Day 20: 40,110 words and things are looking up for our heros

Writing flowed today. It's nice to have things happening in my novel. All of today's writing happened with our heroes in the broom closet. 

“I don’t even know where to start. I have so many questions,” Cody Simpson said, looking at the pair in front of him uncertainly. “I guess my first question is about the tension that I’m feeling between the two of you. What is going on?”

“That’s your first question?” Jake asked, puzzled.

“Don’t worry about it,” Scottie said hurriedly. 

“Okay,” Cody said, a twinkle in his eye. “We can circle back.”

“There will be no circling back,” Jake shot back defensively. 

“Okay,” Cody was only becoming more impish.

“You seem pretty laid back about having just been locked in a broom closet with two strangers in a police station,” Jake said warily. 

“I always try to stay positive,” Cody explained, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, mission accomplished on staying positive,” Scottie inserted. “We need to talk right now, but I’m worried that they may be monitoring this room somehow.”

“You didn’t mention that before!” Jake said with embarrassment. Scottie hadn’t even thought about how the conversation that they’d had earlier could have been overheard, but she didn’t have time to care about that right now.

“Oh really?” Cody raised his eyebrows playfully.

“I’m going to play some music to make it harder for them to hear us if they are listening in somehow,” Scottie said.

She knew just the song. Soon, the opening notes of “Iy Iy Iy,” Cody Simpson’s debut smash single featuring Flo Rida, were filling the broom closet that was also already full of giant men’s bodies. Fortunately, Cody Simpson’s entire discography was saved to Scottie’s phone, so she was unhindered by the lack of reception in the basement.

Cody Simpson was nodding and bopping along to the beat, while Jake looked on, more confused than ever. Scottie was not pleased to be trapped in a broom closet in a police station basement, but if there was ever a strange hypothetical question about who she would want to be trapped with in such a scenario, this probably would have been the personnel she would have chosen. 

“Alright, I can see that an explanation is needed,” Scottie finally said. “Cody Simpson, this is Jake Kneiss. Jake is a coach for a local hockey team, and he has been helping me to solve a case here in London about a series of suspicious fires. We have made shockingly little progress on the case, although apparently we have made enough progress to warrant being locked in this broom closet. That’s a little promising, at least. Jake Kneiss, this is Cody Simpson. Cody Simpson is an Australian pop singer, swimmer, and professional cheese grater. Cody, I have to ask: do you really grate all of the cheese for Cody Simpson’s Own Artisanal Cheese Puffs using only your abs?”

Cody flashed a grin. He lifted up his shirt slightly, revealing the most defined and sharpest cut abs that she had ever seen. Jake, who had been uncertain for this entire conversation, was visibly impressed. 

“I guess that’s a yes,” Scottie said, nodding approvingly. “But back to the matter at hand.” She dragged her eyes away from Cody’s abs. She thought briefly that he might be able to use his abs in some fashion to break them out of the broom closet, but she quickly dismissed the idea. 

[More talking]

“Sophia Scott. Toronto Star,” Cody said aloud. “I think I know you.”

“You do,” Scottie responded. “Before I started looking into the fires in Wortley Village, I was investigating the reason that you didn’t make the Australian men’s Olympic swim team.”

“I wouldn’t think that would be much of an investigation.” The anguish was palpable in Cody’s voice. “In the objective terms of ‘time,’ I was ‘not fast enough’ as compared to my fellow competitors.”

Jake looked sympathetically at Cody. He understood his pain.

“You know, I’m actually not sure if that’s true,” Scottie said. “Once we get out of this closet, I think that we have a lot more to talk about. But I also have to ask you,” Scottie looked to the tall and broad shouldered Australian, “do you even know where you are? Or why you’re here?”

Cody grimaced. “I do know that I’m in London, Ontario, Canada. I came here recently to open up a new cheese shop in the Wortley Village neighbourhood. While making the Australian men’s Olympic swim team has always been my dream, since I fell short of achieving it, I’ve had to find other dreams. The cheese shoppe is one of them.”

“I’m glad that you’re living your dreams, Cody,” Jake said kindly. “Although I’m surprised to hear about this particular one.”

“Iy Iy Iy” ended, and “La Da Dee” came on in its place. Another bop.

