sloppy," Miranda said, a smug look on her face. "Very sloppy. You sounded so confident there. Perhaps because you have some connections amongst the elites of this town? Or maybe..." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "the Sheriff?"

The man visibly jumped back. He didn't see that she was exaggerating her actions. He didn't notice that the tide had changed and now he was on the hot seat. He didn't notice that he had given Miranda enough time to reach for her gun, and that Jedidiah was leaning back to give her a good view.

"That's not it! The Sheriff didn't send me to get you and kill you out here is..."

"Nobody said he did, sport. You just said that now," Jedidiah said, getting down from the carriage already.

"Thanks for helping us with this part of the puzzle. We couldn't have done it without you."

He snarled. "Of what use is it? I'll kill y'all right here and nothing will be done. The case will be gone. Got it? Gone!"

"Is this your first time doing this?" Miranda asked, still sitting in the carriage.

"N-No."

It obviously was.

"Then why are you sweating? Why the stammering? Why are your hands shaking? You say you want to shoot, but you really don't look like you're sure, eh..."

"Greg!" He said before realising that he'd made a mistake.

"Ah, Gregory," Jedidiah said, looking at him. "You do realize you don't have to do this? You can just go, run away from here, and we'll go our merry way."

He seemed to be considering the idea, but he was still very much afraid. The Sheriff must have instilled a lot of fear in him. From one man on a hot seat to another, eh?

"You owe him a favor, don't you? He's not paying for this?"

"No."

It was more comfortable for Greg when he referred to the Sheriff as 'he'. He didn't have to worry about divulging secrets that he had already divulged.

"Because he has something on you, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Good. What if I told you that if you helped me with this investigation, I'd get you free?" Jedidiah proposed.

His eyes lit up, but darkened again. "You can't do that!"

"Of course I can. By the laws of jurisdiction, Sheriff answers to me in this case. I can get you out if you help with the investigation. I can also give you a place to hide while I sort out the rest of the investigation."

Gregwas thinking about it for a while, so he didn't notice when Miranda slipped behind him until she twisted his arm and disarmed him.

Jedidiah made a mental note to avoid getting on her bad side.

"Now that we've neutralised the threat, we have a proposal for you, Gregory."

Their smiles must have scared him.

*****

I decided to keep a little suspense on this one, and hopefully I'll come back with another chapter today. In the meantime, sorry for the long break in transmission.