Betty slid on her signature necklace before hearing the familiar knock at her window. She turned and smiled as soon as she caught a glimpse of Jughead. Making her way to the window, she eagerly pushed it opened.
"You ready?" Jughead asked as he climbed in.
"Just about," Betty replied as she took one last look in her mirror, checking her reflection while Jughead took a seat at the edge of her bed.
"Betty, are you sure about tonight?"
"I'm sure," she said as she turned to face Jughead.
"It's just hard for me to believe that this dinner is about Hiram wanting to get to know his daughter's friends," Jughead said as he contemplatively stared at the ground.
"I agree. It's probably not about that. But I can't just sit around and do nothing. We have to find out if he's hiding anything."
Jughead nodded. "Promise me you'll be careful."
Betty looked back at him lovingly.
"I promise," she said as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"And," Jughead continued. "Promise me that you'll let me help."
"You are helping," Betty said, still unaware of what Jughead was asking.
"I want to help you search in his office."
Betty moved her head off of his shoulder and met his eyes.
"I thought you were going to talk to Hiram. Distract him."
"Archie and Veronica can handle that."
"Did you tell them about this?"
"No, of course not. But I'm pretty sure that they'll know what we're doing once it happens. From what they said earlier, they know that you wanted to go through his things. They won't let anything bad happen. And if I'm in there with you, we can search the place twice as fast."
"I don't know, Jughead. It was my idea, and if something does happen, I don't want you to get in trouble."
Betty was right. Jughead already has a police record. If he got caught snooping through somebody like Hiram's stuff, it would not look good.
Jughead sighed. "Okay. I'll distract him. But you have to be in and out of there in just a few minutes. If you take too long, he'll get suspicious."
Betty nodded and leaned against Jughead again, savoring the few minutes of peace.
XXX
"So, what are is everybody involved in at school?" The question that left Mr. Lodge's mouth stirred up an uneasy feeling. Everybody who was sitting at the table didn't expect such a question to come from a person who had been deemed as being incredibly dangerous. It was weird to hear a man who had sent people to destroy Fred's construction project and who had threatened his daughter ask about his daughter's friends' extracurriculars in school.
The dinner had been nothing but casual conversation. Mostly Hiram had been asking Veronica's friends questions, and oddly enough he seemed genuine.
Betty struggled to find the meaning in this dinner. It was hard for her to believe that this dinner was purely meant for a man like Hiram to get to know his daughter's friends. From what she had heard about what he's done, it was very uncharacteristic of him.
"Betty works for the school newspaper. It's called the Blue and Gold," Veronica answered for Betty after an extended silence and uneasy glances had overwhelmed the conversation.
"How is that?" Hiram asked he turned towards Betty, with his eyebrows lifted and his lips slightly curled up at the ends.
Betty paused, trying to maintain her composure. "I'm not quite sure what you mean…," she trailed off.
"Well, what I mean is, how does it feel to have the power to uncover people's secrets and report them out to the world?"
"It's a school newspaper, I don't do much of that. I write mostly trivial pieces about- I don't know- the school's football team," Betty said as she took a glass of water in her hands.
"That's strange that you put it that way…," Hiram continued. "I've read what you've written about the events that have occurred in this town. Specifically about Jason Blossom's murder. You're a very gifted writer. Your work is very insightful."
Betty glanced uneasily at Jughead, who took her hand under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"All I do is tell the truth," she replied calmly.
For a few seconds, there wasn't a sound in the room except for the clinking of silverware on plates.
"And Archie, I'm incredibly saddened to hear about what happened to your father," Hiram looked towards Archie.
Archie made eye contact with him and nodded slightly, unable to find the words he wanted to say.
"I've talked to mayor McCoy. They're doing everything they can to find the culprit," Hiram stated.
"That's good," Archie said, surprising his friends. "I just hope they're looking in the right places."
Archie's icy stare towards Hiram was hard to mistake. Everybody at the table knew that remark was directed at him, but nobody dared to say anything. Hiram looked back at Archie and gave a small smile, as if what Archie said didn't bother him.
"How about I go get dessert," Hermione added with a hesitant smile before leaving to go to the kitchen.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Betty declared as she stood up from her chair. "Can somebody please show me where it is?"
Betty already knew where the bathroom was, but at least if she asked it would make it look less suspicious.
"Sure, I can," Veronica said after her eyes flickered with realization as it dawned on her what Betty was trying to do. Betty wouldn't ask anybody to show her where the bathroom is, she already knew.
"Perfect," Betty replied as she followed Veronica's lead out of the dining room.
After they had made their way far enough from the dining room, Veronica spun around.
"Betty, what do you think you're doing?"
"Veronica…," Betty whispered, looking back nervously as if her time was running out.
"I thought we went over this," Veronica said quietly.
"I know, I just… please let me do this," she pleaded.
