Chapter 8 - A new perspective

Steven tossed and turned in his bed, each night was getting harder to sleep. This whole case was just not making sense and he could not stop thinking about it. He had met the main suspect before she was their main suspect, she had volunteered to give information when she didn’t have to. She had come into the station, and waited over an hour only to be questioned by the detective in a harsh manner. He had watched in silence and seen in her the eyes of an innocent by-stander.
When the detective had decided that she was the main suspect, the only suspect for that matter, he had tried to reason with Det. Shabane that this girl was innocent, but Shabane had said this was 'a high profile case that had links back to a drug & weapons smuggling ring and he needed a fall guy, or in this case a fall girl'. Steven then had called her from a payphone, there were still payphones around and he didn’t want the call traced back to him, he had warned her of Shabane’s intentions and told her to run. If he got busted for this, he would not only lose his job, but he would probably be incarcerated too. It wasn’t all because she was a pretty girl, ok yeah she was that too, but this was about justice! He just knew it wasn’t her.
Still, Shabane had been furious when somehow Ms Cooper had gotten hold of O’Brian’s email address and emailed him with the photos from the docks. It was a huge break in the smuggling case. Shabane, and the Capitan, in fact everyone involved in this darned case thought by sending in the photos she was admitting guilt and trying to clear her name.
They immediately got to tracking her phone when they discovered she was nowhere to be found. Now that had been an interesting event. They traced in to a little dirt road in the middle of the forestry about a hundred kilometers north of the city, but when they got there, all they found was a bag of men's clothing with her phone jambed in the bottom. Suspecting she may have headed out on foot, they explored the area. They didnt find Cooper, but rather they found the man who was in the photographs. Andre was wondering around the forest, quite lost and only in his underwear. He swore that it was Mel Cooper who did this to him. That was yesterday, today they had had no new leads.

He wasnt interested in this case just because she was a pretty face, heck she wasnt like your regular bleached blond babe who frequented the beaches. Those girls were smoking hot, but they had no flesh to them, always stick thin, and a personallity almost thinner than their waist, if that was even possible. He was amazed at Mel Cooper's tenacity, her sheer will power and keeping her head under these circumstances. She was pretty, in a home-grown-goodness kind of way, but she had a personality and a good head on her shoulders. Although Steven was rooting for justice, he was also rooting for this lady.

At the briefing the next morning it turned out that Shabane was trying to do all he could to turn this into a countrywide witchhunt for Mel Cooper. He had brought in the special forces with the assumed statment that "Cooper is the head of the smuggling ring and must be brought down immediately"! Steven couldnt believe this, he thought it was crazy. This was starting to turn into a full blown circus, the only thing that made him realise they were not in some half-rate American cop drama was that Shabane had actually taken this to the press (they never do that in the movies, Steven thought to himself) and openly stated that "Mel Cooper is suspect number one and has gone on the run. Any information about her whereabouts would be greatly appreciated by the South Africa Police force"
Steven shook his head while watching this pathetic fanfare, it had certainly gotten out of hand. He had to wonder, with the way Shabane was gunning for the innocent girl, was he on the payrole of the smuggling ring?

"Whats's wrong with me?" Steven mused over a cold mug of beer sitting on his couch "I'm just a beat cop, I'm not a detective. I should just give up and go back to life as it used to be." Shaking his head, he stood up and walked to the fridge. There was nothing there to eat, so he phoned for pizza.
The Pizza guy arrived fairly soon, he paid and turned around. As he opened the pizza box there was an envelope on the pizza with his name hand written on it! "What the heck?" He carefully put the steaming pizza onto the table and opened the envelope.

"Sorry for being so stealthy and quite likely freaking you out. I know I can trust you, I dont know why, but you are one of the few people who believes in my innocence. Thank you for that.
I have crossed a few lines in the last couple of days in order to clear my name, sorry.
I kept a trace on your phone in hopes that I could get through to you fairly soon, the pizza seemed a fitting choice, I know all of the delivery guy's secrets.
I'll call your cell at 6:30am, if you dont answer, I understand. But I figured you deserve to get some credit for this case, since noone else is even looking for the real killer."

