"I love you so much."

"Not half as much as I love you."

"Nuh-uh"

"You bet, baby."

I was about to puke. I sat in Claudia's car, looking at her and her idiot boyfriend sneaking in one last makeout session before she hopped in the car to drive me home. Why a beautiful, nice girl like Claudia would be with a scum like Richard was totally beyond me, but as his creepy, burly hands wrapped around her delicate waist, she looked completely smitten, inside a trance cause by his huge, grey eyes. They kissed one more time, and I winced in disgust. She lightly pushed herself away, against his chest. "I've really gotta go," she whispered to him. He grabbed her hand, seeming to swallow it inside of his huge grip. They sighed, and he watched her walk to the car. For one second, his eyes rested on me. His look was drenched in jealousy. He was such a lump. A useless lump that didn't deserve Claudia in the least.

Finally, Claudia acknowledged my prescence. "Hey, girl," she said, as if she didn't just have me waiting for her for absolutely no good reason.

"Hey," I sighed, leaning into the seat of her car.

"So, do you have any plans for the day? Like, for, you know..."

"Well, I think that we probably need to find a list of suspects and then examine it, and list motives for each one," I replied, digging under my fingernails.

"Said like a true private eye," Claudia nodded, driving into my neighborhood. "But, I mean, how are we going to do that?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you knew," I shrugged.

All of a sudden, a pickup truck screeched in front of the car. Claudia made a sharp U turn, onto the next street. I held onto the door handle, my heart beating fast from the quick, sudden movements of the vehicle. "Lovely reflexes," I mumbled. I looked out the back of the window to get a glimpse of the driver, or the license plate, or the driver, but I had no such luck. The truck turned around, making a u turn, and came into our lane, speeding towards us. "Hit the gas, Claudia. Someone wants to have some crazy fun."

"What the fuck?" Claudia screamed, looking into her rear view mirror. "What the hell is wrong with this creep? I can't see his face...," she said, glancing from the road, to her mirror, to the road again. She sped up constantly, weaving in between cars, the truck steadily on our tail.

I bit my lip. This wasn't good at all. My heartbeat sped up from the speed of the car, creeping up to about eighty-five miles per ho ur.

"I'm not speeding up. This guy is crazy. I can't go any faster than this," Claudia barely said, her full concentration now ont he road in front of her, carefully trying to avoid the other vehicles. Then, our luck completely ran out.

The noise of police sirens sounded overhead, and I cringed. "Shit!" Claudia yelled. I took a quick breath, and tried to see who the police were chasing. "He's going just as fast as we are. There's no way the police are going to catch both of us. They're going to get-" I stopped, as I looked back. The truck was nowhere to be found. We were about to get a ticket... for however many driving rules we just broke in the past ten minutes. "I refuse to get a ticket. Hold on, Keira."

The next thing I knew, Claudia had driven her little car off of the road, and into the ditch of grass below. "Jump out. Get out and under the car," she said quickly, but it was quick enough for me to obey. She brought the car to an immediate halt, and we both jumped out onto our bellies, crawling under the car. I chest heaved heavily, and I looked down at Claudie beside me, as she looked at me. This was the simplest way, we decided. The cops would go away once they didn't see anyone inside of the car, and we wouldn't have to make up a stupid excuse to our parents about why we were driving at almost ninety, and we wouldn't get grounded, or have our licenses taken away for the rest of our lives. We heard the squeal of the police car come to a halt, and the smell of exhaust fumes pulled up beside us. Two cops stepped out, their black shoes inches away.