Previously on WTW~ Velma has a brainblast and Shaggy has to investigate solo

FPOV

"What do you guys know about Phil Hooper," I ask Matt and Dan. We usually stick together at practice since Coach is over dealing with the kids who actually need help, leaving us to just toss the ball around.

"Uh, he played basketball, right?" Dan said.

"Him and Hanna Jordan dated for a while," Matt offered up.

"He pretty cool, you think?" I asked.

They exchange a look, then simultaneously shrug. "Don't know, man. Why?"

"I hear he's got a pretty good party house, thinking he should get a little more social, have something sometime," I shrug as if its not actually a big deal.

"But we have parties at Kyle's house," Dan sounded confused.

"I'm not an idiot, jackass, I know where we normally have parties," I snap. If I get mean, they'll hopefully stop asking questions. "Maybe I just want a little change of scenery."

"We could go to my house," Matt offered up, trying to ease the tensions a little bit.

"You live two doors down from me, Matt," I rolled my eyes. "I'd prefer to party somewhere where my Dad won't be able to hear it from his freaking bedroom."

That took Matt's house off the table permanently, and I knew it. Being busted by the cops was always a risk, but getting busted by a cop that you had personally woken up was another thing entirely. We silently continued passing the ball, and I could see the gears turning in the boys' heads.

"Uh, Hooper is in my English class," Dan spoke again. "I could talk to him, I guess."

"You do that."

Good, when Phil Hooper heard that I wanted him to throw a party, he would. That was step one of the plan down. He was a pretty good kid, from what I'd heard, which meant that he would only throw a party when his parents weren't home. Which was perfect.

His father, Eric Hooper, was on the list that Shaggy had gotten for us. He wasn't the only one, but we were going to focus on his name first. We just needed to get in, find the knife, and then Velma was pretty sure that she would be able to tell if it was the right kind to have been used for the murder. And this party was going to be our ticket in.

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"Where are we going, Fred?" Mona asked from beside me. "Phil's house is on the other side of town."

"I know, we just have to stop and pick someone else up real quick," I try to placate her.

Mona and I had gotten back together, so the speak, the day after Phil announced that he was having a party. He didn't specifically tell anyone that it was due to my influence, but I knew. Mona did too, having heard it from Dan. She had come bouncing over and acted like I had come up with a new party spot just for her. Something about how she was always telling me that she didn't really like Kyle's house, and was ever so thankful that I had stepped in like a gentleman to do something about it. It was all news to me, but she was talking to me again and I sure as hell wasn't going to be an idiot and say anything.

"Who do you know that lives out here," she asked as the houses started getting progressively larger and more expensive looking. "All these kids go to Deacon Hill."

"Yeah, she does go there."

"She?" Mona screeched so loudly that I cringed a little. "You're bringing some other girl to this thing?"

"She didn't know where Phil lived, so I offered to give her a lift is all." Not really a big deal.

"If she doesn't know where Phil lives, then why would he have invited her?" Mona asked, sounding challenging.

"Um, I guess he really didn't invite her. But I don't think he'll care or anything." I was a little distracted while answering, because I was trying to find Daphne's driveway. I'd been to her house before, but it was dark this time and her driveway was pretty hidden by bushes. Ah, there it was.

"Who is she?"

"Daphne Blake," I say as I pull out my phone to text Daphne that we were there.

"Daphne Blake?" She repeats, sounding both shocked and insulted. Oh, that's right. Mona doesn't like Daphne. Oops, well whatever. We'd be at the party soon.

"Did you really have to come in the van?" Daphne asked as she slid the door open. "It doesn't really scream, 'party'."

"I love the van," Mona snapped at her. Oh good, so this was going to go well.

"Um, that's nice," Daphne shot me a confused look through the rearview mirror. "Hi, I'm Daphne."

"Oh I know who you are," Mona said icily. "And I'm Mona Ballard, Freddie's girlfriend."

"Oh," another questioning look in my direction. "I guess I didn't know that Fred had a girlfriend."

