Author's note

I apologize for the lack of updates. It's been months since I've had time to get back to this story, but I'm hoping to update a few more chapters very soon. Here's the most recent chapter, I hope you all enjoy it!!

-scribblesofdreams


Valens just arrived and sat down at his desk. There were several files on his desk that he just stared at. Everyday it seemed that there was a never ending pile of files that magically appeared. He pushed them aside and opened Grace Serano's case file again. Just as he was about to drink his coffee, Jeffries exited Stillman's office, calling Valens' name.

"What?" he called out to Jeffries. "I just got in. I haven't even had my first cup of coffee," he complained.

Jeffries laughed. "Well I guess you're gonna have to wait even longer." He approached Valens at his desk. "We're going to interview Shelly Linderman. Come on," he said, walking past Valens desk, motioning him to follow.

Miller looked over her shoulder and smirked. "You better go," she advised. "Doesn't look like he's slowing down."

Valens moaned, grabbing his jacket and cup of coffee. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going."

Miller laughed, watching Valens hurry to catch up with Jeffries in the elevator. She turned her head and looked over at Vera. He was on the phone, wrapping up a conversation with one of the police officers that handled the case back in 1988. After he hung up the phone Miller walked over to his desk, holding some files in her hand.

"So what'd you find out when you talked to this Andy Walker?" she asked.

Vera took a sip of water and looked up. "Well, he seemed pretty fond of her," he said. "Told a nice story about how she was the only original person he knew, one of a kind. Oh, and he owned this killer music store."

Miller nodded, interested in where the story was headed. "Music store? What kind of music store?"

"All kinds of music, all over the place." Vera gestured with his hands, making big motions to illustrate how big the store was. "Every genre you could think of. But you know what's funny? The store he owns is the store that Grace showed him back in '88. Yeah, he'd never even been there until he went with Grace. Ten years later, he buys the place," he finished.

"Wow." Miller dropped the files onto Vera's desk and crossed her arms. "Andy buys a store that Grace introduced him to? That place must have had some kind of significance to him that he would later buy it. And I bet it's tied to Grace, somehow."

Vera nodded. "It's possible."


Standing near the far side of the gymnastics room stood Shelly Linderman. She hadn't changed at all – she still wore the most fashionable work out clothes, her skin was flawless, and her blond hair still flowed down her back like a mermaid.

A hip hop song played on the stereo sitting near the mirror Shelly was dancing in front of. Shelly was nodding her head and snapping her fingers, keeping the beat of the song playing. Every few seconds she'd swing her arms and crouch down to the floor, then popped back up to do a turn.

Valens grinned. "And that is why I had a thing for cheerleaders," he joked to Jeffries.

Shelly saw the two men walking towards her in the mirror and moved to turn the music off. She fixed her hair then turned around and smiled.

"Usually I've always had to wait until after the games for guys to find me," she said slyly. "Being the head cheerleader for three years I was known among the boys at school."

Jeffries reached into his jacket pocket and showed her his badge. "But I figure you've never waited for guys like us before, or have you?"

Shelly saw the badge and caught her breath. "Sorry," she said. "I guess I really do seem like a cheerleader, huh?"

"Yeah, ya do," Valens agreed. "But we're not here to talk to you about that. We wanna talk to you about Grace Serano," he told her.

"Oh." Shelly's face turned to stone. No giddy smile or perky eyes. "I thought she was dead," she said coldly.

Jeffries nodded. "She is. We're investigating her murder. And your name came up." He pointed to Shelly, making her jump a bit.

"My name?" she asked, gesturing to herself. "What about me? I just went to school with her, that's all."

Valens crossed his arms. "You went to school with her, and you made sure she was welcomed at East Creek High, didn't you?" he asked, staring at Shelly.

"If I was a new student I'd make sure I found you to welcome me," Jeffries said sarcastically.

Shelly pressed her lips together and sighed heavily. "Look, I know I didn't make it easy for her when she first came to school. You could say that I was a bitch back that, I kinda had those tendencies," she admitted. Shelly latched onto a piece of her hair and started twirling it between her fingers.

Valens scoffed. "Ya don't say."

She turned her head and glared at Valens, only to receive the same, uncaring stare. "But I didn't do anything to her," she protested. "I didn't kill her if that's what you're thinking."

Jeffries opened his notebook and glanced over it. "Apparently you had a thing for Andy Walker back in the day," he began. "Thought you two were dating, a couple."

