"Quick take a left," Dawn said as she pulled Clark down an aisle.
Marion's Art Depot was the spot in Sunnydale for arts and crafts needs.
Its aisles were vast and twisting, clearly not the beneficiary of much central planning, and the air was thick with a pungent, acrylic smell, maybe from dyes, or the fake plants.
It was also located a hop, skip, and a jump away from the former residence/current murder scene of one Christopher Palumbo.
"This plan is insane," Clark said as he was dragged along by this girl a head shorter than him and half at least as thin.
"Relax, Clark, this is gonna work. You just need to zip in there-"
"-into an active crime scene in the middle of the day."
"Don't be dramatic. It's like, early evening at most. I'm sure everyone's gone home by now. Is he still behind us?"
They dodged between some customers.
"We left him a few aisle back. Which, by the way, he's going to be totally suspicious of."
"Hey, you let me worry about Xander, you've got one job." Dawn slowed to a stop to avoid elbowing an old lady pushing her cart along just fast enough to make it to the next aisle in time for the heat death of the universe.
Dawn looked around, picked another, empty aisle, and dragged Clark into it.
She turned to face him, dropping his wrist from her grip.
"Should I tell you all the ways this could go wrong?" he asked.
She held up a finger to his face to silence him. "Never tell me the odds. Clark, is this really any harder than the other stuff we've been doing? I mean, we basically just pulled off the same caper in that Keane chick's place."
Clark's mouth dropped open. "I'm sorry, do you consider that rolling dumpster fire a success story? Shall I count the ways? We were five seconds away from getting caught, who knows what evidence we left behind, we had to ju-"
Clark looked around abruptly. Then he lowered his head and leaned in much closer, his voice a harsh whisper. "We had to jump across a freaking street and land in a tree. These do not a success make."
Dawn leaned back, bumping into the rack of foam polygons behind her. "Listen, Clark-" her face twisted and she suddenly leaned in again and sniffed. "What is...are you wearing cologne?"
Clark backed up. "It's my dad's."
"It's nice."
"Uh huh, don't try to deflect-"
"Also, you've gotta stop getting all close and pressing me up against walls and stuff, dude. People are gonna get the wrong idea."
Clark groaned and turned away.
Dawn could see the tips of his ears turning red as he stepped further away from her. She took advantage of that window to smirk at his back, wiping it away as soon as he turned back around.
"Your bodyguard already has the wrong idea."
Dawn frowned. "Huh? Who are you talking about?"
"Mr. Harris-"
"-it's too weird that you call him that-"
"-whatever, he's about ninety percent sure we're up to something."
Dawn's eyes widened. "Oh crap, he suspects us?"
"Um, he definitely suspects us of something, but not what we're doing."
Dawn stared at him. "Oh...oh."
"Yeah, which is the reason, one of the reasons-"
"-that explains why he's been all over us lately. He thinks we're like, sneaking off for smoochies or something."
"...right, which is why-"
"How dare he!" Dawn's eyes were snapping with fury. "Xander may be basically family, but he doesn't get to pick who I date! Even if I were gonna date you, which, no offense Clark-"
"-oh, yeah, don't worry about it. I'm not keen on it either-"
"-he doesn't have any right to disapprove of…" Dawn narrowed her eyes at Clark. "Wait, what do you mean you're not keen on it?"
Clark blinked. "Huh?"
"Why wouldn't you want to date me?"
"Uh...what?"
"That hurts, Kent. I mean like, really cold. Sub Zero."
"What, no! I didn't mean it like that, I was just saying…"
I would never survive a relationship with you, Clark thought. But his common sense had come back from lunch break so he didn't say that.
"...you know, we shouldn't, cause we're friends. Wait, hold on! Don't make this about this, this is not the point. The point is that, right or not, Mr. Harris is appointing himself your romantic watchdog-"
Dawn huffed.
"-which means he is going to be keeping his eyes on us at all times when we're together. He's tearing through the place right now trying to find us. Which is one of the many reasons I'll never be able to sneak off for who knows how long and creep through an active crime scene."
"Clark, look at me. Look me in the eyes. I've been twisting Xander Harris to my whim like a goddamn bendy straw since I was like, nine. I can handle him."
