Mae and Bea reached the top of the escalator finally reaching the third and final floor of the very successful local business. The two of them stepped off of the escalator and started to look around for Amanda which was currently the only person that might've known where Gregg was, after a minute or so of looking around Mae tugged on Bea's shirt and pointed over to a glass counter that had several books on display, leaning against the counter talking to an employee behind it was a brown furred, brightly blue eyed, canine that had to have been Amanda. Bea and Mae approached Amanda and the employee behind the glass counter pointed to the two of them which alerted Amanda to their presence, the store's manager smiled widely and brightly as Mae and Bea approached her "Hello there! And welcome to the Survival Depot! What can I do for you?"

As Mae approached Amanda she saw that the canine was actually quite muscular and very good looking, once the other two were at an adequate distance from Amanda Bea answered the manager's question "We were hoping you could help us with something."

Amanda placed her hands on her hip still smiling brightly "And what can I help you with?"

Bea and Mae both looked at each other slightly nervous, they weren't sure how Amanda would react to their question so Mae, the queen of jumping head first into things without another thought, quickly asked "Gregg's gone missing and we were hoping if you may have know where he was yesterday?"

Amanda's smile melted away and a slightly concerned look on her face grew in the place of it "Oh... Well uh, Gregg was working on the second floor, he was tasked with restocking some of the shelves, and he left work perfectly fine."

Bea rubbed the back of her head "Is there any chance that you might've over heard what Gregg had planed after work?"

Amanda sighed "I'm not supposed to share personal information of employees with anyone other than officers... But I know Gregg, and I know that he hasn't been in town long enough to make an enemy who'd actually kidnap him.. So... Yes I did over hear something, Gregg was talking to another employee about a party the two of them had been invited to."

Mae's left ear twitched slightly as a twinge of hope and excitement surged through her body "Do you know where that party might've been?"

Amanda nodded "Yeah, it was being held at a restaurant called "A Little Bite of Italy" it's over by the lake, Angus should know where it is."

Bea raised an eyebrow inquisitively "How'd you know we know Angus?"

Amanda winked "You're searching for Gregg, and I know from the numerous times Gregg's said it, that he only has three friends.. One of which is his boyfriend."

Selmers walked down an aisle stocked with various kinds of hunting rifles, sitting on top of her shoulders was Lori who was looking around trying to find any of their friends. They had searched around for awhile and eventually found someone who said that Gregg had gone with one of his co-workers to a party at some restaurant but that was the only thing they could find out about what Gregg had done yesterday so they'd kinda given up and were now looking for their friends so they could relay their news to them. Lori rested her arms on top of Selmers's head "Do you think we'll actually be able to find Gregg?"

Selmers continued to walk forwards as she responded "Of course we will, why do you think we won't?"

Lori shrugged "I just... Well I have two different thoughts, one is that nobody can find Gregg and he's just missing forever, then the second thought is that WE can't find him but the police do.. And I just want to know, can we, or will we, find him?"

Selmers silently thought to herself for a moment "...I think that, if we can't find him then the police will, Gregg hasn't disappeared, he's still in town we just gotta find out where."

Lori was about to say something when she saw Angus come out of a door labeled "Employee only staircase" she quickly pointed at him and said "There's Angus!"

Selmers then walked over to Angus who smiled slightly when he saw Lori sitting on top of Selmers's shoulders. Once Selmers finally reached Angus she readjusted Lori's position on her shoulders "So.. Find anything out?"

Angus shrugged "Kinda, about the only thing I've found out is that he went to a party after work."

Lori perked up when Angus mentioned the party "That's the only thing we found out too!"

Angus scratched the bottom of his chin "Huh, it's kinda weird that that's the one thing the other employees know what Gregg did after work."

Lori nodded and Selmers did her best to nod without making Lori lose her balance, just then the three of them heard Mae yell over to them "Guys! Guys! We know where Gregg went after work!"

