"Oh shit."
That was the only logical reaction to the news.
"Heeeeeey, Daaaaakotaaaaa! Did ya hear?" That sing-song voice. Something was up "Somebody's missing a helluva looootta moneeeeey."
It didn't take long to put two and two together. The Docks. The stash. Something... maybe... someone must have messed with the bricks of greenbacks she had stumbled upon.
"Oh, shit." Her pupils expanded like little blue balloons. "Who?" Dakota's neck jumped out like a porcupine staring into the eyes of a particularly ravenous coyote. "Wait, just hold on for a sec..."
The loud reply had already drawn a few stares from the rest of the Dakota Family.
"Darling, no phones at the table, you know the rules." Hannah firmly laid down the law. "Oh, mom, please, it's Piper. Something really, really important just came up." Dakota replied. Something important indeed. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of important somethings. "Important enough to spoil your breakfast? Pancakes. Just like you've been begging me for since last week." Dakota gulped, that was her mom voice starting to creep in. "Can I answer just this once? Pleease?"
Hannah looked at her daughter for a moment. A hint of a light smile emerged from her glossy lips. Weeks of moping about a lack of friends and Dakota was willing to draw herself away from one of her best breakfasts to chat with a friend. Surely, this was a good omen. A little longer and hell, Dakota might just get over the move, after all - so she figured.
"Oh, well, in that case..." Dakota pouted desperately, eyes fixed on her mother's face.
"Fine," Hannah acquiesced. "...but do it in your room." paused for a moment, gauging the urgent expression in Dakota's appreciative (if somewhat gaunt) face. "And you better not miss the most important meal of the day!" She gestured towards Dakota's plate; three pancakes. Golden-brown, drizzled with syrup, with a cute little cube of butter beginning to ooze its way across its surface, displacing the banana slices underneath. There were none of those supposedly-dreaded 'eggos' today for this young lady and she definitely didn't want her daughter to overlook her extra effort.
"Thanks a bunch mom! Shouldn't take too long, I promise." She sprinted into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her a little more noisily than perhaps she intended. This was a matter of privacy. If her ass of a brother were to poke his head in on his way to the table...
"KENNY?!" Dakota dropped her phone and hastily pushed her younger brother out. She had barely turned her back when he'd creaked the door ajar, clearly curious about this 'important' conversation'. "You heard her, Kenny. Leave your sister alone for a moment." Patrick warned his son, darting a glance over the newspaper, his pancake-adorned fork held aloft; pointed in the vague direction of the noise, for emphasis. Kenny, caught out, slinked to the table with his metaphorical tail between his legs. "Fine, whatever."
"Hel-loo, Dee? You still there? You're missing out on one helluva juicy story here!"
Dakota reclaimed her cell from the desk. "Ugh, yeah. Just had to, get rid of the Most Annoying Brother In The Whole World." "Hey, i'm sure he isn't that bad." Piper glanced over to the grunting figure on the couch before continuing. "Wanna swap? I'm sure we can arrange a little switcheroo. You're gonna regret it though..."
"Can we just get back to the money? Please?" Dakota gulped. "Please don't tell me you..."
"That's not important, Dee. What's important is that the Barbecue Hut just bought out the entire front page! There's going crazy over this robbery. It's crazy. Everyone in town is prolly talking 'bout it.' Well, the one that read the local paper, at least. So. y'know. A hundred angry oldies, a few cafes of hipsters and the homeless dude near the bus stop." She giggled at her own brilliant sense of humour. "He's probably livin' under that story as we speak."
Dakota was having none of it. "Piper, you were there. You saw the money. This is probably the biggest theft in the history of this little dump. Maybe even the State! I mean, assuming they're related." "Yeah." Piper grunted. Dakota heard a rather slimy noise on the other end. A slice of pizza, perhaps? For breakfast? "Prolly. I mean, they're makin' a real huge deal over this. Kinda suspicious if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, their ribs are the goddamned ribs of freakin' angels or something, but there's no way they'd have the funds to book out a whole front page by themselves. Let alone other... two... pages of articles. Money we saw was out of their league, too."
Dakota's nerves were hardly a beneficiary of these theories. "Oh, shit..." She gasped. "So. There's... ....do you think it really was mob money?" Biting noises emanated once more from Dakota's cell phone. "*munch* I dunno. Yes? Maybe someone did steal from them. But with that much cash, they'd have to be robbing the entire damn town or something. *chew* Unless..."
"Unless what?" She was already starting to regret delaying breakfast with this continuous interference on the other end.
"Well, maybe that cash was some kinda stash from their operations all over the place. I mean, we broke in so, security's not gonna go peeking around for drug money or whatever. Who knows? For all we know, BBQ Hut is a mob front. The manager always seemed a bit odd. And well... not to be racist or anything, but..."
"Piper. Come on, please! Can you give me some good news now? Are there puppies on page three? Tell me we aren't gonna be hunted down by mobsters or lynched or whatever."
"Girl, relaaaaax. There's nothing here 'bout us at all. There's a few kinda grainy pics of some dudes in black and some stuff by the manager and such but nothin 'bout the port at all. See, that's also kinda odd. I tried going back there yesterday, but it was all locked tight n shit." More thoughtful munching echoed into Dakota's ear. "So," the Texan could feel a slight hint of curiosity mixing itself into her paranoia "...what should we do?"
"Hang on, Black." Dakota couldn't help but feel she had forgotten something. "There's just one thing I need to know before I bite my nails off. Again."
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