“How did you wind up here, in this broom closet?” Scottie pressed.

“After having selected the Wortley Village neighbourhood as the best neighbourhood in the world in which to open my cheese shoppe,” Cody said in such a way that Scottie just knew that “shoppe” had an extra “p” and “e,” “I became concerned about the high rates of suspicious fires per capita in this neighbourhood. I wondered if it was the best place to open my new business.”

“Fair enough,” Jake replied. 

“Just as I was thinking about this, some police officers showed up—I think both of them were named Brandon?—and they said that the London Police Service was hosting an information session for local businesses who are concerned about the fires. I went with them in their police car back to the station.”

Scottie breathed out. That had been a mistake.

“Once I got here, I immediately got a bad feeling. Why were there so many toddlers in yellow rain coats holding wooden muskets? Like, is this a thing in Canada?” Cody puzzled.

“Um, yes and no,” Scottie replied. 

“Huh. Strange,” Cody said. “Well, they brought me down to the basement for the information session, which I also thought was strange. But what else was I going to do? I followed them and ended up here.”

Scottie sighed. Not the way to welcome a new business owner to London, that was for sure. 

“But why you?” Jake queried. “There is no way that they are going around Wortley Village and rounding up all the remaining business owners and shoving them in closets in the police station. That would be far too blatant, even for these guys who have done a shocking number of outrageous things out in the open.”

“I agree,” Scottie said. “I think that you were brought here for a reason. You, Cody Simpson. They wanted you sequestered.”

Cody appeared deep in thought. “Do you think it has anything to do with me not making the Australian men’s Olympic swim team?” he practically was whispering at that point. It made it hard to hear over the Cody Simpson recordings that they were all listening to. 

“I think it might,” Scottie said. The three of them fell silent thinking through the implications of such an international criminal conspiracy. 

“We have to work to get out of here right now,” Jake interjected. 

“I agree,” Scottie added. “Between the three of us, and I mean mostly the two of you,” she gestured at their large and muscled physiques, “I like our chances of getting out of here. Or, we at least have to try.”

The three captives decided that Jake and Cody would work together to try to body check their way out of the closet. The pair began a synchronized series of body checks at the door, which were clearly having more of an impact than when Jake had tried to body slam his way out on his own. Scottie was starting to see the cracks in the plan of putting two former professional athletes who were still in fighting shape in a broom closet to try to hold them captive. That door was no match for the amount of muscle that was trying to fight its way out.

Needless to say, the difficult situation that Scottie was in did not get in the way of finding this all extremely attractive. 

Between their coordinated hits to the door, Scottie heard more footsteps coming towards them. Were they going to put another person in the closet with them? Were they coming to take them away and do god knows what with them?

“Keep going!” she began encouraging the two beautiful men. “They’re coming. They might try to separate us because they’re worried that we’re going to break out. This is our best chance to get out!”

Jake and Cody were throwing their bodies against the door with a fervour that Scottie had never seen before. She could hear the wood splintering. She just knew that they would succeed.

Sure enough, seconds later the door flew off its hinges and crashed into the wall on the other side of the hall. Scottie cheered as Jake and Cody ran into the hall, free at last. They had no idea who was going to be on the other side of that door, or what exactly would meet them in that hallway. But they all were in silent agreement that they would go down fighting. 

Scottie was still in the closet, but she heard Jake and Cody stop in their tracks. She wasn’t far behind them, after grabbing a broom from the closet to use as a weapon—if necessary. Soon she stopped too. She had expected to see many things in that hallway: a mini militia wielding wooden muskets; Police Chief Parm Pettipiece; the mysterious Australian criminal conspiracy collaborator whose name was definitely not Jeff. 

But not this. 

Coming towards them in the hall was none other than Jackie Bauer and Dr. Gordon Toodie. They were rushing towards them, a look of quiet triumph on both of their faces. Jackie eyed Cody Simpson, a brief look of surprise passing over his face that was gone as quick as it came. Little surprised Jackie, and even less surprised Jackie for long. He had clearly worked out who Cody Simpson was within seconds.

“Come with us now,” Jackie barked to the three freed captives. “You need to do exactly as I say if you want to live.”