Clark shook his head. "I wonder which comic book supervillain you were in your past life. Either way, that still leaves the fact that my target is under active investigation."
Dawn turned thoughtful. "How long would it take you to get over there?"
"Not sure. Super-speed in broad daylight is risky. Anywhere from one to five minutes."
"And how long would it take to search the house?"
"No clue, especially since I have no idea what I'm looking for."
Dawn bit her lip, crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the floor. "Can you search through the house at super-speed?"
"Not without destroying the place."
Dawn sighed and scratched her head. "Okay, it might be a little more risky than I thought-"
"-thank you-"
"-but we're out of leads, and we're low on time, Clark. Once it's nightfall, it's only a matter of time before that thing comes back out to play. We need all the info we can get."
Clark stared at her, then he sighed, shoulders slumping. "How long can you keep Mr. Harris occupied before he gets suspicious."
"Thirty minutes, maybe forty...will that be enough?"
"It'll have to be." Clark turned and looked down the row of aisles. "He'll be here soon. Time for me to go."
"Right!" Dawn stuck her arm straight out, palm facing down.
Clark stared at the outstretched hand, silently questioning.
"You know, like in football movies. We break on three for the play or whatever."
Clark just shook his head and walked past her.
Dawn's jaw dropped open as she stared at his vanishing back.
"Wow," she said, "just gonna go huh? Just gonna leave me hanging? That's messed up, I thought we were a team. Fine, that's fine, I'll do it myself, I don't care."
She looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then she bobbed her hand up and down.
"One, two, three, break!"
Must be nice to have money, Clark thought as he jumped Palumbo's gate, easily two and change times his height.
Clark had made it to the house in two minutes, but had spent another paranoid three minutes listening for company.
The house seemed empty, but Clark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
So here he went, alone into the dungeon. The house was large and cubey, very mid-century modern.
Clark ducked under the crime tape over the entrance and stepped inside. The place was done almost like a roman villa. It had three sides with an open atrium in the center which led to a large pool towards the back of the house which overlooked a steep drop off the cliff the house was perched on.
The air was heavy with incense.
Clark moved slowly through the first floor. Not much to go on. Lots of modern art, musical paraphernalia, some pieces that Clark couldn't distinguish as furniture or abstract sculpture.
Clark headed out into the atrium. A large cherry tree sat in the center. The petals rustled with a faint wind.
A lot of sculptures stood in the grass here, done in the roman style. Idealized versions of the nude male form.
Clark walked around it, moved out to the pool.
The water was still tinged with red.
This is where you died, Clark thought.
He moved past it, stepped to the edge of the cliff.
No railing. From here he could see out over the country, the vast forest at the edge of town right below.
Clark stepped away. He turned around, looked up.
One of the rooms on the second floor had a veranda that overlooked the grounds.
Evidence, clues...what am I even looking for?
He needed to find it fast. Clark could see the sun getting low, growing deeply orange.
Clark moved back into the house, moved to the stairs up to the second floor. The hardwood groaned a little under his feet.
There was a creaking sound, and Clark froze. He listened.
No encore.
One of the random noises houses sometimes make?
Clark stopped at the foot of the stares and noticed a clock on the wall right next to it.
He noticed it because the clock was wrong. He listened, but couldn't hear any gears or any sound at all from it. It had stopped at 12:50.
Weird.
He moved on. He got to the second floor and saw a clock on the hallway wall. He frowned at it. This one was wrong too, but it wasn't wrong in the same way. This one read 12:45 with the long hand pointed toward the nine.
Odd, why should both clocks be wrong in different ways?
Clark felt his breath grow short.
Unless, the walls aren't telling the time. Maybe the arms are pointing.
From the bottom of the stairs, the other clock's long arm could have been pointing at the 10...or it could have been pointing up the stairs.
Clark followed the direction the long arm was pointing with his eyes. At the end of the corridor was a door.
It was slightly open.
Clark felt his heart start to quicken.
Come one, don't be silly. There's no way…
But then, Sunnydale was that kind of town.
Clark gulped and shook his head, moving down the hallway past several tribal masks from Africa and Australia that stared down at him.
Clark moved just a little faster.
He got to the door and pushed it gently open.
It was a bedroom.
"H-hello…"
No response.
