This chapter isn't at all worth the wait. I know that and I'm sorry. I've been busy, things have happened, and writing wasn't my number 1 priority.

I Intended to make writing this story unique and interesting, and I'm sorry if I havent delivered on that quite yet. It only took me like maybe a day or two to write the other two chapters each, and I had initially begun to write chapter 3 immediately after I uploaded the 2nd. However, right in the middle of the police interrogation scene, I had lost my job, my grandfather died, I had gotten into a car accident, my mother and 5 year old sister were stranded in freaking Egypt for way longer than intended because their flight left without them, I slowly began to fall into a state of depression, and when I decided to start another fanfic to help get myself back into writing and take my mind off my life, my 4 month old sister, who had just been born last September, unexpectedly passed away last month. I say "unexpectedly" knowing very well that it was a predetermined outcome. We were preparing for a short while, but it wasn't enough time. And when the moment actually came, it's just that you never really think it's actually gonna happen until it does and then what do you do? I'm not sure if I still need time or not, but I do want to at least try to do something other than what I'm doing now.

I will admit, I was using my other, newer story to distract me from my real life, up until a month ago. However, I don't want my life to be woven into something I was hoping to make unique. I thought I had a really good idea and I still want to make it happen.

Listen, if you're still reading this after so much time has passed, Thank you. I'm gonna try to remember what my storyline was supposed to be and update as soon as possible, though I can't actually make any promises.

A quick heads up, you might see a change in style (like one half of the story might seem just like the first two, while the second half seems slow and dull). That's because I haven't written anything related to this story in about a year. I'm still trying to get back into it.

Please enjoy.

Ace had gone missing. The whole school was talking about it. It was on the morning news paper and missing person posters with the picture Ace's mother gave police were everywhere. It was hard avoiding the topic, but in a town where everyone knew everyone, it was inevitable.

Wally had avoided eye contact with practically everyone, and everyone returned the favor... for a different reason, of course. There had been so many people to visit the student councilor in just one day. People were disheartened and some were even crying, so everyone thought Wally's unusual behavior, which would normally be deemed suspicious, was to be expected. Groups were gathered, praying together, in hopes that the missing boy was at the very least safe. Wally sauntered down the hallway of the school where flyers of the Kid were being passed out to people walking by. There wasn't a lot of police officers, but there was enough to make Wally's insides boil.

'People freaking cared about 'em!' He screamed in his head. 'Everybody thinks he's their best friend! They have no idea what he's done to me...' He stopped at his locker and opened the lock. 'Stupid cruddy Kid. He deserved everything he got!' He angrily threw his books in as he heard a sniffle coming from behind him. His anger turned to sorrow upon seeing Kuki's broken-hearted tears, their two best friends behind her.

"N-Numbuh 4..." She sniffled again, "Have you heard about Ace?" Wally didn't answer. He didn't even change his sorrow expression. She turned her head slightly to the side. "I don't know. I just... was hoping maybe since you were headed in the same direction as him after school yesterday, maybe you would have seen where he went, or at least what happened." She reasoned, oblivious to how much sense it would make that he'd have something to do with it. His heart began to beat faster and faster as his guilt twisted in his stomach. It creeped onto his face for a second before being pushed down by his own will.

But for Abby, it was all she needed to read. She sighed in disappointment and lowered her head.

"Ummm..." He started his story. "Actually, Kuki, the thing is..." He needed to think. 'Oh God! Why didn't I come up with an excuse already! I should have done this earlier! Ok, think Numbuh 4! Think!' He looked at their hurt faces, waiting eagerly for him to continue. Kuki held both her hands near her chin. He could see she had been crying. Hoagie looked like he was hoping for some key evidence or clue to track Ace down. He was a detective on the side after all. And Abby... Wait, she doesn't look upset at all. 'Is she glaring at me?'

"Yeah?" Numuh 3 almost sounded pleading.

Numbuh 4 knew he couldn't tell her the truth. "I... After awhile, I went down a different street. I'm sorry Kuki. I don't know what happened."

Her fallen face was all it took for him to begin to feel what he caused everyone else to feel. He felt like strangling himself, or kicking himself until he bled. Kuki didn't deserve to feel like this. He knew she'd be hurt, but he didn't expect her to be so heart broken. Who knows what kind of feelings the two shared together. Ace was her date after all.

