"Liz what's wrong are they back?" Max, Isabelle, and Alex ran nervously into the Crashdown where they found Liz pacing the floor like a caged animal. Seeing Liz this upset just made the other three more worried because Liz always tried to remain calm and collected but not now, and not tonight.
"NO! Maria's car is out back and it is all smashed up but I came in here and I couldn't find them. Max, they aren't here. What if something serious happened to them? Maybe, oh God, but maybe we should call the sheriff." Liz stumbled over the words but at this point she was so concerned that she just didn't know what to do.
"Liz you know we can't do that. At least not yet." Max said glancing at Isabelle. Just the thought of Valenti gave Is goosebumps. Alex noticed the rise in her apprehension and gently placed his arm around her shoulder for comfort.
"Listen, we need to look at this logically, from a calm and rational point of view. Okay?" Alex felt his confidence rising as Isabelle allowed him to keep his arm around her shoulders. "Now let's all think back to when we know for sure they were here last."
"Well" Liz mumbled, trying to gain her own confidence back from her friends optimism, "I guess when she and I were talking in the back about Michael"
"Good. Now what was she saying?" Alex prodded for Liz to continue.
"Um, Alex, I dunno know if I should tell all you guys. You know, private girl stuff" Liz wanted more than anything to help her best friend but not at the risk of a confidence.
"Oh great. I guess I'm just an accessory." Isabelle muttered under her breath so quietly that only Alex caught her words.
"Liz, c'mon. We're all in this together." Alex said knowing that those words would pull anything out of her. Friendship is one of the most important aspects in Liz's life, and even though Alex felt like half a shmuck for using this. Hey, it's his trump card.
Liz sighed before continuing. "She was, well, it was classic Maria 'bitch and moan'. You know the plots, the sarcasm, prentending not to care about it. Basic cover-up for hurt." Liz looked downcast at the recollection of her last conversation with Maria, until she remembered how funny it actually was. Before Liz realized she was laughing and clutching at her sides.
The other three stared at her like she had real antenaes growing out of her head just like the Crashdown uniform ones. "Um, Liz? Are you alright?" Max wasn't sure what to make of this latest turn.
"Oh, yeah. I was just remembering the look on Maria's face as she was picturing running over Michael with her car." Just as Liz finished this sentence she turned abruptly to look at the door that led to the Crashdown alley. The door which led to Maria's car. The door which led to Maria's smashed up car. "Oh no, please tell me that she wouldn't. I mean Alex, we know that Maria wouldn't do that right? Right?" Liz could feel the hysteria rising in her voice.
"Maria killed Michael!" Isabelle starting clenching her fists and running around the Crashdown with a chicken that got its head cut off. Max had never seen his sister so irate and that scared the hell out of him.
"No. Liz, do really think that Maria would do that? And Is I am sure that we would have felt that? Right?" Max's panic also rose in his voice as he tried to blink back the tears.
"STOP!!!" Alex had never screamed at anyone so forcefully in his life, even when he thought that he was losing his friendships with Liz and Maria, he had never spoken to them like that before. "This is not exactly a logical and rational conversation now is it? Maria, I repeat, Maria would not as in NEVER run Michael over with her car. Now c'mon, there has got to be a better explanation for this. Let's just all go out and look at the car. Okay?" Alex's tone had now taking on that slight mocking he gets when trying to explain what he sees as perfectly obvious. *Geez, now everyone's gone insane. Freaking bunch of crackpots. Hmm, maybe they have been taking hallucinagens*
Alex led Max, Is, and Liz out back to inspect the car. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness at the situation but he didn't want to set off his friends again because now, quite frankly, Alex was worried about more than just Maria and Michael. I mean, they seriously had considered that Maria had run over Michael with her car.
The four of them cautiously peered into the car. Other than the obvious body damage to the car, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary until Max reached around to look at the steering wheel column. "Hey, check this out. It was hotwired."
"What?" Liz peered into the car. "What does this mean Max?"
"It means that why would Maria hotwire her own car and Michael would've, you know." Is said, still a little harshly but rapidly feeling relieved that maybe Maria didn't kill her other brother.
"Hmmm" Alex hmmed to himself.
"Now what are you thinking Alex?" Liz recognized that look on his face and the tone of his 'hmmm'.
"Well, if the two of them didn't take her car? Then, one, who did? And two, that means they didn't leave."
Liz looked at Alex.
*Flashback*
"Hey Liz! Did you get the door to the bombshelter fixed yet?" Alex called out.
"No, why?" Liz yelled back from behind the counter where she was filling sodas and trying not to think about Michael out there somewhere with Maria.
"Cause it's shut again!"
*End flashback*
"The bombshelter!" Liz and Alex both jumped up in unison running back into the Crashdown with Max and Isabelle hot on the tails.