Shelly smiled. "Well, we were never anything serious. But everyone knew we were unofficially together," she explained.

"Unofficially together," Jeffries repeated. "Yeah, that's what all the kids said back in my day, too. The kids that never had boyfriends and girlfriends," he jeered.

"But then Grace showed up, Andy started paying her more attention and left you at the curb," Valens poked fun at her. "I bet that made you pretty mad. Your supposed boyfriend," he said, using air quotes, "was into the new girl. The girl that was different from everybody else."

Shifting her weight onto her right foot, Shelly let out a deep breath of exhaustion. "Yeah, you'd be pretty mad at Grace if you were me, too," she snapped at them.

"How mad?" Jeffries asked, looking at Shelly suspiciously.

She scoffed. "Not mad enough to kill her," she said with attitude. Shelly rested her hand on her hip and looked at the two detectives. "In comes a new girl during senior year, my year," she told them, raising her finger to her chest. "And she's totally weird, dressing completely different than the rest of us, listening to rock music. Then she humiliates me in front of the whole school on her first day, so then I lost respect from my classmates. And then she goes and steals Andy away from me. I mean, Andy I were supposed to go on a date and she totally snagged him from me that same night!"

Valens glanced over at Jeffries, then back to Shelly. "What do you mean Grace snagged him from you?"

"She was in the bathroom when I was telling my girlfriends about the date that Andy and I were supposed to go on," she told the detectives. "And that same night I saw Andy meet up with Grace. He ditched me to hang out with her," she said angrily, a vein in her forehead starting to show. "He ditched me."

"They went out on a date?" Jeffries asked, putting one hand in his pocket.

Shelly shrugged. "I don't know if you'd call it a date. All I know is that when Andy didn't show up to get me, I got suspicious. So I found out where he was going and followed him. He ended up meeting her at some weirdo music place across town."

Jeffries looked at Shelly questionably. "So you followed him?" That would be the only logical explanation as to why Shelly held all this information about what Andy and Grace were doing.

"I was mad, and I wanted to know what better plans he had than to go out with me," she told them. "I mean, I'm Shelly Linderman. Guys were all lining up to go out with me."

Valens smirked, laughing quietly to himself. "Except Andy."

She looked over at him and glared, her eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Except Andy."


(Music: "The Power Of Love" - Huey Lewis and the News)

Shelly stayed idle in her car as she watched Andy walk slowly down a street with shops on both sides. The street lights were turning on just as the sun was going down. She kept a good distance from Andy and saw him walk into the Electric Music store. Shelly parked the car across the street and waited to see what happened.

The door closed and the rattling of the sign called Grace's attention. She was browsing through some Alice Cooper albums when she stopped to see who had just walked in. To her surprise, there stood Andy, searching the store for her. When he spotted her, a giant smile formed on his face.

"Hey," Andy called to her, walking slowly to the other side of the store. His Nike's made a shuffling sound against the tile as he walked.

Grace looked at him curiously. "Hey. What are you doing here? I thought you had plans," she said, remembering how Shelly had been bragging about her date with Andy earlier that day at school. "I'm pretty sure coming all the way down here wasn't part of those plans."

Andy shrugged his shoulders, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I did have plans. But I figured I could spend my time doing something more interesting."

"Really?" Grace took a few steps forward, away from the records. "Because I heard from a very reliable source that you had a date with Shelly Linderman tonight," she told him.

"Oh yeah, and who told you that?" he asked, crossing her arms across his chest. He sounded cocky, as if there was no way that Grace could have that kind of source to confirm that rumor.

"Shelly." Grace watched as Andy laughed and nodded, dropping his arms to his side. "So you did have a date with her?"

He shook his head, waving his hand in front of his face, as if swatting a fly out of the way. "No it wasn't a date. It was more like a trap to have dinner with Shelly," he joked.

Grace laughed softly. "Well I'm pretty sure she thought it was a date. And I bet she's mad that you didn't show."

"Oh well," Andy said, shrugging it off.

Grace cocked her head to the side and looked at Andy. He was answering so nonchalantly that it surprised her, but in a good way. She crossed her arms and glanced over Andy up and down.

"So you're telling me that you bailed on Shelly Linderman, to go to a music store filled with music that you don't even listen to? Is that what you're saying?" she asked him.

Andy pressed his lips together, looking up at the posters on the wall. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No," he began stepping closer to Grace. "I'm saying that I bailed on Shelly to spend the night in a music store filled with music you listen to, with you." He looked into Grace's brown eyes and smiled.