He went over the note a good 5 times before finally looking at the clock, it was obvious who it was from. He had never expected this though. She was quite the woman if she had the guts and the brains to do this! Well, until morning there was nothing for him to do. When the call came he would know what she had and could take it from there. Maybe he wouldnt be stuck as a beat cop all his life!

Chapter 7 - A Lead

Standing in the Kitchen of Jen's house, with the various scents of cinnamon and spices from Chris' legendary cooking, Mel was still in shock. For the time being she had forgotten about Andre's betrayal, the murder, everything from the past week just seemed like a distant mist in her mind because of the latest bombshell dropped in her world.

She had arrived barely an hour ago, and been surprised by both Colleen and Anele being there. The group of friends had of course been disappointed with Andre not coming. Mel had explained that 'his little sister who was just about finished school had said she was going to sleep over at her boyfriend's house, and Chris being the man of the house since his dad had died, had to sort it out'. The group understood, and Mel was relieved that herquickly concocted story was holding out.
When she had asked what the occasion was, knowing that there were no special dates of any of her friends at this time of year, they merely invited her inside. She had guessed for a while that Chris and Jen had been dating, but no one had ever told her, and living so far away from them both, despite the constant texting with Jen, she had never known if her suspisions were right.
She had walked into the house and was given a glass of fresh OJ, and watched silently as Jen strolled to Chris and kissed him. It had not been just a peck either, but by Mel's own slack jaw and wide eyed reaction, she knew this was a passionate kiss that easily lasted over a minute. Jen and Chris then turned to face Mel, Chris spoke first saying "Well, the occasion for Colleen, Anele and me to fly in to Jen's tiny little town and you being invited for the drive up here was our engagement party!" and he squeezed Jen tightly as she showed off the rock on her hand. Mel snorted the orange juice up her nose with such a shock. Sure, she had figured maybe they would finally come out that they were dating, but never had she imagined for a second they were already engaged!
The subsequent conversations, questions and arrangements which took the better part of an hour had left her brain feeling like mush. She had not brought with any party dresses for the weekend, in fact with the events of the last week, she had barely planned on staying for more than just the night and leaving at the crack on dawn. But they had a whopping big engagement party planned for the next evening being a Saturday. Jen being ill and tired so much, had allowed Colleen and Anele to do all the planning, with the provision that the evening's events were not too exhausting for Jen. And Mel didnt dare skipping out on such a big event for two of the few people she cared about the most. Jen already had her dress for the party, but Colleen and Anele had known that Mel would not have a dress, they knew if she came with more than just a pair of jeans and a bikini they would be lucky, so they had decided to make a day where the 3 girls would go dress shopping and get their hair and nails done for the party the next day.

Mel was overjoyed for Jen and Chris. At the same time she was feeling gutted, she looked at how happy they were and wondered if she was ever going to find a man of her own, who would treat her like a real woman. She didnt want a repeat of the men she had dated, like the Momma's Boy who had her doing his laundry and cleaning his apartment before they were dating for even 3 weeks. Or the Control Freak who 'confisctated' her phone because she was talking to other men (the other men happened to be Chris, Andre and her dad) on the weekend. Or Mr Emotional who had cried and needed constant reassurance just because she had not answered his 15 text messages and 7 missed calls during a single day's work time. Ugh, she shuddered. No, she probably would never find that happiness. The problem with finding a perfect man was that there is no such thing as perfection in the world. Anyway, she had bigger things to think about right now, like being a fugitive, and finding a dress that fitted, and finding a murderer, and getting an engagement present. Definitely no time for a man in her life just yet.