It made him sick to think how close he was to losing her forever. She almost had the time of her life with the wrong person. He could fix it now. He needed to ask her to the dance soon. But...

She seemed too upset to think of replacing Ace at the moment. Wally knew he couldn't ask that question right now. Not now.

"Oh..." Was all she said. Wally couldn't read her face, but her eyes told him everything he needed to know. He really messed up... But he was going to fix it. He couldn't undo his decision. Well, he could, but he really didn't want to. He was just going to have to move forward, and so was everybody else whether they wanted to or not. This was the easy part.

All he could do was watch her as she left... again, never knowing or understanding how he felt or why he does anything anymore. Oddly, the feeling was mutual.

His attention was cut short when he realized his other friends hadn't left with her.

Abby was standing with her arms crossed while Hoagie held an all too suspicious glare. Wally backed away defensively when they caught his arms, pulling him into a nearby janitor's closet.

The lights flashed on, causing him to have to blink a few times. Angrily, he went back onto the defensive.

"Hey! What's the big idea?" He nearly shouted. He tried to keep his voice low. Surely even he didn't want an eavesdropper. He didn't know where this was headed, but stayed alert none the less. These two knew how to get him to spill.

"Like you have to ask." Abby retorted.

"Wha-?" Wally was confused and was beginning to panic. 'How could I have given it away already? There's no way they could've figured it out so soon!' Wally tried to force his focus on the pair in front of him.

"So, Numbuh 4..." Hoagie went into bad cop mode, "We missed you yesterday at the treehouse. Care to explain?" He interrogated in the most cliché way possible.

"I wanted to be alone, so I went home." Numbuh 4 tried to defend himself and sound convincing at the same time, but Lord knew he couldn't multitask.

"But you were going in the same direction as Ace after school. Odd path considering you live East." Hoagie pressed on, getting closer to the Aussie's face as he spoke. By then Numbuh 4 had sweat dripping from all sides, and Hoagie's incriminating gesture wasn't making him feel any better. He tried but couldn't think of a way out of it. He didn't want his closest friends to hate him for a simple mistake he made.

His mind and heart were both racing when a calmer, much more appeasing voice chimed in. "Numbuh 4," The girl behind them reached out and placed a hand on the nervous boy's shoulder. "I'm almost offended that you think you can lie to us." Numbuh 4 looked at the floor, avoiding both of his friends' gazes. "We can already tell that you know something we don't. And if you're not going to tell us, all we can assume is that you had something to do with it. Do you understand where I'm going?" Abby blessed him with a look that reassured him they still believed he was innocent. Numbuh 4's heart felt lighter as he thought of a way out of his mess. "You know you can trust us, right?" Numbuh 4 nodded. "Then is there something you want us to know?"

Numbuh 4 was still quiet despite having a plan. He wasn't even sure if it would work. Numbuh 5 decided to continue. "If you don't want to tell us, then can you at least tell us why?" She was annoyed, but still calm.

Numbuh 4 mustered the courage to try it. "I... I don't know what to do Abby..." He spoke quietly. Abby and Hoagie both backed off, confused by what he meant. "I don't know what to say. I don't know who to turn to. I just... I don't know." Numbuh 4 was truly sorry for what he'd done, but he needed to get out of where he was right now.

"What do you mean?" The duo was concerned, and shocked that they actually got something. They weren't really expecting the small boy to have insight on the crime at hand. As excited to finally have a lead as they were, they still needed to get the information out of their clearly stressed friend.

Wally, on the other hand, needed to lure their attention away from him. He looked at them with earnest eyes and immediately burying them into his palms. "I saw a Ace get into someone's truck." He squeezed his eyes shut tight as his friends gasped. He tried to remember what the other two vehicles in Ace's garage looked like. He knew his mother had the small, grey Volvo, and his father drove the...

"Numbuh 4, please, what did it look like?" Numbuh 5 said quickly. "Did you see who was driving it?"

"Why didn't you say that before?" Numbuh 2 simultaneously with the girl beside him. It was clear the two weren't that great at interrogating.