After Mae and Bea informed their other friends about how Gregg went to A Little Bite of Italy for a party Angus almost immediately had everyone leave the store and begin to make their way over to the restaurant along the way Selmers had Lori get off her shoulders because she couldn't feel her arms. When the finally arrived at the restaurant the sun was just barely starting to set and the almost purple but still very much blue glow of the sky made the lake shimmer as if it was filled with magical sparkles of watery perfection. The restaurant was a rather slim, two story high, red bricked, almost apartment looking building, on the front of the building next to it's double glass doors were two large windows that both had an image of the Leaning Tower of Pisa that had meat sauce covered spaghetti placed on top of it and had the name of the restaurant placed on top of the spaghetti topped tower. The restaurant was flanked on both sides by what looked to be an office building and a boat and bike rental shop, although it wasn't all that close to dinner time yet there was still a rather sizable amount of people sitting inside the restaurant already eating their supper, Bea looked over to Angus as she took one last drag off of her cigarette before blowing smoke out of her mouth "How are we gonna do this?"

Angus hesitated slightly before answering "I.. I don't know, I'm sure we can just ask some of the establishment's staff if they saw Gregg last night and figure things out from there."

Mae also looked over to Angus "I'm guessing that means I can't threaten to bash someone's kneecaps in if they don't tell me where Gregg was?"

Angus nodded and everyone in the group in unison said "Yes."

Before they all walked into the restaurant and as they did Bea tossed her cigarette's but into a trash can that sat outside. When they entered the smell of fine Italian cuisine being cooked fresh burst into their noses and made most of their mouth's almost water with hunger, but they were able to ignore the smell of food and replace it with the need to find Gregg, Mae then walked away from the group heading for a waiter how must've been on their brake or was just bad at their job because they were standing in the corner looking at their phone, Selmers looked over to Angus and Bea "Guess we slit up again."

Bea nodded sadly "Guess so, I'll go keep an eye on Mae."

She then followed after Mae while Angus and Lori walked over to another part of the store and leaving Selmers to just wonder around. Mae calmly approached the female dark scaled crocodile who was dressed in a black shirt, long black skirt, and had a white apron tied around her waist. Mae cleared her throat once she reached the waitress "Could I-"

The waitress immediately cut Mae off "I'm sorry but I'm actually off of work right now so I can't take your order."

Mae stood there confused for a moment "If you're off work then why are you still in your work clothes?"

The waitress rolled her eyes "Cuz my boyfriend hasn't gotten here yet."

Mae was still very confused "How does your boyfriend not being here affect you still being in your work clothes?"

The waitress groaned and turned off her phone before sliding it into a pocket on her apron "Because I live with my boyfriend and I forgot to bring my after-work clothes so I could change in the bathroom so I have to wait for him to come and pick me up so he can take me home."

Mae stood there silently as Bea approached her from behind. Bea looked over to Mae who was so confused that she just stood there staring at the waitress, Bea flicked Mae's right ear which quickly brought the cat back into reality, Bea then continued for Mae "We were wondering if you could help us with something that isn't food related."

The waitress sighed as she looked over to Bea "What is it?"

Bea crossed her arms and stared at the waitress with a deadpan face "You see yesterday our friend, Greggory Harper Lee, came here for a party and.. Well... After that he went missing, we were just hoping that you could give us some information on what he was like after the end of the party."

The waitress thought to herself for a moment "Sorry I wasn't here yesterday, it was my day off, but my boyfriend was there, he was the one hosting the party."

Just as the waitress finished her sentence Lori ran over to Mae and Bea "Guys Angus's got a lead."

Bea and Mae then followed Lori as they headed towards Angus, as they left the waitress behind Bea was half tempted to flip her off but she decided not to "make a scene" As her mother would put it. Angus, Selmers, and a yellow furred cat dressed in a plaid shirt and blue jeans were outside sitting at a table talking to each other. Bea, Mae, and Lori left the building and walked over to Angus. There were three chairs left empty for Mae, Bea, and Lori for them to sit in, once they sat down Angus looked over to his three other friends "Guys this is Richard Dunham he's a friend of Gregg's at work."

Richard waved "Hi'ya, I've heard that you need my help?"