"Well he does!" she screeched.

"How long have you two been together," Daphne asked, trying to be polite bless her heart. But knowing Mona, that wouldn't win her any points.

"Two years," Mona preened a little.

"Off and on." I don't know why I spoke, but the words just sort of came out. Well, it was the truth, at least. Saying that we had been dating for two years would make Daphne think of a couple totally different from what me and Mona were.

"Whatever," Mona rolled her eyes. "I don't even get why she's coming to this thing in the first place."

"I'm sorry, but do you have a problem with me?" Daphne had apparently reached her limit.

"Maybe I do. You're some Deacon Hill girl who thinks that she's better than everyone else, especially us public school kids. Well if you're so much better than us, then you'd think you wouldn't be begging Freddie to take you to our parties."

"Listen, I don't know who the hell you've been talking to but-"

"How about Heather Penn? Freshman year you and those bitches you call friends told her that cheerleading was stupid. Well let me tell you something-"

"Oh my god that was over two years ago," Daphne cut in. "Holding a grudge like that isn't becoming, just so you know."

"Fred, are you going to let her talk to me like that?" Mona demanded. Aw, damn. I didn't want to be in this conversation.

"Um, I think you're pretty becoming, sweetheart," I said, not able to really think of anything else.

Daphne scoffed from the back, and I'm pretty sure I heard an 'of course you do', but thankfully Mona didn't seem to. She also seemed appeased by the half-hearted effort on my part. The rest of the ride to Phil's was silent, which was better than fighting girls in my book, so I didn't try to start another conversation.

We arrived and Mona stormed inside immediately. Guess I had to follow her. I turned to Daphne, "Hey, I should go make sure she's okay. Sorry about her."

"Whatever Fred, just find me when you want to start working, okay?" She turned and headed into the house, leaving me to find my pissed-probably still girlfriend.

It took a little while, I had to stop and talk to everyone as I passed by, but I eventually managed to find Mona. Surprise, surprise, she was in her usual posse. And by the remains scattered around, they were all already wasted. Wonderful.

"Freddie's here!" she slurred as she leaned over the table where they were positioned. Well at least the bouncing was over for the night. "Look girls, he's done doing his Deacon Hill slut!"

"Daphne's just a friend, Mona," I resisted rolling my eyes.

"Why would you even bring her," one of Mona's friends asked, also slurring.

"She's not gonna have any fun. She doesn't even know anyone," another spoke.

I glanced over to where I had last seen Daphne, and sure enough, she was there surrounded by various guys. Most were pretty cool, a mix of lacrosse and basketball players, but some were pretty skeevy. I'd have to pull her aside and tell her to avoid them when I got the chance.

"Mona, lets just forget about Daphne and have a good time, okay?" I asked, deciding to give it one last shot before leaving. If she kept drinking with her girls, then I wouldn't want to be around her anyways. But if she would agree to let me catch up to her, then maybe we could still have a bit of fun together.

"Make her leave and then I'll talk to you," Mona insisted like a child.

"She's my friend, I'm not going to tell her to leave." Not to mention I needed her help looking for Phil's father's knife.

"Make her leave or we're breaking up!" Mona huffed, crossing her arms like a spoiled toddler.

"You're drunk. I don't want to deal with you like this," I put my hands up in the universal 'I'm done' symbol. "Call me tomorrow Mona, we'll hang out then."

As I walked away, I could hear the whole group start chattering about how much of an ass I was. Whatever, come tomorrow Mona would be calling me. She was acting unreasonable, and she would see it and realize that she needed to apologize. I smirked a little, because her apologies were generally pretty sweet.

With nothing else to do now that Mona wasn't on the timetable for the night, I headed towards Daphne. Might as well get this show on the road.

"Let's just get to work, alright?" I say to her, not worrying about the other guys around her. No way she was going to let any of them score with her anyways, I was just saving them the trouble.

"Sure thing," she said to me. "You take this floor, I'll go upstairs, okay?"