Knowing a sweet response when she heard one, Grace couldn't help but smile. She dropped her arms and looked at Andy. "Good answer."


(Music: "Nothing But A Good Time" - Poison)

Andy swung his arm over Grace's shoulder as she led him back to the section of records she was looking at. She started telling him about all the kinds of music that she listened to and her favorite artists. Whenever Andy would mention that he liked one of the bands Grace said, she'd drag him all over the store to look up some of their albums.

Grace, knowing the store manager, Rick, for what little time she had been in town and hanging out at his store, convinced him to let her play some music on the record player in the store. Smiling at the sound of a familiar Poison song filing the room, Grace grinned over at Andy.

With some struggle and much protest from Andy, he finally gave in to Grace and agreed to dance with her. He took off his jacket and tossed it onto the counter and shuffled over to where Grace was dancing. She was smiling, laughing even, keeping the beat as she tapped her feet to the music.

Grace's hair bounced up and down as she moved, her locks swinging all around her face. Whenever she'd turn, the skirt she was wearing would twirl along with her like a ballerina's tutu. There was a spark in her eyes, pure enjoyment of the moment at hand.

Andy stared at Grace, watching the joy inside of her explode as she danced. Unconsciously he let himself loose, and soon found himself feeling as free and relaxed as he ever had before.


Valens looked over at Shelly, shrugging his shoulders. "So Andy and Grace hung out at the music store," Valens clarified. "That doesn't sound so bad."

Shelly scoffed, shaking her head, her blond hair moving back and forth. "That's not the whole story."

Jeffries looked up from his notebook after he finished scribbling down a few words. "There's more?" he asked.

"Yeah, there sure is." Shelly crossed her arms, lifting her head up to tell more of her story. "After they were at the music store, Andy took her to dinner. Then they spent hours down by the creek, they just sat at this picnic table and talked," she told them, rolling her eyes. "And then he took her home."


"So tell me about your brother, Josh, right?" Andy sat next to Grace on the top of the table, their feet resting on the bench of the picnic table.

Grace hunched over, her arms relaxed on her knees. She lifted her head to look out at the creek, watching the small current wash right by her. Andy turned his head and watched her.

"Josh is great," she started to say. "He's only fifteen but he's more mature than most kids his age. He plays the piano, which is why we moved here, so he could go to that Winston School for Music," she explained, smiling. "I know he's gonna go on to do a lot of great things playing that piano."

Andy listened to Grace's voice, she spoke so highly of him, like a proud older sister. "You and Josh close?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, really close. After my dad died our family kinda turned around. In more ways than one." Grace propped her hand up and rested her chin on her fist. "It was hard adjusting to a life without my dad around, that's when I realized that life was short and that I wanted to do as much as I can in the time I had. I decided to be true to myself and enjoy life."

Grace paused, pressing her lips together. Andy could tell by the look in her eyes that she was unsettled about something.

"What is it?"

She turned towards Andy. "I wanted to be a good older sister for Josh. Not just being there for him, but also being a good influence and role model," Grace told him. "When he asked me why I went against the crowd I told him it was because I wanted to be my own person. I wasn't going to let someone influence me. I would have my own standards, my own morals I would stand by, and that I was going to be a person I wanted to be."

"And you are," he said softly, seeing the moonlight shine in her eyes. "You are."


(Music: "Hold On To The Night" - Richard Marx)

Once it started getting late Grace figured it was time that she headed home. Andy pulled up to Grace's house, with Shelly parked on the street three houses down. They had just spent a few hours down by the creek, talking about anything and everything. This was the first time that both Grace and Andy had just spent the night talking with a friend. It felt so good to smile and laugh with someone, without anyone criticizing or judging them.

"Aren't you glad you ditched Shelly?" Grace joked. She and Andy slowly made their way up towards her front door.

Andy laughed softly. "Yeah, I am, actually. Tonight was really fun. I haven't just relaxed and felt this good with someone in a really long time."

They stepped up to her front door and turned to each other. Andy looked down to Grace, inspecting every inch of her smiling face. At the angle that Andy was standing, Grace could see something shinning around his neck, glittering from the glow of the street lights.

"What's that?" she asked.

Andy looked down to follow her gaze. "Oh, it's just my medallion," he told her, tugging at the chain. He pulled the necklace out from under his shirt, sliding his hands down to a small pendant. "My dad gave it to me the night I played my first basketball game. It's a cardinal, it brings good luck."