Mae nodded "Yeah, Gregg's gone missing and... I don't know what makes you different from the rest of Survival Depot's employees."

Richard chuckled "Well I was the host of the party that happened here so I know what might've happened to Gregg."

Bea furrowed her brow "Might've?"

Richard nodded "Gregg left early so I don't know exactly what might've happened."

Angus sighed "Well any kind of information is welcome, what do you got?"

Richard then readjusted how he was sitting in his chair and placed his arms on top of the table "So after Gregg left and I went to the bathroom I heard the sounds of two people struggling to do something come through the bathroom's right wall, which is the wall that faces that ally right there."

He then pointed to an ally that separated the office building from the restaurant but it was blocked off by a chain link fence with a single gate that was locked. Bea looked away from the ally and back over to Richard "And?"

He then continued "Well I'm not one hundred percent sure what I'm about to say is true, but I think Gregg may have been dragged into the ally and the sound of two people struggling might've been Gregg trying to fight back. Of course at the time I didn't know Gregg was in danger of going missing so I didn't check out the noises."

Mae was tapping one of her fingers on the top of the table which was one of her nervous tendencies "But the gate's locked, how did someone drag Gregg into there?"

Richard grinned "The gate wasn't locked last night. It was shut, it just wasn't locked, I don't know why and at the time I hadn't thought twice about it so I didn't ask."

Selmers had her pencil out and had her notebook open but the pages were empty "How are we gonna get in there?"

He shrugged "Right now, you can't. But one thing I have noticed was that after the party, at around six the gate is left unlocked for whatever reason so if you wanna go looking for clues you gotta wait till them, and I suggest you do that by getting something to eat. Inside of course, cuz if whoever unlocks that gate sees you guys watching him he'll probably not unlock it."

Angus nodded "That's a good idea."

Everyone got up and Richard started to walk away when Mae asked him one last question "How did you know the gate keeps on getting unlocked at six?"

Richard then turned around and started to walk away backwards "I live on this street and I pass by this place all the time, so I know when something changes."

He then spun back around and continued to walk as the group reentered the restaurant. Their dinner was boring and slightly stressful, Mae had forgotten what everyone had for dinner because of the stress but despite that they had somehow stretched out their dinner to last till six at night. After paying for the meal the friend group left the restaurant and over to the chain link fence, Mae pushed the gate open "Okay... What now?"

Bea then started to walk into the ally as she answered "Like Richard said, we search for clues or evidence."

Everyone else then also entered the ally and started to look around, on both sides of the ally resting against the two different walls that made up ally were two large green dumpsters, and scattered all over the place was various kinds of trash ranging from plastic bottles to flattened boxes, and at the far end of the ally was a large brick wall that connected the restaurant to the office, and in the middle of that wall was a rusted green metal door. Mae looked at the wall with the metal door "What's with the wall?"

Angus, who was looking through a pile of candy wrappers, looked up from it and over to Mae "This area of the lake is prone to flooding at certain times of the year so any building that is near the lake is mandatory to have a wall high enough to block the rising water."

Mae looked away from the wall and over to Angus "I'm guessing that's why the door is rusty."

Angus shrugged "Could be, or it could just be an old door."

He then went back to sifting through the pile of wrappers and Mae started also look around for some clue as to what might've happened yesterday. Selmers suddenly stood up "I think I found something!"

Everyone then ran over to Selmers, who was holding a piece of paper, she then showed everyone the paper which read "Meet me at 7:14 at night."

But below that first sentence was another one in a different type of hand writing, and below that one was another sentence in the hand writing at the top of the paper, somebody was having a conversation on this paper over who knows what and it continued with: "You weren't here."

"Got caught up with personal business I'll make it tomorrow though."

"I'm starting to think you're fucking with me, this is the second time you haven't shown up."

"What do you want me to do? We need this money!"

"We have enough to do this."

"Yeah we have enough money, but if we use it we'll get caught. So if you don't want to get caught you're gonna let me keep on doing it."

"You weren't here all day."

"Dude something's happened, and it's freaked me right the fuck out, meet me here at 6:04 I promise I'll be here."