Numbuh 4 opened his eyes miserably. He was biting his lips, causing his eyes to water. He was quiet for a moment. "I didn't want to be the one that had to do all this..." He gestured to the walls around them, signifying the situation they were all taking part in at the moment. "... I'm afraid to tell someone... that the cruddy Kid's dad..." He trailed off, leaving Hoagie and Abby's mouth open, stunned by what they've leaned. Hoagie knew Ace's father wasn't the nicest, nor was he the most loving, but would he really hurt his on son? Hoagie turned away from the small group, knowing that his father would be the only person he could think of who would.

Abby was still in disbelief. She needed to know more. "Numbuh 4, are you absolutely sure?" She questioned.

"I followed him so that I could pound his cruddy face into the mud," He raised hands and his voice slightly, punching his fist into his hand, "But his dad came and picked him up near the old playground down the street from his house, a busted up red truck I think." Numbuh 4 explained his story. "But then... I show up to school the next day, and the cruddy guy's gone missing and stuff. Who'd believe a word I say?" He paused. "I really want to help, but I can't be the one to do this." He dropped his face back into his fingers and breathed out a few tears. "What if... I-I just can't." He breathed out shakily.

Abby believed she understood. He didn't want to be put in the spotlight, raising accusations, risk being called a liar due to his unreliable reputation, rejected by everyone, etc. She silently thought to herself a solution that could evidently solve all of their problems when it hit her. She grinned at the idea. "Numbuh 4," She became stoic, "Thank you for telling me. Don't worry, you won't have to deal with all of this on you're own." Numbuh 4's worry didn't subside as he watched her with woe. "Numbuh 5's got a plan. We're going to write a letter and put it where the principal is gonna find it. She'll give it to the police and no one will have to know who it came from. They'll investigate Ace's family themselves and figure it all out." She turned to Wally, who looked to her confident in her plan. "Is that okay?" She asked.
Numbuh 4 gave her a small nod and the three exited the closet.

Wally breathed a sigh of relief before noticing Hoagie behind them, the most hurt out of the three. Wally was thankful the pair believed him, but the sight behind him made him cringe. Still, he did what had to be done and let Abby pull him by his arm down the hallway.

"What?" A distraught, teary eyed woman looked at the two detectives in her living room. They had a few papers on the knee-high table in front of them, and they made sure to stop by the bereaved mother's house while she was alone. One of them was a bulky pale man with no hair on his head, the other was a darker woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. Both were ominous in appearance and tone.

"Mrs. Alcantar," the darker woman addressed the mother shaken with disbelief, "Someone at the school your son attends say they saw Simon enter your husband's vehicle; a red pick-up truck with the left tail light out." The depressed mother stared at them as if she didn't understand a word the detectives were saying. The detective continued, "Now again," She spoke in a hard but calm voice, "Has your husband ever tried hurt you or Simon, for any reason at all?"
She was speechless. She couldn't believe they were even asking such questions. Sure her husband and son didn't get along at the best of times, but he would never go this far. "Why are you asking this?" She questioned, disagreeing with their suspicion.

This time it was the man who spoke. His deep voice held stern, but sympathetic. "Your husband is at work right now, isn't he?" A brief silence lingered.

"wha- y...yes..." She was unsure how to answer. She loved her husband, but she loved her son, too. She wanted to help her innocent child, but could she really bring herself to incriminate the man she vowed to spend forever with? She wanted to save her baby boy, but how could she when it meant losing her husband as well? What if her son was already dead? It was a thought she had tried to ward away with hope, but it always crept back like a dark, misty fog. If her son was already dead, and her husband is blamed for it, she'd lose everything. She'd have no one left. He couldn't possibly have done anything like this. She knew deep down that her husband really did love their son, he just didn't show it the way everyone else showed their kids. She had tried to get them to cooperate in the past, with no prevail. All her efforts usually ended in a verbal fight or some other falling out. They couldn't be in the same room with one another, let alone the same car.

Which led her to another thought, was this somehow her fault? Did she do something to cause her family to be this broken? Her husband was never as bad as he was now before they had a child. And what if her presumption was correct about her husband being innocent? What if her son got into some one else's car, and left home on purpose? Running away wasn't out of the question yet, was it? But he didn't take anything from his room. He simply left school and disappeared. Her mind was running a mile before remembering she still had company.