Sitting at the bar, sipping a gingerale and watching the dance floor with fascination, Mel admitted to herself that it had indeed been a glorious party to end a fantastic day. She actually felt like a whole new woman; her hair had been layered and given honey hilights which really brought out its lustrious and rich brown curls like never before, every time she turned her head the curls would bounce around her shoulders, now just longer than shoulder length. The new black halterneck dress that reached the floor in a heavy fabric that hid any unwanted bumps and showed just the right amount of curves and the silver kitten heels. For the first time in a very long time she felt like a woman, unfortunately the men at this party had been noticing. 'Where did Jen & Chris find all these wierd people' she absent mindedly wondered as she watched another poor dejected fellow slink away after she had turned down another offer to dance. It wasn't that there were no ellligible guys here, nor that she wasn't interested in them, it was just that she had bigger fish to fry right now.
"Is this seat taken?" a plain little man asked her nerveously. He was about her height, which was not that short, but he stooped in his boring brown twaid suit. His hair thinning far too early in his life, he couldnt have been more than 35 years old.
Not in the least attracted to him, but rather out of pity for him, she consented to his joining her hoping the guy just wanted a drink. Although she was in no mood for small talk, or any conversation for that matter, the little plain man introduced himself as Pavlo, and begun telling her his life story. She listened to him telling her his father was from Brazil, his mother a South African and he grown up here, then she stopped listening. "What on earth did I do to encourage this annoying narration" she asked herself silently as he explained how his second wife had run off a few years back, and then started on describing his career. Only half listening, his voice was becoming a white noise only paused by his frequent gulps of the beer in his hand. After 20 minutes Mel was begining to get irritated and was about ready to snap at the guy to shut up and leave her alone, she took a breath and turned to face the man she was about to yell at, when something he said caught her attention.
"So now I'm working at a dead-end job in a cell phone company where we track stolen phones and occasionally help with the police tracking fugitives via their cells. You'd think its exciting, I thought so when I took the job. But all I really do is log onto the website and type in a phone number, and watch a little red dot blinking over a map. Thats it, I never get to go out there, I never get to have any fun." He took a huge gulp of the third beer he had ordered in the last 20 minutes and continued bitterly "I'm single, I'm balding before my time, and I'm stuck in a boring dead-end job."
She smiled as a plan hatched in her mind. For the first time since he sat beside her she decided to really engage "But Pavlo, you are an important part of society! And just think what fun you could have tracking random people when you are not busy tracking fugitives." She gently placed a newly manicured hand on top of his "It sounds fascinating to me, I would love for you to show it to me."
"I dont know, I'm not supposed to use it out of ofice hours or for personal use." He replied halfheartedly.
'hmm, this might not be as easy as I had hoped' she thought. Deciding to up the game a touch, she moved her hand up his forearm a little, and tried her most seductive voice "But Pavlo, how else are you going to make an excuse to invite me back to your place?"
His eyes lit up as he realised the implication "Well I suppose just tracking someone once wont hurt, especially if is someone we know."
"Are you sure? I really dont want to get you into trouble." She looked up at him through her long lashes and blinked "Maybe we shouldnt."
"Of course we can!" He emphasized, adding "Who would you like to track?"