Lori looked up from the note and asked "What time is it?"

Angus then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone so he could check the time "It's.. 6:04."

Just then the metal door started to creek open. Everyone scattered, Lori, Angus, and Bea hid behind them dumpster on the restaurant's side of the ally while, Mae and Selmers hid behind the dumpster on the office's side of the ally, just as they all hid from view the metal door opened completely and someone started to walk down the ally, plastic and glass shards crunched their shoes as they walked. Mae scanned the spot she was hiding in, fear and anger started to eat away at her, she believed wholeheartedly that the person who was walking down the ally was the same person that kidnapped Gregg, and Mae wanted to knock the kidnapper's teeth in. As the person started to walk farther down the ally getting closer to the dumpsters Mae found a metal pipe and picked it up, she held the pipe like a bat and just as she was about to jump out from behind the dumpster and attack the person walking down the ally Selmers tugged at Mae's shirt and whispered "What are you doing?"

Mae then whispered back "I'm about to fuck that guy up."

She then jumped out from behind the dumpster, yelling, she held the bat up ready to strike the kidnapper, but when Mae jumped out from behind the dumpster and saw the other person she couldn't believe her eyes "Steve Scriggins?!"

Steve was holding a brown cardboard box in his arms, he was wearing a dark green jacket that had a sergeant symbol pointing downwards on his left sleeve, under his jacket was a dark grey undershirt, he was also wearing a pair of blue jeans and brown work boots, that outfit was the same one Steve wore when he first met Mae. Steve was at first shocked by Mae when she jumped out from behind the dumpster holding a metal pipe but when she yelled out his name Steve glared at Mae "What the fucking are you doing back here?" Mae lowered the metal pipe but she didn't let go of it "No the question in what are YOU doing back here Steve?"

As Mae finished her question her friends stepped out form behind the dumpsters they were hiding behind and walked over to Mae, Steve rolled his eyes "God, seriously what are you ladies doing back here?"

Mae then pointed her pipe at Steve's face "Answer my question Scriggins."

He readjusted his grip on the box filled with who knows what "Fine.. My parents and brother lives here."

Bea's eyes didn't look at Steve's face but her head did face him, Steve saw how Bea was trying to avoid looking at him and he inspected her, she seemed familiar to him but he couldn't place his finger on it, that was till a memory resurfaced in his mind and it all kicked "BeaBea? Holy hell, what are you doing with these ladies?"

Mae's eyes widened in complete shock "WHAT?!"

Bea groaned and finally made eye contact with Steve "These are my friends, Stevie Scriggs."

He shook his head "Please don't ever call me that again."

Bea folded her arms on top of her chest "Then don't ever call me BeaBea."

While Bea and Steve talked to each other Mae continued to look at the both of them in shock "HOW DO YOU TWO KNOW EACH OTHER?!"

Steve grinned slyly "Heh, well let's just say I gave her the time of her life."

Bea rolled her eyes "You wish... Mae you remember when those teens at the graveyard made us spill some personal memories to them?"

Mae shook her head and Bea continued "You remember my story of Math Camp?"

Mae shook her head slowly hoping that Bea wasn't about to say what she thought she was about to say and Bea finished "I never told you the guy I did it with, but now I will.. It's this fucker right here."

She pointed right at Steve and he continued to grin slyly "Guilty as charged."

Mae then ran her hands along the sides of her head "Okay okay okay, none of that matters. Because Steve here kidnapped Gregg."

Steve chuckled "Jesus Borowski jumped to conclusions much?"

Mae shook her head while Bea nodded, Mae took the paper from Selmers and showed it to Steve "How do you explain this?"

Steve made a motion that showed he couldn't hold the paper and the box so Mae placed it on top of the box so Steve could read it. After he finished reading it Steve looked up from the paper and over to Mae "First, whoever dug this out of the trash is gonna need some kind of shot. Second, this little paper is a secret between me and my brother so I'm not gonna explain it, and fuck you I haven't kidnapped Gregg."

Bea huffed "How the hell can we trust you?"

Steve shrugged "That's your choice but think about this, why would I take him?"

