Free The Summer of Last Resort by J. A. Browning

overheard them say that they were all keeping journals. Jake felt his heart race, and then told himself to calm down and listen, but he just couldn’t make out what they were saying, so he wandered over.
    “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you’re in film studies,” Jake said, using his earlier encounter with them as his buy in.
    “Yes - we’re all in a script writing workshop,” answered one of the young men.
    “That’s fascinating. Really. I’ve always been interested in writing for film or television. You know, when you get to be more like my age you start to have some experiences, some things that are worth writing about.” They nodded their heads politely, and Jake continued. “Can you tell me which professor runs the class? I’d be interested.”
    “Oh, no,” interjected one of the girls. “It’s not through the college. It’s a special writing workshop set up by the Tacoma film institute.”
    “The what?”
    “The film institute. It’s a program for young artists.”
    “Really. So, what kinda stuff do you write?”
    “Well,” answered one of the girls, “We practice writing dialogue by writing it in a journal.” She looked at him and realized that Jake didn’t get it. “See here,” she said, opening her journal and showing a page to Jake. He quickly scanned the handwritten pages and saw that she had been writing about a fight with her boyfriend, but with dialogue.
    “Thanks...isn’t that kinda personal?”
    “Yeah, but you get over it. How are you gonna write drama if you don’t HAVE drama?”
    Jake couldn’t refute that argument.
    “So, are there other classes?”
    “Yeah, but this is the core writing class. They only have it in the summer.”
    Jake pulled out the pictures of Shane, Maria, Kim, and Keith, and placed them on the table. “Do any of these guys look familiar?” he asked the group.
    “I thought you were interested in writing,” one of the young men said.
    “I am… but that’s not my job now.”
    “What is your job now?”
    “I’m a cop.”
    “Then … maybe you should go.”
    “These kids – these guys could be in danger,” Jake half-lied. Danger, yeah, like being accused of murder’s being in danger .
    “Well, good luck,” the young man said and started to rise up.
    Jake grabbed his arm. “Look, this is serious. I’m not fooling around here.”
    The young man stood and pulled Jake’s arm away, and walked out the door, with the rest of his gang following timidly behind. Jake tossed some bills on the table and started after them, but realized that they weren’t going to talk in a group. He turned and started back to the parking lot, only to hear footsteps in the gravel behind him. It was the girl that had shared her journal with him.
    “Look, mister, you never told us what exactly you want.”
    “What I want?” Jake replied. “Look, we’ve got three people we’re trying to track down. Two of them are missing. We know were Shane Johnson is. We’re looking for three other friends of his – Maria Rodriguez, Kim and Keith. “
    “What did they do?”
    “It’s not what they did, it’s what might happen to them if we don’t find them. There was a mob killing, and if they were witnesses, then there’s a price on their heads.” Jake was of course putting the spin on this big time; those kids could also have been accomplices, or drug mules, or who knows what.
    “Shit.”
    “Right. We want to find them before anyone else does.”
    “So… what does that have to do with us?”
    “Your journals….”
    “Oh… if you had their journals, then you’d know where they are? Maybe, but it doesn’t always work that way. People write pretty intimate details but often disguise the most mundane things like places and names. Or we use fake names.”
    “I still need them.” Jake didn’t mention that they already had Maria and Shane’s.
    The girl motioned Jake for the pictures. She held them carefully, like a hand in a poker game, and