"Uh, people aren't allowed upstairs," Phil spoke up from his spot on Daphne's left.

"Come on Phil, can't I just pop up there really quickly?" Daphne turned to face him, her voice transforming into a sickly sweet version of her normal on. "I have to go to the bathroom, but I really don't want to go where everyone else has gone. Is that okay?"

"Um, yeah okay?" his answer came out like a question. Prick. "Just, uh, go up by yourself." His eyes shot to me and I wanted to laugh out loud. Guy thought I was getting in between him and Daphne? Not in a million years. His own stupidity was enough to do that.

"Thanks Phil," she preened before scampering off. I had to be a little impressed- she managed to turn a 'no' into a 'yes' in less than a minute. Girl knew exactly what she was doing.

There were only two places in the house that would logically hold the knife. And only one was on the main floor. So I sauntered over to the office, and after kicking out the couple that looked like they were thinking of getting cozy, I started to poke around. It didn't take long at all to find the thing. It was just sitting in the top drawer of the desk. If Eric Hooper was the murderer, then he wasn't so hot at covering his tracks.

I quickly snapped a few pictures of the thing and fired them off to Velma. She could do her thing with them and either rule Eric Hooper out as a suspect or finish off the investigation for good. After the pictures were sent I called Daphne, so that she could know that the search was over.

"Well that was quick," she said as she answered.

"It wasn't really hidden or anything."

"Okay, I'll be right down, then we'll head out?"

"What?" my eyebrows furrowed. "Why would we just take off?"

"Um, because we got the knife?"

"Its still a party, Daphne. One that I sort of insisted that they have. I can't just take off after like half an hour."

She sighed, but said, "I guess that's fair. Guess I'll see you at the next team meeting, then."

"What are you talking about? I'm your ride!" She better not be thinking of getting a ride from one of these other guys. They would read way too much into that and she didn't need that sort of hassle.

"I'll just call Jess. There's another party that she wants me to hit, so…"

"You can just hang out here and then I'll drive you home, Daph. You don't need to call one of your friends."

"This isn't really my group of kids, Fred," she told me with a little laugh. "No offense, everyone seems pretty cool, but I'm literally the only Deacon Hill kid here. Have fun though, I'll see you around." And she hung up.

I scowled a little to myself, not really liking the fact that she was leaving. But I quickly shook it off and rejoined the party. Daphne Blake was my partner in crime-solving, and probably my friend, but she sure as hell wasn't my problem.

DPOV

I had a slight problem. And its name was Fred Jones. Or, better yet, its name was Mona Ballard. What a bitch.

She was baying for blood for that entire car ride, trying to warn me away from her man. She might not have said it, but I could tell- any girl would have been able to. She thought I was interested, and was both marking her territory and telling me that I wasn't good enough for the likes of her man.

When Jess had picked me up and driven me over to Justin Davidson's house for the get together there, I'd spent the entire time complaining about Mona and how she'd treated me. And maybe a little bit about how Fred hadn't really defended me. Possibly a tiny bit about how he hadn't defended her either, which meant that he knew she was in the wrong.

Jess's brilliant advice had been, "It sounds like you're crushing on this guy, Daph. Watch out, Trailer Park guy might get a little jealous."

And as the night had gone on, Jess's words had kept repeating in my head. Did I really like Fred? He was just my friend, and barely that! But no, it seemed like I had developed other feelings for him, crap.

I did sort of appreciate the irony in Mona's situation, though. If she hadn't been to blatantly possessive, I might never have come to realization that I did indeed like her boyfriend.

But nothing was going to happen, because even though she was a total bitch, I wasn't going to break a couple up. For some reason, he saw something in her. And if he wanted to exhaust himself with the drama that she seemed to live to stir up, then that wasn't any of my business. None at all.

Okay, seriously? I needed to snap out of it. There wasn't any use in thinking about it. I had to work. I'd been meticulously keeping notes on everything that had happened with the case so far, and now wasn't the time to start slacking off. It was looking more and more like we were actually going to accomplish something, and there was no way in hell that my article describing it would be lacking in any way.