"Then you understand there's nothing wrong with answering honestly, right?" The bald man had interrupted her lament. She was confused what he meant by that. How did his being at work somehow tie into things here?

"I am telling you everything I know, sir." She could feel herself growing desperate, so she breathed deeply to try to remain calm.

"Can you tell us what time he came home yesterday?" It was the female's turn to speak.

She had to remember. She was sitting at home waiting for both of them when her husband finally pulled up into the driveway late in the evening. "After 6:00. He got here at around 6:00." He usually stayed out all night. It didn't make much sense for him to be here so early in her opinion. Then again, it didn't make sense for him to gone so much in the first place either.

"Where was your husband between the hours of 3:00 - 6:00 yesterday evening?" The woman spoke calmly. She had been in this situation before.

"Yesterday?" Mrs. Alcantar struggled to think. She knew he'd been going out a lot recently, but she never actually knew where to. Just out. More alarming thoughts began to creep into her mind again, only this time she just couldn't block them out anymore. He had been leaving home, not going to work at all. He hasn't been here after work or on his days off. Where did he go? "I don't know where he went," was her answer. She wasn't oblivious of their suspicions, it only made more sense of things and it was killing her. What if he'd been planning this for a while, right under her nose? She began to tear up again. "I don't know where he was yesterday." She repeated more hopelessly than before.
"He wasn't at work then?" The male detective pressed.

"No," She closed her eyes, "He hasn't been coming home. After work, he is gone. When he doesn't have to work, he is still gone." She hated answering these questions.

"So, while Simon was being... you know, taken away... you're saying he wasn't here with you, and he wasn't at work either?"

"I don't know where he was at the time." It was the only information she seemed to be able to give. It made her feel so useless.

"While your husband was gone, which vehicle did he take?" The answer was obvious.

"He only drives his truck." The mother didn't look at the two any more.

The pale man seemed to be putting two and two together. He sighed, "Mrs. Alcantar, when we receive anonymous tips from sources directly related to the victim or the victim's family," He clasped his hands together for emphasis, "We take said information and look into it as deep as we can." He wasn't as stern as he was before. "Someone from your son's school tipped us off that Simon got into a vehicle matching the description of your husband's truck. Unless someone else was driving it, we can only assume it was him."

Mrs. Alcantar didn't look at them as he said this. All she could feel was the stone cold semblance of betrayal. Neither grief nor anger could out shine the depressive realization; She didn't believe in him anymore. Now, she was finally convinced he had harmed her only child.

At the treehouse, all four friends gathered on the couch. They were all quiet.

Numbuhs 2 and 5 made a mutual agreement that Numbuh 3 shouldn't know that Numbuh 4 really did have insight on her predicament. They both agreed that, for Numbuh 4's sake, he shouldn't be caught lying to her face in hard times, a notion he was eternally grateful for. He felt better this way. Granted, he was hurting a lot of people in ways he didn't think was even possible, but he felt like his friends would defend him no matter what he told them. It gave him a sick high, a feeling he wasn't familiar with.

Numbuh 2 and Numbuh 5 were patient. They sat with their friends allowing the time to pass by knowing somewhere, progress was being made. The Kid was gonna have justice. It would all be over soon. Their friends were going to be alright. They sat in patient optimism, but the duo next to them...

Numbuh 3 got up from the couch and solemnly sauntered to her room, leaving her three friends behind to worry for her. No one, however, was more disheartened by the scene than Numbuh 4. Without saying a word, his two friends both looked at him, implying he should do something... now.

After a brief hesitation, he sighed and conceded. He slipped off the sofa and began the long pace out of the main living area.

How much could he possibly mess up now? He's already done the unthinkable. He's abducted a boy, lied to everyone, framed an innocent man, and now he's probably about to manipulate the girl of his dreams and bend her to his will the way he did everyone else around them. Was he honestly worried about how she felt at this point in time? Now? After everything? His steps stopped in front of Numbuh 3's bedroom door.

He breathed in and tensed. Of course he was.