Chapter 4: Bella Arthur and El Salvador

A/N: Okay, so I must apologize for the spoof on the Zoolander joke ahead of time. It just fit so perfectly that I didn't have the heart to get rid of it once it came to me XD

"What's taking you so long, Bridgette?" Courtney snapped over the phone, flopping back onto her bed.

"Chillax, Courtney!" her friend replied in good humor, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. "I'm doing you a favor, remember? I know you're new to this but you're usually really really really nice to people when they do you a favor"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," she apologized grudgingly.

Courtney drummed her nails on her thigh and counted to fifteen. "But it shouldn't be taking you so long!"

She heard Bridgette sigh above the crush of the surf in the background. "Why didn't you get their phone numbers from them yourself?" the blonde asked, changing the subject.

Spinning around on her bed so that her head was hanging upside down over the edge, Courtney surrendered to the small talk and replied, "I guess I was still a little bitter against Owen for winning the first season and then forfeiting, which caused the whole mess that was season two, by the way, and I was kind of afraid of Izzy giving me some bizarre, psychotic answer to my request for a phone number like bird noises or Morse code"

Bridgette laughed and Courtney smiled despite herself. "I was too, honestly. Luckily, Geoff doesn't—Geoff! Get off the roof of that surf shack before someone calls security!!"

Courtney jerked back from her cell phone at Bridgette's shouting. Gingerly, she put the phone back to her ear and asked sarcastically, "So I take it your prized vacation job is going well?"

But Bridgette missed the tone and started gushing, "Talk about the understatement of the year! Surfer's Paradise is a dream job, Courtney! I get to surf every day and I've met the coolest people! Can—hold on"

Even holding the phone at arm's length, the CIT could hear the surfer shouting, "Fin! Reef! Will you please do something about him! I'm in the middle of an important call!"

After a few seconds of shouting and splashing, Bridgette came back on. "Sorry about that. As I was saying, can you believe I'm getting paid to surf all day?"

That intrigued the future politician. "You are?"

"I didn't tell you?!" Bridgette replied in surprise. "The manager told us he gave us the jobs because—Geoff! I mean it! Don't make me come back up there!—because our reality TV show fame would attract more customers to the resort!"

"That's…awesome," was Courtney's response. At the same time she was happy for Bridgette she couldn't help but feel a little jealous that her friend had lucked out more than she had.

Catching a whiff of Courtney's thoughts, Bridgette feigned innocence and asked, "So, uh, anything like that happen for you or Duncan?"

Reflexively, Courtney glanced at her hit list on her bedside table. "…something like that"

"Okay! Sorry for the wait, my phone book was on the bottom of my beach bag," Bridgette announced finally. "Here are Izzy and Owen's numbers"

Bridgette recited the numbers for Courtney and then wished her a quick goodbye, having to run off and rip Geoff apart for jeopardizing her said 'dream job'. Courtney wished her the best of luck, hung up and began dialing again.

She had business to get back to as well.

"Are you sure you don't want to eat anything?" Owen asked, glancing up from devouring his mammoth rack of ribs and giving Courtney a once over. "You really are skinny as a rail"

Courtney eyed the enormous amount of food, half of which was either already consumed or all over Owen's clothes, from her seat on the other side of the booth and repressed the urge to shiver.

"No thanks, I'm fine," she replied politely, in what she hoped was an honest face. "Really"

"Ohmygosh!" Izzy exclaimed, stopping with half of a fried chicken leg on the way to her mouth. "My cousin Melissa said that to me once when I noticed she was getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier and skinnier and skinnier and it turned out she was actually anorexic and the next week we had to send her to rehab and my mom and I baked her a banana cream pie to send to her but the rehab place didn't let her have it! Isn't that totally weird?"

"Great googly moogly!" Owen exclaimed, dropping the rib he was eating and turning to stare at Izzy in honest shock, "Anorexic? You never told me your cousin could move things with her mind!"

Courtney had the sudden urge to bathe herself in disinfectant and pray the crazy wasn't contagious.

"Anorexia is a disease where you don't eat," she clarified in a tight voice, "and I don't have it. Can we please get this over with?"

Izzy and Owen glanced at Courtney and then at each other before they shrugged and continued eating. "Fire away!"

She whipped out her file folder from her purse. "Okay, I'm trying to find the current whereabouts of a Rebecca "Bella" Arthur from Ontario and Izzy's name came up in one of the documents about the bizarre robbery of Henry Matthews. Do you know where I could find her?"