I had only just gotten into a groove when my mom burst into my room, completely ignoring my repeated requests that she knock. "Someone's on the phone for you," she chirped, before flinging the landline at me and scampering out of the room.

That was weird. I lifted the thing to my ear and spoke, "Hello? Daphne Blake, here."

"Oh, um, hey Daphne. This is Connor Bryan. I don't know if you remember me, but…"

"Yeah, I remember you." The guy had dated Chloe's older sister for a few months when I was a sophomore, so I'd seen him around when I was at her house.

As I answered, my cell buzzed with a new text. I opened it up once I saw that it was from Fred. Maybe the she-monster wanted to apologize, ha.

Connor Bryan is going to call. Say yes, its for the case.

What the hell did that even mean? Had Fred told Connor to call, or did he just happen to know that he was going to? And how did Fred know that Connor was going to ask me something? At that, how did he know exactly what Connor was going to ask? I was also mildly offended at how easily Fred ordered me around via text.

While I was trying to decipher the words, Connor had been speaking, whoops. "Um, sorry Connor, someone was talking to me, could you repeat that?"

"Yeah," he coughed a little bit on the other line. "Sure. I was just wondering if you wanted to grab dinner some time this week."

He was asking me out? And that's what Fred wanted me to say yes to? "Sure, sounds great."

"Really? Awesome. How about you give me your cell number and we can pick a day and time."

I rattled off the numbers to him without thinking too much more about it. So Fred wanted me to go on a date with this guy. That itself was baffling, but he had said that it was for the case. In what alternate universe did semi-blind dates help catch murderers? Fred Jones sure had a lot of explaining to do.

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My mother was very excited about this date with Connor. Apparently she and Mrs. Bryan were buddies at the country club, and the thought of their children getting together put both women into a flutter. But their friendship at least answered my question as to how Connor had gotten my home number, because I knew for a fact that we weren't in the book.

Fred had picked up when I called him after Connor hung up, and answered most of the rest of my questions. I don't know how I had forgotten that Connor was the other one to purchase a knife at the Pawn Shop, but I had. Apparently he and Fred worked out at the same gym, which had given Fred the opportunity to drop my name and hint that Connor should ask me out on a date. And on said date, it would be my job to figure out what kind of knife he had purchased, and if I managed to see it, then even better. I wasn't crazy about being used as a pawn in such a way, but sucked it up. Who else was going to do it?

Connor and I had arranged to meet at a little Italian restaurant in town on Friday night. I had told Jess and Chloe that I was staying in to work on stuff for my internship for the paper, knowing that they would jump on the thought of my actually being on a date. Those girls had way too much fun with my love life, and this wasn't actually a real date. I only had to put up with a few joking cries of 'nerd' instead of hours of in depth questions that I didn't have the answers to.

When I walked into the restaurant, a little bit after six, the hostess informed me that Connor was already there. Punctual man, I liked it. I scoffed a little inside my head. This wasn't a real date, I didn't need to actually see if I liked this guy. This was for the case.

"Daphne, hey," he stood when I approached. "You look great."

"Thanks," I smiled back. "So do you." I was in a purple sundress, fancy enough that it passed in a place like this, but not so fancy that it gave off the illusion that I was trying overly hard. Thankfully, Connor wasn't overdressed either, in dark jeans and a white button down. We sort of matched in our just-barely fancy enough-ness. If that made any sense.

"So, its great to see you," he smiled.

"Yeah, nice of you to call." Even though it had really been Fred's idea, but I wasn't supposed to know that.

"I hear you're working at the paper," he started the conversation. "That sounds pretty cool."

Had this been a real date, I probably would have smiled politely and agreed that yes, it was pretty cool. But this wasn't- so I didn't have to. So instead I said, "Actually, working at the paper's pretty boring. It's not really the type of journalism that I'm interested in pursuing."

"What do you mean?"