Gently rubbing Pavlo's shoulders as she stood behind his chair. She watched as he typed in his username and password, it was even a regular website that could be accessed anywhere in the world. Mel shook her head in disbelief. It had worked, her first time flirting. Heck, she knew there must be some kind of serious judgement reserved for the freaks who used flirting and their bodies to get what they wanted. She figured this was special circumstances and gave her a free pass, plus it wasnt like she was going to sleep with the guy. Yes she had led him to believe that she wanted to jump his bones, but hell it wasnt actually going to happen.
"Lets track Chris' number, see where him and Jen are." She whispered lips brushing against his ear.
He shivered with excitement as he furiously typed in Chris' number. He glanced at her, stating "It takes a couple of minutes to load."
"Ok, I'll go grab us something to drink" and she turned towards the kitchen.
She quickly crushed 3 sleeping tablets into his drink. They were strong enough to knock him out until the middle of tomorrow, but not strong enough to hurt him. She had about 20 minutes before they fully kicked in, but her flirting had maybe been a little too much, she hoped she could hold him off until he was knocked out.
Ten minutes later, they had finished looking at Chris' movements over the last 12 hours. He had been all over the town. They had looked up Jen's number and seen she had been to most of the same places at the same time Chris had. They looked up Pavlo's own number, and even Mel's mom's number.
But Pavlo was now getting impatient. He yawned, and swiveled in his chair, staring at Mel he said "goodness woman, you are gorgeous!"
She blushed, he was mildly attractive and it was so nice to hear the compliment, but she really didnt want to sleep with this guy. After all Mel Cooper had standards, and these were not her standards!
He took her hand and kissed it. Standing up he leant in towards her, his nose only millimeters from hers, he whispered "I'm done looking at the screen, I want to drink you in and really get to know you"
She shuddered, now what?
He led her by the hand to his bedroom, and she quickly said "Can I use your bathroom please?"
"Sure babe, its" he yawned again, stammering and looking for the words "its, its just down the hall, second door on the left."
"I'll be a couple of minutes" She said, fleeing down the hall.
'Oh crumbs! How long can I stay here before he comes looking for me?' She wondered in panic. If she said no to him now after all that flirting and he was slightly drunk, she feared he might force her or hurt her. She knew nothing about this man really. Darn it, why did she have to lay it on so thick? She sat on the closed pot, head in her hands for a couple of minutes. Standing up, she quickly rumaged through the medicine cupboard, there were a few condoms there, she tossed them into her handbag to hide them. Flushing the loo, she washed her hands and face, touseled her hair a little.
Dropping her bag on the floor, she sat on the bed next to him, he was still awake but fading fast.
"Pavlo," she started, he grinned at her "do you have protection?"
His smile dropped and he stood up, swaying a little "I'll go fetch."
He staggered as he walked away. Mel heard him go into the bathroom and scratch around in the cupboard, he was in a hurry and knocking things around.
He staggered back, "Could have sworn I had in the bathroom" He held onto the doorframe for support "I know I have in the car, I'll be right back, dont move."
She watched him stumble out and a few seconds later she heard the thud of him colapsing.
With a sigh of relief she jumped up, grabbing her bag, she decided to take his car and carefully picked his keys out of his hand.
Her's was still at the engagement party, when she was leaving she left Anele with the keys after grabbing her backpack out the boot and telling her she wasn't going to be back for the night. Plus, she thought, it wont do any good to be driving around in the black hatchback when the cops are sure to be looking for it.

She looked at Pavlo snoring on the floor, thought about the sleeping tablets she had drugged him with, and decided it was safe to use his computer to see where Felix was now. She sat and typed in Pavlo's username and password, the website opening up, typing Felix's number in the search bar.
Silently thanking the programers who created this tracking equipment and Chris & Jen for inviting a lonely and sad man to their party.

Chapter 6 - Revealing

Andre gave up asking her anything after she refused to answer or even look at him for at least 3 minutes. She just stared straight ahead and drove. Andre had never seen Mel like this before, quite frankly it scared him. He knew Mel was capable of a lot; she was a tough cookie and not a woman to be messed with. He had read articles where people had cracked, they had been fine the one minute and then suddenly they had a psychotic break and became a completely different person. He really hoped that had not happened to Mel.

She eventually stopped the car after about 12km from the main tar road. There was nothing out here. She turned off the lights and the engine. The silence was almost deafening. The beautiful sunset had disappeared and now there was merely the rapidly fading gray sky. This place was so lonely and so calm that it was eerie. Mel took a deep breath, turned to Andre and commanded "Get Out!" in such a strong and cold voice that he knew he dared not disobey. He stepped out of the car, and Mel grabbed something from behind her seat. She climbed out and stared at him, her anger so deep, and her face so dark that he wondered if he ought to run. In her hand was not a knife or a gun, just an envelope and a torch.

"Mel, I can see you are angry about something. But can we please talk now?" He asked, his voice nearly breaking.

"Talk? You want to talk? You lied to me. I don’t even know how long you have lied to me. I want you to talk. But I want the truth. I want the truth about what the hell is going on here!" She said as she took a handful of photos out of the envelope and put them on the bonnet of her car and pointed at them.

"What is that?" he asked without moving

"Look at it." she spat at him

He stepped forwards and spread the photos across the car, she handed him the torch and he bent down to look at the photos. He wiped his hand over his brown mop of hair as it fell into his eyes.

The photos were of the harbor, the SUV and the truck where the men were making the shady deal. One photo had a perfectly clear shot of Andre's face as he turned to climb into the SUV with the metal briefcase in his hand!