The cardinal looked like it was flying, its wings spread wide open. Its head was tilted up, as if looking up into the sky as it flew freely.

"I kinda tell myself that it was luck that brought you here," Andy told her. "Without it I may have never met you."

Grace drifted her eyes from the necklace up to Andy's eyes. She shook her head. "No, I think we would've found each other eventually."

With a quiet laugh, Andy's lips curved into a smile. "I remember what you said that first time we met, down by the creek." Andy recalled the exact words in his head. "I said 'I guess I'll see you around' and you looked over at me gave me a wink and said, 'Maybe, if you're lucky.'" They both laughed. "I guess I was lucky."

Andy and Grace stood there, feeling a slight breeze brush by them. The earth had cooled and the flickering specks of light shined brightly against the dark blanket up in the sky.

"I had a really good time tonight. I actually always have a good time with you," Andy said softly, gazing down at Grace.

As the wind picked up, Grace's bangs blew in her face, covering her eyes. At the same time, both Andy and Grace reached up to brush her hair out of the way. Their fingers brushed up against each other and stayed there for several moments.

"Sorry," Andy apologized, smiling, slightly embarrassed. "I just wanted to see your eyes." Grace dropped her hand, letting Andy tuck her hair back behind her ear.

Grace lifted her eyes back up to Andy and saw him staring at her. She felt his hand clasp onto hers, their fingers lacing together. She looked down, feeling his hand squeeze hers.

"You remember when you were saying how you liked me, that day when we first went to Electric Music?" he asked, holding onto her hand tightly.

Playfully, Grace tilted her head back and forth, pretending that she couldn't recall that memory positively or not. "I might have that memory stored somewhere in my head."

He lifted the side of his mouth into a smile. "Well, when I asked you if you really did like me, you said maybe. But that maybe really meant yes, didn't it?" he asked, feeling confident.

Thinking of the only appropriate answer to his question, Grace looked up at Andy straight in the eye. "Maybe."

Andy looked down at her, his eyebrow raised. After a few beats, Grace could no longer hold it in and she cracked a smile, giving in to Andy and handing him the answer he had been waiting for.

"I thought so." He spoke softly, his voice as light as a feather.

Andy slowly lifted his hand up and caressed Grace's cheek. For what seemed like hours, they stared into each others eyes, never looking away. Soon enough they were breathing together, both chests rising and falling to the same calmed beat. In one slow motion, Andy leaned towards Grace, looking back and forth between her eyes and her lips. Grace willingly let herself be pulled into Andy, her breathing slightly increasing. At the same time, Andy and Grace closed their eyes and their lips touched.

In that moment time stood still and the world stopped. All the hate and violence in life had disappeared. Criticism and judgment vanished, because the only thing that was left alive was the emotion coming from Andy and Grace.

Grace and Andy broke the kiss, pausing for a moment, just to catch their breath and realize what they had just done. Biting her lip, with cheeks turning pink, Grace looked back up to Andy.

"Grace," he said softly, barely loud enough for her to hear. "I love you."

As if she hadn't already had the most amazing night of her life, Grace just heard the three words she had always dreamt of hearing from a boy she cared so dearly about. "Really?" She searched his eyes, hoping to see truth in them.

Andy nodded, smiling at Grace. "Yes, really." His eyes were pure, as sincere as they had always been.

"Good," Grace finally got out. Uncontrollably her eyes started to water and she laughed quietly. "Because I love you too."

Feeling as if a weight had just been lifted off his shoulders, Andy smiled with joy. He slid his arms down around Grace's waist just as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her thumb sliding across the chain of his necklace.

"Good," Andy replied, leaning in to give Grace one more kiss.


Nodding, Valens crossed his arms over his chest. He smirked, looking at Shelly. "Now I get why you were so pissed," he said. "He ditched you on your date only to declare his love for Grace later that night."

Shelly glowered, not finding Valens' comment humorous at all. "Oh yeah, hysterical."

The two detectives shared a quiet chuckle, leaving Shelly glaring at them with her crystal blue eyes. Jeffries and Valens left the gymnasium, letting Shelly return to her mirror and dancing. They walked back out to the car to head back to the office.

"So Grace moves into town and steals the guy Shelly had been crushing on for years," Jeffries recapped, buckling into his seat.

Valens started the engine and slowly pulled out of the parking stall. Putting the car into drive he looked over at Jeffries. "Not only steals the guy, but falls in love with him and gets him to fall in love with her," he said. "Sounds like a good enough reason to want to get rid of Grace."