Izzy stopped eating and looked surprised for all of a moment before she asked suspiciously, "What makes you think I know anyone by that name? What proof do you have?"

Expecting something along those lines, Courtney pulled out the specific document. "I have the RCMP's official report of you and a 'Bella Arthur' breaking and entering into a house, robbing the poor man of a $12.00 plastic dog bath and then upsetting the natural reserve to bury it using only your bare feet"

To Courtney's surprise, Izzy's suspicion vanished in a flash. "Ohmygosh! You're talking about El Salvador, right?"

"What?"

"Does it say anything about the lemon squeezer and the box of toothpicks?" she asked as she sat up from her seat across the table to try and see the document but Courtney pulled the file closer to her body and checked the paper.

"Uh…no…"

"Okay, then, forget I totally said anything," she replied sitting back down and resuming her chicken.

But the conversation had gotten Owen's attention. Some of it anyway.

"Wry are yoo ookin fer her?" he asked with a mouth full of barbequed meat.

"I just wanted to talk to her about something important," Courtney answered, nervously shifting out of the way of Owen's projectile range.

"Well, last I saw her," Izzy said, scratching her head though her hands were covered in BBQ, "we were breaking out of our holding cells in the Nova Scotia state penitentiary and her bra got caught on the fence as we were jumping over to escape. Man, was that a riot! She might still be there"

That was all the lead Courtney needed.

"Thanks, Izzy!" she said immediately, shoving the file back in her purse and quickly sliding out of the booth.

"You sure you don't want to take any of this to go?" Owen asked, gulping down the last of his ribs as their waitress came back, nervously placing more food in front of the pair.

"Yeah! This place might have banana cream pie!" Izzy added, slurping down a tall smoothie.

"No thank you!" Courtney insisted, sidestepping towards the door. "I'm just gonna…go home and shower a few times…"

"Sweet! Send El Salvador my love!" Izzy called before Courtney slipped out of the restaurant.

Once outside, she sighed and walked quickly to her car as she tried to suppress an involuntary shiver. Tracking down Bella Arthur was turning out to be more of a hassle than she expected it to be. Now she had to go through more illegal files and probably call her lawyer to try and arrange a meeting.

But true to her word, the first thing Courtney was going to do was head home and shower. Repeatedly.

Finally, Courtney found herself waiting in a sitting room at a local police station where Bella had been arrested for shoplifting. She'd told the cops she was Bella's cousin, Melissa.

But even as she glanced around the dingy looking sitting room and rehearsed her lines in her head, uneasiness rumbled around in her stomach. This was the farthest she'd gone out of her league yet to eliminate her possible competitors. Maybe blackmailing a dangerous known criminal wasn't her greatest idea…

The door clicked open and a handcuffed girl was led into the room. Her brunette hair was stringy and greasy, clinging to her face as her scrawny figure was forced down into a chair. She glared at Courtney with chocolate eyes that looked like she wanted to rip her up into tiny little pieces.

What shocked Courtney the most though was her age. She'd judged her to be much older due to her…colorful vocabulary in the e-mails but the girl couldn't have been older than twelve. That put a whole new spin on things.

"Hi, Bella," the CIT greeted politely. "You don't know me but I'm—"

"Courtney," she said in a flat voice. Her eyes never wavered. "The show. Dense much?"

Courtney grit her teeth and glared back. So she was going to be one of those teenagers, then? Fine.

"Good, so we can skip introductions. I wanted to ask you about—"

Bella cut her off. "If this is about the In and Out Burger incident, I've already denied all the charges—"

"Will you let me finish?" Courtney snapped, annoyed.

Somehow, Bella managed to cross her arms over her chest despite the fact she was chained to the table and her seat.

"I'm not in the mood for BS, Princess," she informed her, her tone mocking.

Courtney flinched at the name. But the words fueled her fire. "I'm not the once handcuffed to a chair, Rebecca"

Bella glanced her over distastefully. Finally, she spat, "Shoot"

"As I was saying," Courtney continued, "I'm here regarding some…detailed e-mails you sent Duncan over the last year and what is so funny?"

Out of nowhere, Bella had started laughing uproariously. Courtney glared at her as she hiccupped and continued, "Oh, nothing. I'd just forgotten how big of a prude you were"

Reflexively, Courtney's jaw dropped open. "Excuse me?"

"You know," Bella went on, somehow managing to casually cross her legs as well, "I still can't figure out why he'd want to tap your ass. Especially since you have that pole shoved so far up it"

It was taking every ounce of self control for Courtney not to reach across the table and strangle the younger girl with her bare hands. And even that control wasn't going to last that much longer.