"Andre, give me a good reason not to tie you to the nearest tree and leave you here to freeze or be eaten by wild animals." She said

"I can explain." He started saying "It’s not what it looks like, its...."

"Oh really" she cut in "Because you know what it looks like? It looks like a really shady deal going on. It looks like you just received a bucket load of cash to let an illegal shipment get through customs!"

"Well," he quietly said "maybe it is what it looks like then. You know what? I'm sorry Mel, I don’t know how or why you thought you should get involved or why you are following me, but you shouldn’t have been doing that."

"Are you threatening me? What is wrong with you, does our friendship mean nothing to you? And before you start thinking this was all about YOU, you conceited piece of rubbish, this was about someone else!" She angrily shouted at him. She pulled out a final photo, a picture of Avesh and thrust it at him "How are you involved and how was Avesh involved?"

He stared at the photo and muttered "oh crumbs, Mel I didn’t know YOU were working for Avesh. No no no!!"

"I am stuck in the middle of this! I have been framed for his murder. The cops are after me. I just caught you red-handed taking bribes for allowing heaven-knows-what into the country illegally. And all you can say is that you didn’t know I was working for him!"

She grabbed and twisted his arm, pushing him against the nearest tree. He groaned from the force that she used to shove against his back, his chest pinned to the tree. Although he was 6" tall, she was a good 5"7' tall and grew up working on an animal farm so she was strong, easily a match for him.

"Start talking" She whispered in his ear.

"The shipment is from China, its plastic dolls filled with cocaine. The Nigerian imports it, once it is in the country I clear them through customs as children’s toys, they truck it out, and I'm told half of it stays in SA and half gets trucked to our bordering countries." He paused; talking while pinned against a tree was difficult.

"And the plastic guns or are they real?" She pushed him, he tried to wriggle free but she brought her knee up hard against his leg, simply stating "Next time it’s the groin."

"Today was the first time the guns came through my checkpoint. They’re real but packaged to look like children’s toys. Same story."

"And it doesn’t bother you one iota that you are helping get drugs and guns into this country? Your own father died in a car crash because some bratty kids were high and drove into him. What are you thinking?"

"Look, they didn’t give me much choice ok. They said if I don’t help them, bad things are going to happen to me. You saw the Nigerian's face, would you doubt if he threatened you?"

"No, dumbass, I would go to the cops. Looks like you were not just scared, but also liked the bonus factor of all that money. So how does Avesh fit into the whole thing?"

"Well, Avesh is into real estate as well as advertising. He owns some warehouses that they store and the shipments in as soon as they get past customs. Unfortunately for him, he had a big gambling problem too. And the Nigerian is a big time loan shark. He got to owing a huge amount of money, and begun asking for more. It would have been fine for him, except he started threatening that he would take the whole operation to the cops if his demands were not met. That’s why he ended up dead, the Nigerian's henchmen did that and framed his PA for it because he was always calling her pet names and had sexual harassment suits filed against him before by other employees."

"So if you are just the 'customs' guy in the operation, how come you know all of this?"

"When the Nigerian came with the guns this morning, I told him I didn’t like this and didn’t want to do it. The Nigerian proceeded to tell me if I tried to back out, I would land up just like Avesh, and he proceeded to tell me in great detail what happened to the guy. But Mel, I swear I didn’t know it was you that worked for Avesh!"

"Really? Is that the honest truth?"

"Yes, I promise I didn’t know you were their fall guy or girl."

"Funny, I don’t believe you. You see, I just figured out where they got a picture of me at a fancy dress party some years ago, they got it from YOU, you took the damn picture! That’s a picture that is playing a part of me being framed for a bloody murder I had nothing to do with!" Tears started running down Mel's face. She didn’t really care much for Avesh, but the fact someone she trusted and such a close friend could betray her so severely, could do such bad things and join in placing the blame on her was almost too much for her heart to handle.

"Oh, I didn’t know you got hold of those too" Andre sounded defeated. Not even remorseful, just defeated.

"Yeah I did. Now does the Nigerian have a name or have you saved his phone number under the unoriginal name of 'the Nigerian' on your phone?" She was so angry now.

