Collins stopped herself from rolling her eyes, simply holding her notebook up to show Charlie the writing she had scribed onto the paper as proof that she was being productive. Breaks were allowed during study sessions, right? "Yep, and it's not even due until next week."
Charlie smiled softly in approval. Turning to JJ, he raised his brows questioningly. "What about you, Maybank? Got any homework?"
Crossing his legs while he twiddled his thumbs, JJ replied, "Well, Big Jacobson, us ordinary folk that aren't in those fancy college classes," he eyed Collins from the corner while she narrowed her gaze back at him, "we don't get homework on the first week of school. So right now, I'm just killing time."
"Uh-huh." Charlie stared warily at the boy before deciding to just move on from the topic. "So I heard some interesting things today at the bar."
Collins quirked her brow. "Yeah? What about?"
Leaning against the doorframe, Charlie looked up like he was thinking hard, trying to remember his 온라인카지노게임. "Oh, you know, just some cops grouching about a false alarm last night that was called in by some kids regarding Ward Cameron being accused of another murder. You guys wouldn't happen to know anything about that, right?"
Collins and JJ exchanged speechless glances. Should they try and talk their way out of this one or just accept defeat? JJ was the better liar of the two so Collins nodded at him to take over and come up with something that Charlie would believe. But JJ was too afraid to say the wrong thing, figuring that the news would be better delivered if it was coming from sweet, angelic Collins. 
Clenching her jaw indignantly as Collins accepted the bitter role of respondent, she turned back to Charlie with reluctance to speak. "It was a classic case of a missing body." One sentence and Charlie was already scoffing in disbelief, eager to hear more. "We saw Ward shoot the guy who flew the plane that took the gold to who knows where. The problem is that by the time the police got there, Ward had somehow cleaned everything up so it only looked like we cried wolf."
Charlie sighed, shaking his head as he tried to comprehend what his sister had just told him. "What were you guys doing there in the first place?" He wasn't sure if he even wanted to know, but after Collins had kept a whole summer of troublemaking from him, he didn't want a repeat of it for the school year. He'd rather be kept in the loop than out of it. 
"We were trying to prove to the cops that John B is innocent." Collins told him. "The pilot was our only witness and Ward shot him because he knew what happened and he had the murder weapon as evidence."
"If what you're saying happened actually did happen, and Ward got rid of everything that could incriminate him and Rafe, then now what? It's over? He gets away with it?"
"Kind of. We don't really know. That's kinda what we did today." Collins looked at JJ in uncertainty before continuing. "The gun that Rafe used to shoot Peterkin was the same gun that Ward shot his pilot with. It got lost in the storm drain when it rained last night so we went to go look for it."
"Collins," JJ spoke her name to stop her before she said anything else. If she came clean with Charlie and told him about the fact that she'd nearly died earlier, he would definitely lose his mind. JJ was already broken up about the whole thing so Charlie would for sure react the same way towards finding out, if not worse. Who knows what would happen then?
But Collins just nodded at JJ, telling him without words that it was okay, and she had things under control. All he could do was trust her. "We found it, the gun. And we took it straight to Schoupe and asked him to use it as evidence to clear John B's name."