"I want to get into investigative journalism. But, uh, there isn't much opportunity for that sort of thing around here, and the paper's really the only up close experience I can get in any form of journalism before college." Not exactly true, but I knew better than to let on to a possible suspect that I was involved in an investigation of any kind.

"Wow, you sure seem focused on your future."

"I am," I shrugged. "They sort of tell you to be, though, don't they? Adults, teachers, parents, all of them."

"You can say that again," he laughed a little. "I was all set to go to Yale, you know? And my folks couldn't have been happier. But I just sort of realized that I didn't give a shit anymore, you know? I mean, its not their future that rides on me getting an ivy league degree, so why should they care?"

"So you just didn't go?"

"Basically," he said just as the server approached us.

I was a shocked, to say the least. Connor had made a possible life-altering decision to just not receive the stellar education that he had earned. He had gotten in, why wouldn't he have tried to profit from that? It was one thing to experience a little bit of teenage rebellion, but such a grand gesture, only for the sake of proving a point to his parents? It seemed amazingly excessive. And I thought I had issues with my parents.

"So, uh, what have you been up to now that you aren't in school anymore?" I asked, trying to direct the conversation to a place where his recent purchasing history may come up.

"I'm just taking my time, living day by day," he said nonchalantly.

"You must have more time on your hands, have you taken up any hobbies or anything?"

"Not really, nothing definite. It's been nice, not having to stick with one thing. I'm sort of staying away from dedication right now. A change of pace, you know?"

"Sure, I get it," even though I didn't.

"What about you? Other than planning obsessively for a picture-perfect future, what does Daphne Blake do for fun?"

Picture-perfect future? Her pride was hurt a little bit by that sarcastic quip, but she pressed on. Not a real date, she had a mission, "Well a couple of my friends have recently gotten into hunting."

Please take the bait, I thought as the server returned with our food. I couldn't even remember what I had ordered.

He grinned smugly and leaned back in his seat. "Hunting? That's interesting, because I picked up hunting for a spell, a few months ago."

"Really?" I twirled my pasta on my fork and did my best to look enthralled with his story. "With a gun and everything?"

"Yep," he had started eating, but was more than happy to continue sharing through mouthfuls of steak. "I went out with some of my dad's work buddies, and we had a blast. Have you gone out with your friends?"

"Uh, yeah once or twice."

"Isn't it just the best feeling? You feel so powerful."

"Totally."

"Yeah, I really enjoyed it. So much that one of the guys even convinced me to try hunting with a knife, they said it was an even better feeling."

"And did you?"

"Nah, I never really got around to it. I bought the thing, but the guy never took me out. He had to go to a conference or something, and by the time he got back I'd moved on to car racing. Like NASCAR, you know? It was pretty freaking cool."

"But you bought a knife?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation from moving on to cars or something else.

"Yeah, just a standard hunting knife," he shrugged. "Nothing super special. A Woodsman, the guy where I bought it said that it was good for the sort of thing I was into."

"Anything else you remember about it?" I pressed, knowing full-well that I would sound weird, and not really caring.

"Um, series 102, I think? It was red on the handle. I don't know, why?"

"No reason, just curious. Like I said, my friends are still pretty into it."

"Oh, well right now I'm pretty into boat racing. Its sort of like car racing, except the water adds a whole other element. You and your friends should really give it a try sometime."

"Sure, it sounds great," I agreed while buzzing with this new information. I quickly excused myself to use the restroom.

Once in the stall, I whipped out my phone and texted Velma with the knife type. After a beat I texted Fred the information as well. He was a pretty big control freak with this investigation, as proved when I had worked with Shaggy behind his back. He'd been pretty mad.

I allowed myself one moment of gloating at the fact that Fred had asked me to be involved in his precious investigation and hadn't thought of including Mona. But then I had to get back to business. I had a second date to get out of.

AN:

So what do you think? Eric Hooper or Connor Bryan? Either one shooting off murdery vibes? Let me know- review!