Andre grunted, he really didn’t want to get her more involved than she was. He didn’t know what she would do to him, and didn’t like the way things were currently going. He had already actually gotten her into his mess; there was nothing he could do to get her out. She dug her knee into his thigh again, and asked "Does the man have a name or not?"

"What are you gonna do if you know his name, Mel? The guy's a cold hearted murderer and gangster. He won’t think twice about having you killed. Heck, he'll probably make it look like suicide"

"Well you obviously didn’t care about what he might do to me when you decided to help him frame me. Now quit stalling and give me his name!"

"Ok, ok. Stop shoving me, I can barely breathe. The man's name is Felix."

"Are you kidding me?" Mel laughed, "Such a typical Bad Guy name, if you're going to lie, be original Andre!"

"Unfortunately I am telling the truth. Check my phone contacts." He dryly responded, and taking his loose hand he pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed in to her.

After checking the phone and seeing with her own eyes that Felix was really a number saved on the phone, Mel pocketed Andre's phone, never loosening her grip on him. But not much, just enough to relax her now cramping hand.

"Thanks" She whispered, her breathe warm on his ear "and Sorry"

"What for?" He asked with confusion.

"For what I'm about to do to you. You see, I can’t very well trust you again.” She explained “So I am going to knock you out, and tie you to a tree. Don’t worry, I'll tie you fairly loose, once you come round it should take only an hour or so to loosen yourself. Unfortunately for you, I'm also going to remove your shirt and jeans and leave them along with your duffel bag about 2kms down the main road. You’ll be left in your underwear. That's going to slow you down enough for me to get a head start. I am going leave you with my phone, as the cops are going to be tracing that, and they should pick you up easily. And don’t even think about pinning it on me, because I've already emailed those photos to the cops from an untraceable email account. And you won’t find me at Jen's place, because that’s far too obvious!"

Andre grunted and tried to get free "Mel, you're crazy! Let me loose I can help you with this." he begged

"Yeah, I am crazy! Sorry buddy, I really did care for you. But I cannot trust you now." and she knocked him out with a carefully placed hand on his neck and elbow to his temple. After he was out she rubbed her elbow, which had hurt more than she expected.

With a gentle peck of a kiss on his lips, she began her job just as she had told him she would while tears streamed down her face.

An hour later Mel pulled up into Jen's driveway and honked the hooter. She had lied to Andre about this one thing, and although she knew it was a risk, she really didn’t have anywhere else to go. At least for tonight she would fabricate some excuse for why Andre was not with her and try to figure out her next step. She couldn’t stay here long though, the cops would figure out she was here fairly soon.

Chapter 5

Mel parked her little black hatchback in between a row of boring black and white cars in the shipyard. For the first time since she had bought the car, she was glad it was black and blended in with the other cars around her, just another boring black car.

She had a good view of the ship in question from her parking, so decided not to even exit the car. With her camera zoomed in, she actually had a fairly good view of the dockyard goings on and the workers off loading the ship. She tried to locate the container with the number she was looking for, but it just did not seem to be that easy. Of course not, this wasn't those fictional movies or books, and she wasn't Nancy Drew, Mel told herself yet again.

After watching them for 30 minutes she had a pretty good idea of how the routine worked. The crane operator would offload containers directly onto trucks from the ship, the trucks would dive forwards to a checkpoint, there a guard would check that the paperwork produced by the driver matched the paperwork on the labels on the shipment. Then the truck would be free to go.

'What am I doing here or even hoping to accomplish?' Mel wondered 'There must be at least a thousand containers on that ship, looking for this particular one is like finding a needle in a haystack.' It was getting dreary and downright boring. She figured she would take a few more photos of the area and then leave, this was doing no good.

Just then she noticed something near the back of the line of trucks waiting to have containers loaded onto them. There was a big white SUV stopped next to an empty truck. Between the two vehicles looked like something shady going on. But from the angle Mel was at, she couldn’t quite see what was going on, she took photos anyway. There were two men there.

The men were standing, one with his face towards her looked like a Nigerian in his colorful abstract print full length dress and turban. She could even see his gold tooth sparkling in the sun, his scarred face telling a story of things he was willing to do to get what he wanted. He was holding a metal briefcase.

