The next day was… easier. Kurt at least woke up knowing what he'd be getting himself into, and he had information on the fugitives. Yes, he was awake and ready to tackle the day.
After three cups of coffee, that is.
He went over a mental list of all the things he was going to do today to get a lead on the case; the quicker he could find them and turn them in, the better. First he was going to the high school they both used to attend. Funny, they went to McKinley High too, just like Kurt had. He guessed constantly getting tossed into dumpsters kept him too preoccupied to notice the other students. He'd interrogate a few teachers and students that would've been there at the same time as the twins. Then he'd visit Blaine's girlfriend's house and ask her some questions, surely she had to know something. After all, a relationship partner isn't someone you usually keep things from. Lastly, he'd visit the bars around town and pose some questions there.
The drive to William McKinley High School was less than pleasant, as expected. Kurt couldn't help but squirm as the memories from his high-school years that he'd tried to erase crept up to the front of his mind: the putrid stench of garbage that poked his back and his legs as he got thrown into a dumpster, the piercing sting of a freezing slushie getting tossed into his face, the ear-splitting slam of being shoved into a locker over and over and over.
He shook his head to clear it, and focused on the case. He didn't make the trip to relive those memories. He did it to for the better of society, to catch the only murderers Lima's ever known.
The parking lot was relatively empty for a school day, he thought as he pulled into an open spot near the door. His hand ran over his tie to smooth it and his messenger bag swung idly on his hip. No one should notice him, he could almost pass as a teacher.
The door to the principal's office was wide open and Kurt saw Principal Figgins sitting in his chair reading the newspaper. He knocked on the doorframe, and his old principal looked up and smiled at him warmly.
"Ah, Kurt Hummel," he mused in his thick accent. "McKinley's best dressed student of all time. What a surprise!"
"Nice to see you, Principal Figgins." He tried to keep his smile friendly, but even just being in the school made his grin falter.
"What can I do for you?" the principal asked, folding his hands on his desk.
"I'm actually here to ask about a couple of previous students. Fugitives, now, actually." At the other man's bewildered stare, Kurt cleared his throat. "I'm a fugitive apprehension agent now, I track down criminals who haven't appeared for their court trials and I take them in to court. I was wondering if I could have access to their student records in order to track them down."
"I wish I could, Mr. Hummel, but student records are for authorized personnel only. Do you have a badge for your position?"
"Uh, actually I do. Hold on, I know it's in here somewhere…" he pawed through his messenger bag for his badge, becoming more frantic when he couldn't find it. Documents, handcuffs, pepper spray… where's my dang badge?
"Mr. Hummel I'm sorry, but I can't just hand out student records without some kind of authentification—"
"—Principal Figgins, I know it's here somewhere." Kurt's sighed in annoyance as he started losing his patience. Finally he gave up. "I must have left my badge at home."
"My hands are tied, Mr. Hummel!"
He sighed. So far he hadn't gotten anywhere, thankfully this was only the first stop.
"Thank you for your time, Principal Figgins." He huffed and slunk out of the office, running into coach Sylvester as he rounded the corner.
"Oh! Coach Sylvester, hi."
"Porcelain," she barely acknowledged him with a nod at first glance, but spun around on her heels when she passed him. "Didn't you graduate?"
She seemed confused and maybe even a little annoyed.
"Yeah, a couple years ago. I'm actually here for my job—"
"Oh no, please don't tell me you're here to teach the glee club, we already have one delusional homosexual doing that. Although you've got better hair. On second thought, ol' Butt Chin might need a replacement—"
Kurt interrupted her before she could get any more weird or offensive.
"Actually I'm here to ask about a few previous students, Rachel and Blaine Anderson." He figured she might now something about them. "I'm a fugitive apprehension agent and—"
"You mean a bounty hunter." It wasn't a question. Kurt frowned.
"I prefer the term fugitive apprehen—"
"You know, back in the late seventies I worked as a bounty hunter. One of the best in the USA."
He quirked an eyebrow and tried to continue his sentence. "I'm looking for information about the two."
"Don't know 'em." She shrugged and turned away, only to return again.
"Wait, are you talking about Barbara Streisand's sex-tape double and Angsty-Mac-Eyebrows?"
"Uh, I'm not really sure—"
"I always knew those two would get convicted. The girl used to mess with my Cheerios all the time, the poor girls were so dumb they couldn't tell their water bottles from pepper-shakers… I still don't know how she got away with that one."