Everyone went silent in thought, eventually Mae sighed "He's right, he has no motive."

She then dropped the pipe on the ground and crossed her arms in disappointment. Bea then spoke up "Aright so you haven't taken Gregg, but we still have three more questions that need to be answered."

He rolled his eyes "Shoot."

Bea then continued "First is what are you doing here?"

Steve hesitated slightly before answering "I- I'm visiting my parents for the next few weeks for my mother's birthday, soooo me and my brother are secretly trying to get her a present, and before you ask that's what the note is for."

Bea then asked the next question "You said before that you live here?"

He nodded "Yeah I live 'round here but you aren't getting anything other than that so don't even tr-"

Just then, a light came through a window on the second floor of the restaurant before it slid open and a dark blue scaled crocodile stuck his upper body out of it, nobody could see what he was wearing other than a white tank top, the croc then stared straight down at Steve "Hurry up!"

The other crocodile had an oddly Italian accent, Steve rolled his eyes and turned to face the other croc "I would've been done by now.. If these assholes hadn't popped out of nowhere and interrogated me!"

The other croc looked over to Mae and her friends then back to Steve "What do they want?"

Steve shot a quick glare at Mae before answering "An old friend of mine from Possum Springs has gone missing apparently and they've accused me of taking him."

The other croc looked back over to Mae and friends "I know that Steve's a bit of a criminal but trust me, he hasn't had the opportunity to kidnap anyone since he's started his visit."

Steve silently muttered to himself "Gee thanks Andy."

Mae stepped forwards and spoke up "Wait, you're Steve's brother?"

The other croc nodded "Yeah, name's Andrew, but you can call me Andy."

Lori silently said to herself "He's already nicer than Steve."

Then the sound of someone talking to Andy came from the window. Once the other person finished talking to Andy he looked back over to Steve "Dad says he's found it so hurry up."

Mae then stepped in front of Steve "Found what?"

He grunted and rolled his eyes "A stupid possum snuck into our basement, and this box is filled with ingredients that rodent's taken a bite out of."

Selmers then spoke up "Wait, you live on top of the restaurant?"

Steve nodded "Mom and dad run it, mom's the cook dad handles the financial crap."

Andy then spoke up again "Yeah and if you don't hurry up dad's gonna put several bullet holes in the basement if we don't get down there."

Steve the shouted back to Andy "I'm going!"

He then shoved past Mae and her friends heading for the exit of the ally. As Steve shoved the gate open with his foot Mae yelled over to him "Wait! Do you have any sort of idea on what happened to Gregg?!"

Steve then yelled over to Mae "I don't know! Ask Andy!"

Before finally leaving the ally heading, Mae then turned around and looked up to Andy "So, do you have any idea on what happened to Gregg?"

He shrugged "Maybe, Gregg's that yellow fox right?"

Angus nodded "Yes he was here yesterday for a party."

Andy nodded "He was here for that party.. Yeah I may have an idea as to what happened to him, I saw him walk home but some body was stalking behind him... Although that guy could've been high off his mind and was just walking weirdly behind Gregg."

Angus stepped forwards trying to get closer to Andy "Is that all you saw?"

He nodded sadly "I'm sorry but no. I didn't see anything after that."

Angus sighed "Alright."

He then turned around and faced his friends "Let's.. Head back to my place."

Angus then started to walk away when Andy spoke up "Hey! I may not have seen what happened to Gregg but I think I can still help. There's a guy I know, he's a... How can I put this, he's like a hacker I guess. Anyways he can probably get access to some traffic cameras and find out what happened to Gregg."

Angus turned back around "Wait what?"

Andy nodded "Yeah, stop by tomorrow uh there's a door labeled "Private Staircase" in the restaurant it leads up to here, my parent's place, just knock on it and I'll let you in."

Angus nodded "Alright, yeah, okay! When should we come over?"

Andy shrugged "I don't care when just make sure it sometime in the day."

Angus nodded again "Got it."

He then turned back around and started to walk out of the ally, Mae and her friends then followed Angus out of the ally as he headed back to his apartment.