Veronica's jaw tightened. "Okay, but you have three minutes before you have to come back. And his office is down the hall to your right."
"Got it," Betty said as she started towards the office.
A medium sized cardboard box was placed off to the side on a large mahogany desk, which was otherwise spotless. As she expected, the room wasn't very full of much of anything since Hiram had just moved in. Betty began to dig through the box, which was filled with nothing but picture frames of Veronica and her mother.
She started searching the inside of the desk, opening drawers which were virtually empty, until she froze. Footsteps were heading towards the room. She quickly ducked underneath the desk as the color drained from her face.
"Betty?" A familiar voice whispered.
"Jughead?" Betty hissed as she emerged from underneath the desk. "What are you doing?"
"Don't worry. I told everybody that I was just going to check on you, since you've been 'in the bathroom' for so long," Jughead said.
Betty rolled her eyes, but knew that she probably should have been back by now.
"As for Veronica's dad, he's on the phone right now. It seemed pretty urgent. That might buy us some time," Jughead continued. "Did you find anything?"
"Not yet," Betty said as she surveyed the room. It took her a minute of searching before her eyes lip up. She didn't know how she didn't see this before. In the corner of the room, atop a bookshelf, there was a small locked box. "Jughead, there's a safe."
Betty started towards it, until she felt Jughead pull her back underneath the desk. She opened her mouth to speak, until she saw him put a finger to his mouth, gesturing at her to be quiet.
They both huddled underneath the desk in fear while they heard Hiram's voice and footsteps, getting closer and closer. Betty shakily put a hand to her mouth, trying so hard not to make a sound that she was barely breathing.
The door to the office swung open.
"Did anybody try to stop it?" Hiram's furious voice boomed as he spoke through the phone. A few moments went by as he listened to the response, while making his way over to the locked box that Betty had discovered.
Jughead peered through an opening in the desk, watching as Hiram dug a small silver key out of his pocket.
"How could you let this happen? It's been two days and already people are messing with our things?"
Both Betty and Jughead heard the small click that came from Hiram opening the safe. It seemed like he immediately got what he was looking for, because in a matter of seconds, he shut the door to the safe and locked it.
"So we have absolutely no idea who it could be?" Hiram's angry voice continued on as he opened the door.
Jughead looked to the side of the desk and caught a glimpse of Hiram leaving. His eyes widened when he noticed the gun in his hand.
Once he seemed to be gone for good, Betty and Jughead both a let out a sigh of relief before standing up. Betty walked over and tried to open the safe, but to no avail. Hiram had locked it.
"Betts," Jughead began, as he watched her struggle to open the safe. "We've got to go."
She squeezed her eyes shut before nodding and followed Jughead out the door.
"If only we could see what's in that locked box," Betty whispered as they made their way back towards the dining room. Jughead stopped and guided Betty to the side of the hallway.
"Whatever he was talking about, did not seem good," Jughead began. "As he was leaving, I saw a gun in his hand."
"What?" Betty's jaw dropped.
"I have to admit, that coupled with the phone call looks a little suspicious. But we're talking about Hiram. It's not out of the ordinary for somebody like him to have a gun," Jughead said quietly.
"You're right. We'll talk about this later," Betty said, as she and Jughead started towards the dining room again.
They stayed silent as entered the dining room, where puzzled glances from Hermione, Archie, and Veronica followed them. Betty tried her hardest not to make eye contact with Archie or Veronica.
"Is everything okay?" Hermione asked as her brows knitted. There was something off about her demeanor, however. Her troubled expression hinted that maybe she had heard part of Hiram's phone call.
"I'm all good," Betty smiled. "I just feel a little sick to my stomach. Do you mind if Jughead and I take off?"
"That's no problem. Mr. Lodge also left, too," Hermione said. "I can give you some cookies for you to take home if you would like?"
Betty looked down at the table, where a plate of chocolate chip cookies were situated that were meant for dessert.
"That's okay, thanks for the offer, though," Betty responded. "I'm sorry we couldn't stay to the end. This dinner was really nice though. Thank you for inviting us."
"It was really Hiram's idea, but you're welcome," Hermione said as she stood up and led Betty and Jughead to the door. "Thanks for coming. Have a good night."
"You too," Jughead and Betty said at the same time as Hermione closed the door.
"I'll call my foster parents to come pick us up, if you want," Jughead suggested as they walked down the driveway.
It was strangely dark outside, which Betty found oddly comforting.
"Sure," Betty replied absentmindedly, preoccupied by the dark vehicle that was situated on the street close to the Lodge's driveway.
"Was this car here before?" Betty asked as they got closer to it.
"I'm not sure," Jughead said as he put an arm around her and took out his phone to call his foster parents.
They were about ten feet from the car when Betty saw the window lower.
"Betty?" A newly familiar voice asked.
Betty froze.
"Chic? What the hell are you doing here?"
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed.