"Would you happen to know the names of anyone they associated with?" There was no doubt that Sue Sylvester was crazy, but she may be a good source of information now.
"Sure, there was Emo Man-Whore, the Crackhead with the bad dye-job, pretty sure Sandy Ryerson was their drug dealer. Oh and Q for a while."
Kurt had no idea who she was so cruelly referring to, except for the last one.
"Q as in Quinn Fabray? Like, head cheerleader Quinn Fabray?"
"She had so much potential but wasted her half of her senior year in high school smoking cheap cigarettes and dying her hair a nasty pink in order to mourn her life as McKinley's Top Bitch. Sad story when you think of it."
"Oh yeah, I kind of forgot about the whole Skank-phase." He chuckled as he thought about the girl in question, and how in senior year she went completely off her rocker. "Thanks, Ms. Sylvester."
"Yeah whatever. Now I have to leave before I suffocate from the fumes coming out of your hair. You've got enough hairspray holding it up to fill the hole where my feelings should be." She gave him a mock salute before leaving the way she had come originally. He'd kind of forgotten how mean she was, even though she was one of his bullies in high school. Of course, he never took it as hard as when it was one of the jocks or cheerleaders—she was mean to everyone.
He had time to stop by Miss Pillsbury's office, as well as ask a few students some questions. It's funny how most students had no idea who the Anderson twins were, and the rest were downright terrified at the sound of their name. Apparently they had a reputation.
He left McKinley feeling a step ahead of where he was the day before, having found out some new names of people associated with them—Quinn Fabray, he still couldn't believe it—and he had a list of what people described them as. The people who knew who they were described the two as polar opposites, yet creepily alike at the same time.
Just like Mrs. Anderson had said, Rachel had a fiery personality. She was usually found yelling threats at people, harmless freshmen, or flirting shamelessly with boys to get in their pants. She was mostly known as a whore, but no one dared to call that to her face in fear she'd pull out a switchblade on them—which she'd actually done once.
People described Blaine as Rachel's shadow, lurking around wherever she was but not really interfering with things. He skipped classes a lot, probably to get high or hook up with his girlfriend. In his four years at McKinley, no one had ever heard him say more than two words at a time.
All this information gave Kurt an insight into the case: Rachel was most likely the ringleader, doing all the planning and the executing, and Blaine was her pawn, the lab-specimen of the pair.
He double checked the address written on a ripped piece of lined paper in his pocket, the place he intended on visiting next. The house where Blaine's girlfriend lived was in the middle of town, surprisingly the opposite of the Andersons' neighborhood. A row of duplexes, each the same pale brown, lined the street as he pulled up to the curb. Yep, this was the right place.
He walked up the narrow drive, noticing the half-dead plants lining the front of the house; it clearly wasn't as well-kept as those around it. As he approached the door, he raised his hand to knock but a dog started barking inside the house, scaring the wits out of him. Needless to say, Kurt was more of a cat-person. The knob turned from inside after a minute and a tall, balding man answered the door, holding back the dog—a pitbull, to Kurt's knowledge, which was still barking threateningly.
"Can I help you?" the man asked gruffly. He had the kind of tough-dad personality that was probably supposed to scare off young men, but A, Kurt was very gay, and B, he was very used to the type—this man could have been a clone of his own dad.
"Yes, I'm looking for Adelaide?" he explained in a professional voice.
The man speculated him for a second, and then called up the stairs behind him.
"Adelaide! There's a man down here at the door for you!" the man turned back towards Kurt and leaned forwards. "Between you and me, she could use a new man. The one she got now's a real punk."
Kurt's eyes went wide. "Oh no sir, I think you misunderstood me—"
"Coming!" a high, squeaky voice rang out from inside. Bouncing footsteps thudded closer and Kurt suddenly panicked he had the wrong house. This Adelaide was clearly a child.
…Except she wasn't. A teenage girl hopped down the stairs, short and thin. Her bleach-blond hair was frizzy from a bad dye job, and was pulled back into a bun with lots of loose pieces falling down around her face and neck. She was little, but she was obviously at least sixteen. She wasn't exactly what Kurt would classify as pretty, but he knew better than to judge a book by its cover (Outfits, however, were a whole different story).
She smiled sickeningly sweet at Kurt while addressing the man. "Who's this, Daddy?"
"Kurt Hummel," Kurt interjected, sticking out his hand for the girl to shake. "I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about Blaine Anderson."