"You don't know the first thing about me and Duncan, you preschooler," Courtney shot back, her voice dangerously low.

"I'm thirteen," the younger of the two corrected in a hiss. "And I believe I know a lot more than you think I do"

Unexpectedly, Bella broke into a grin, a smirk so evil it made Courtney's skin crawl. "Behind the scenes on 'I Triple Dog Dare You' ring any bells in your pretty little head?"

Courtney's face paled and her mind blanked out completely. She gaped at Bella at a complete loss for words for the first time. "I don't—what are— you can't—that was never aired!" she spluttered out at last.

Bella's smirk never faltered. "Doesn't mean no one saw it"

Snatching her purse off the table, Courtney stormed to her feet and started for the door. She was so infuriated that she'd been blackmailed in turn that she couldn't even remember why she even wanted to confront the devil child in the first place.

"Send Dunks my love!" Bella called from her seat, snickering.

"Yeah, well Izzy sends hers!" Courtney hissed under her breath just as she grabbed at the doorknob.

"What was that?"

Courtney turned back around to Bella and pointedly repeated, "I said Izzy sends you her love, though I can't fathom why"

Still livid, she was already turning back to the door to get herself out of the hell-hole while she still could when there was a clattering of chains. Courtney spun back around to Bella who was suddenly on her feet, nose flaring like a bull.

"That psychotic homicidal bitch!" she roared. "She left me here to f***ing rot and she has the balls, the audacity to even remember me?"

A light bulb clicked on in Courtney's mind. She shoved her anger under the surface so that she could concentrate on her new attack plan.

"Oh, hey…" she began, feigning innocence as she released the door handle, "you wouldn't happen to be 'El Salvador' would you?"

"Don't call me—" she started but stopped halfway as a dazed look came over her and she plopped back down on her seat. She looked Courtney over again, this time in appraisal, and asked something in Spanish.

That was unexpected. Courtney came back to the table, confused, "Um, speak English?"

"Si,"she replied, "I ask if Court-ney help El Salvador crush Isabella like ripe papaya and recover stolen good things"

Bella, or rather 'El Salvador', made a motion as if to smash something violently. She smiled at Courtney, "Si? Yes?"

She couldn't believe her luck. Inside, she was practically throwing herself a party as she said aloud, "I can help you with Izzy if you help me with, em, Bella. Comprenday?"

"El Salvador keep Bella from talking to Dunk-can," the preteen nodded, grinning with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "El Salvador think Antonio Banderas much cuter"

"Um, well, I don't know where Izzy is right now," she lied, as she reached in her purse. She'd rather face the straightforward fury of Bella/El Salvador with multiple personalities than incur something far stranger and unpredictable from Izzy the Grade-A Nutjob. "But I do know what happened to the objects you were trying to steal…"

Courtney read off the list of where all the items had eventually ended up and El Salvador nodded, smiling triumphantly when Courtney finished.

"And they find no mention of ice-cube rack or fake oran-gootan?" she asked.

"Why on Earth were you—" Courtney started but stopped on her own. As with Harold, she figured she was better off not knowing. She pinched her brow, fighting the migraine she could feel coming from a mile away. "No, it mentions nothing of the sort"

"Ek-sellent," El Salvador chirped just as a guard came in to let Courtney know her time was up.

"Thank you for all your help," Courtney replied. "You'll keep the deal?"

Bella/El Salvador placed a hand over her heart, "El Salvador swears on La Santa Juana Maria del Cobre that Bella will not communicate with him in any language, by any means, from any other body"

"Ah…yeah…okay. I guess that'll do," she replied and quickly headed out after the guard.

From her purse she pulled out her hit list again and furiously scribbled out Bella Arthur's name as her anger flared up again. In addition to taking down Chelsea Dagger, the final name on her list, she was now going to have to track down and destroy whoever leaked the 'I Triple Dog Dare You' footage also.

But first thing first, she was going to take another shower. Just to be certain.

A/N: I'll leave it to your imagination what happened behind the scenes of 'I Triple Dog Dare You', the only episode Courtney and Duncan spent together at Playa de Losers. And cookie for you if you picked up on where Bridgette and Geoff are working ;)

NEXT:

"You can't go talk to Chelsea looking like that"

"What's wrong with the way I look?"

"Girl, you look like another stuck up Albatross and Finch model!"

"She'll punch you in the face and go on with her life like nothing happened"

"I'm fond of my face the way it is, thank you very much"

"Which is why we have a plan…"