'Seriously?' Mel wondered, 'can I really be seeing this? Is that a briefcase of money?'

He handed it to the man whose back was to her. That man was wearing a cheap looking navy blue suit and sneakers; he was at least 6" tall and had a mop of unruly brown hair. She could have sworn he looked familiar, but she just couldn’t quite place him. With his back still to her, her placed the briefcase on the hood of the SUV and popped it open. She was sure inside there was at least R100,000!

Mel held her breath, was this for real? Was it really happening, and she was the unlucky person caught in the middle? What these men were doing, was this what Avesh was involved in?

The man in the cheap navy suit handed the Nigerian a clipboard with some papers on it. Mel was willing to guess those must be the papers that were later checked by security at the checkpoint. So this was what was going on. Then he handed over two boxes with plastic windows. The one was a cheap knockoff of a Barbie doll, the other a cowboys & indians toy gun. Why would they be exchanging money for that kind of rubbish, Mel wondered. It was just cheap Chinese junk. The men shook hands, and the Nigerian walked to the passenger side of the truck and climbed in, the driver gave a toothless smile at their new friend and closed the tinted window.

Then the man in the cheap suit turned around to get into his SUV, Mel saw his face and let out a gasp "It can’t be you!!"

She sat stunned with tears in her eyes. The betrayal and lies were unreal. How could he do this? But how in the hell did stupid Avesh fit into this lot? She was so confused and upset that she didn’t notice when the line of trucks moved, nor when the SUV disappeared around a warehouse.

Mel was brought out of the mind-fog she had been in suddenly by her phone singing Billy Joel's Piano Man in her pocket. She glanced at the screen; it was a number she did not recognize.

"Hello" she answered simply

"Is this Miss Cooper?" a quiet but urgent male voice came over the phone

"Yes"

"Miss Cooper, my name is Steven O'Brian. I'm a police officer; we met a couple of days ago when you came in for some questions. Do you remember?"

"Oh, hi Steven." she breathed a sigh of relief "Please call me Mel. What can I do for you?"

"Well, there is no easy way to put this. Miss Cooper, Mel, remember Detective Shabane who interviewed you? He has been working the case of Avesh Singh... I am so fired when they catch me..... um, well Shabane has been working with some really good tech guys. And here's the thing, they think you murdered him. They say there is evidence that points to you."

"WHAT?" she silently cursed. Maybe the SAPS were good at their jobs. Just not quite good enough to prove she was being framed. "But I didn’t do it"

"Well Mel, I honestly dont think you did do it. I believe you are innocent. And that is why I am calling you.... when I get caught I am so fired.... normally it’s a bad idea to run. Sticking around and fighting your innocence is normally the best way to do it. But Shabane has been looking for days now, and you're not only the best suspect, but his only suspect. He's tired and he's going to pin this thing to you. Mel, I'm sorry. But you either need to run now or you are going to end up in jail for at least ten years."

"Steven, are you absolutely serious"

"I wish I was joking. I liked you, and you seemed like a nice person. I've dealt with murderers often enough to know what a murderer's character is like. You're a strong willed woman, but you're no murderer. Shabane is on his way to the court to get a warrant for your arrest and to search your things. You have maybe an hour before he’s at your home."

"Thank you O'Brian. I owe you!" and she put down the phone as she was starting her car.

Trusting a total stranger she had only met once for ten minutes might be a bad idea, but she had bigger things to worry about and this time it was worth it to run, she knew he was right. She drove straight home, ran inside to grab her weekend bags that were already packed. She knew the cops would freeze her bank account as soon as they knew she had run, plus there was that huge and incriminating deposit that had come in. Fortunately she kept a few thousand in cash hidden in her apartment; she grabbed the cash, her passport and her laptop. Locking the door, she closed her eyes and wondered when, if ever, she would come back.

Forcing herself to walk not run, so as to avoid attracting attention, she got into her car and drove to the nearest busy shopping mall. Knowing that in a crowd it would be a little harder to spot a 27 year old in basic jeans and plain black t-shirt, driving a boring black hatchback.

She found a parking as far from the doors as possible and stopped to think what her next move would be.