She raised two thin, dark eyebrows (which only gave away her dyed hair more—focus, Kurt, focus) and her upper lip curled.
"You're not a cop, are you? I don't know anything, I swear."
"I promise I'm not a cop. I'm actually someone who can help him." He reassured her with a smile. She clearly wasn't buying it, so he stretched the truth out a little more. "I'm friends with Pam."
"Why didn't you say so?" she suddenly brightened up like someone meeting a best friend they hadn't seen in years. "Come on inside, ignore the dog."
Kurt gulped as the dog growled at him, now being dragged away by the man. He hesitantly stepped inside, noticing the faint smell of cigarette smoke clouding the air.
"Daddy, we'll be upstairs if you need us." She said to her dad in that high voice of hers, which reminded Kurt slightly of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Her dad only grumbled in response and shushed the dog—that thing was really starting to scare Kurt.
He followed the girl into a small room with a sloped ceiling, walls painted pink and covered with posters of punk-rock bands he'd never heard of. She sat on her bed and patted the space next to her, which he had no choice but to oblige.
"So, how long have you guys been dating?" Kurt decided to open the conversation with a light question. Apparently it was a good start, because she sighed dreamily and answered.
"Almost four years—I know, a long time for high school couples." She giggled. "We aren't like most couples though, he understands me so well. He's not like other boys, you know. Most boys talk too much about football and boobs, but Blaine never does. He's so sensitive and he lets me talk as much as I want without ever talking about himself."
"So you guys are close?" he subtly reached down to his hip and switched on the voice-recorder he was carrying on him.
"It depends on what you mean. It's not like we're best friends or anything. He prefers not to talk about his personal life which is fine for me. And we make out a lot, but he doesn't like sex either. I think it's because he's already so vulnerable. He didn't want to say I love you, he's really broken inside, you know?"
Kurt's heart broke a little for Blaine, and for Adelaide too. It must be hard to maintain a trusting relationship with a past like his. He offered a pitying smile.
"It has to be hard not seeing him around anymore."
"I know," she sighed. "It's like I've lost a piece of me. I don't even know where he went, but I know he'll come back for me when it's safe.
"I'm assuming you're aware of the crimes he's been accused of."
"Of course, but that doesn't mean I believe he actually did them. I bet it was all Rachel's fault, I never liked her anyways. He's always following her around like a puppy. I'm not jealous, because like, she's his sister, but still."
Kurt grimaced. "Adelaide, you know they were both found guilty. It was proven."
"Blaine wouldn't do something like that, okay? I know him."
Didn't she say something about not knowing his personal life? Time for a change of subject.
"Do you have any idea where they could be? I can help them if they come back to Lima."
"How?" her eyes were becoming glassy now, and her stare was inquisitive.
"Let's just put it this way, I'm ready to do whatever it takes to do the right thing. I know what it's like to be misunderstood, to be an underdog. And I'm sure you do too." It wasn't a lie, he was going to do the right thing. The right thing just was unfortunately not what she wanted.
She was crying. "Like I said, I haven't heard from him since they went missing. And he—" she hiccupped, and stared at him uncertainly, as if holding back something.
"Adelaide, you can trust me."
"He didn't even call me. He never said goodbye or anything, just disappeared and Pam called me a week later asking if I knew where he and Rachel were. I—" a sob escaped, choking her for a second. "—The last time I was with him I was pressuring him to… you know, and he just got angry and stormed out. I-I know it was my fault and now he's gone."
His heart was now in several pieces as she broke down on the bed, soaking the sheets with her fallen tears. All he could offer was a hand rubbing the small of her back.
"From what I know, it seems they left without leaving anyone a clue to where they went. I'm really sorry for you Adelaide."
"I don't know what we are anymore, I just hope he comes back." She sobbed again, burying her face in his shoulder. He tried to soothe her to the best of his abilities (while simultaneously hoping the eyeliner stains would wash out of his shirt). It was too much, in his two years of the job, he'd never had to experience so much grief and pain as from this one case. Every time he thought he was a step ahead, he'd run into an obstacle that would put him behind again.
He stayed with her for a while, letting her cry it out on his shoulder, a perfect stranger that she unloaded her troubles on. He wondered how anyone could do this to a person, just leave a gap in their life after occupying that space for a long time. One thing he knew for sure, he would find the Anderson twins, and he would restore justice.