If she headed straight for the border they would find her easily. She had about 2 days before they realized she had run though, and fortunately South Africa was big enough to hide in for a while. Her phone beeped, and she realized she had nearly forgotten her plans to send the weekend with friends. Looking at the screen it was a text from Jen.

"Looking forwards to seeing you. Chris phoned, he's coming here directly. So looks like you and Andre travelling together. I've seen how you look at him Mel, I'm not blind. Don’t let those feelings wreck our weekend! Love you and can’t wait to see you."

"Thanks Jen" Mel muttered to herself sarcastically. But she knew she didn’t mean it, she was so fond of Jen, how could she ever be upset with that sweet friend? Jen had been right too, but Mel knew she would never look at Andre that way again, never!

Actually it seemed like a good idea, at least stick with the plan for now. The plan was for Mel to pick up Andre at his work at 3:30 when he knocked off, he said he had packed and brought his bags with to work, and then they were going to take the two and a half hour drive up the coast to Jen's place. Mel looked at the time for the first time since arriving at the harbor earlier and saw she had just 15 minutes to go pick up Andre.

She texted Andre as soon as she was outside the building he worked in, and just a moment later he walked out with a duffel bag in his hand. Dumping the bag in the back of the car, he jumped in the passenger side.

"Is that all you're bringing?" Mel asked in surprise

"What can I say, I'm a guy." He responded with a grin.

What could she say? Mel just shook her head.

She turned off her phone, didn’t need the tech guys at the SAPS tracking her now she told herself silently, and put the car into gear.

They drove in silence, bar the Bryan Adams cd that was playing, until they got out of the city. Out on the open road, with sugar cane fields turning to pine tree forests, the road would curve every now and again enough for them to see a panorama of the ocean. Being a Friday afternoon, just before rush hour and out of holiday season, the road was fairly quiet. There were a couple of cane trucks and lumber trucks they passed, but generally it was just the little black car on the road. Mel loved the feeling of the open road. It reminded her of her dream to travel the world. In her teenage years she strongly considered doing her world travel alone, thinking it would give her more freedom to chop and change her plans as she pleased. But now, with the wisdom of years, she realized that despite being a loner, traveling alone would be terribly lonely. She had just never found anyone who wanted to travel with her, and now under her current circumstances it looked like she was going to have to run on her own.

"You seem pretty deep in thought, care to share" Andre pulled her out of her inner thoughts.

With so many things going on in her mind, she dared not even glance over at him. So she merely answered "Nope, just girl stuff"

He sniggered "If you say so. So you mentioned the other evening that you had a pretty annoying boss, what company are you working for now?"

She tried to prevent the emotions of the past week from flashing across her face and tried to steady her voice. She hated lying to her friends, so she kept her answer as true as possible but not giving too much information either by saying "He's a deadbeat boss. I resigned. Did a temp thing on Thursday as a tour guide. And when we get back, I'll be looking for another job." Wanting to direct the conversation away from herself she added "What about you? You've been working for Transcorp for 5 years now and I still don’t know exactly what your job description is?"

Andre didn’t expect that question, he stammered a little, looking for the right words "Well, I kind of deal with customs. I check incoming shipping loads at random, and I file the paperwork with the customs department on what type of load it is and what taxes they require. I then contact the owners of the shipment and send them the paperwork......"

Mel stopped listening and tried to just focus on the road ahead, the beautiful sunset colors in the sky all around them. She tried not to let the tears out. When she heard his voice stop all she could bring herself to answer was "That’s interesting"

"Mel, you haven’t heard a word of what I’ve been saying. You're acting so strange. What’s going on" Andre demanded ten minutes later, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She hadn’t even realized he had been talking all this time. The forests on both sides of the road were tall, the setting sun casting long shadows through the trees. She saw a little dirt road off the highway into the forest and turned off into it. Still not answering Andre, she drove a few hundred meters until they were well out of sight of the road and just on their own in the quickly darkening forest, the car bumping along the dirt road.

Andre trying to remain calm despite Mel acting so strange said "I know I haven’t visited Jen up at her new place, but I'm fairly sure she stays on a tar road in a little town, not on a dirt road in the middle of an eerie forest. Mel, you want to tell me what we are doing here?"