Clark felt himself color with embarrassment. He stepped into the room. A computer sat on a large glass desk in the far corner to his left next to a closet.
The far wall was more a giant window, the sliding blinds pulled closed so that the room was in almost total darkness save for little slots of light that filtered in through the cracks.
Clark turned.
To his right in the far corner was a king sized bed.
Right above it was another clock, small hand on the 12, long hand pointed down, to the six, straight to the bed.
Clark looked back down the corridor. Was it him, or had the masks tilted ever so slightly, so that they could watch him?
Clark clapped his face.
I've got to hustle, this place is damaging my calm.
Clark went over to the bed.
He felt a cold breath on the back of his neck.
He jumped and spun, hands out to protect himself.
There was nothing there.
His heart pounded as his eyes darted around. Eventually he looked up.
He'd passed under an air vent.
Clark shook his head and continued to the bed. There wasn't anything in it.
He looked back up at the clock.
It still pointed down.
Clark lowered himself to the floor and checked under the bed.
There was a large book on the floor. Clark reached in and pulled it out.
He wiped some incidental dust off it and read the cover.
Sunnydale High School Yearbook, Class of 1999.
Clark started flipping through it.
There's Chris Palumbo.
He continued flipping, froze on a particular page.
Buffy Summers.
Dawn's sister.
The doppelganger.
Palumbo was in her graduating class.
A dim flash of light in the corner of his eye caused him to whip his head up.
It was the desktop, its 'sleep' indicator was blinking.
Clark's fingers grew numb.
Was...was that always on?
How had he not noticed it before?
I'm just getting really distracted. It must have been on, he told himself.
Clark walked over and gently moved the mouse. The screen flicked to life. He was either already logged on, or the computer didn't need a password.
Maybe one of the CSI people was looking it over and left it on…
Clark quickly scanned through his emails.
Nothing too interesting, until one.
An email from a 'S_Grant ' which read,
"I suppose you think this one is the end of me? You think I won't recover from this? I've been putting up with your campaign of terror since the seventh grade. I'll survive.
"You though, you think your daddy's money makes you untouchable, but no one can escape karma. Your rotten behavior is gonna come back around for you. You can bet on that."
Clark glanced at the username.
S Grant.
A memory clawed to the surface. Clark flipped back through the yearbook until he found it.
The name Simon Grant below the portrait of a thin, dusty haired kid, a few years older than Clark at the time of the photo. Clark flipped through again, looking for another page.
There, the section of the yearbook dedicated to clubs. Simon Grant of the art club, posed next to a sculpture he'd made. Clark's eyes grew wide.
The detail was incredible, almost like a living thing.
So, Simon was a sculptor. Chances were he'd been in the contest. He'd been to school with both Buffy Summers and Chris Palumbo, apparently being the victim of the latter's bullying for years. Finally, he was a student at UCSD. Could he have a class with the late Professor Wescott?
How many coincidences was too many in a town this size? Either way, Mr. Grant was looking like a good next step.
Clark suddenly sat up when he heard something from the street. The sound of brakes, a car coming to a stop.
Clark set the book down and rolled the chair over to the window and gently pulled the blinds back a fraction.
A squad car had pulled up in front of the house. A uniformed officer got out, slamming the door shut and steadily surveying the area.
As soon as the man turned toward the house, Clark recognized him.
He was the officer who'd stopped Dawn and him when they'd first come by to check out the house.
Officer Cohen.
Clark watched Officer Cohen start towards the house.
Oh crap.
Cohen paused at the gate. His body suddenly grew tense. Clark saw him close his eyes and take several long, deep breaths.
He freed his gun from its holster.
What?
Clark had no more time for confusion. Cohen crouched low and started swiftly moving towards the house.
Clark let the blind fall back into place and quickly got out of the chair. He left the room. He couldn't go back downstairs, all the idiotic giant windows meant Cohen would see him immediately.
Clark darted down the corridor to another room.
He heard the rustle of tape as Cohen ducked into the house.
"This is SDPD," he said, "come out with your hands up."
How does he know I'm here?
Clark didn't have time to puzzle it out. If he remembered correctly, this room should lead to a veranda overlooking the back.
Clark gently pushed the door open, wincing at every squeak. He stepped into the room and froze.
In the corner was another stature, done in the same style as the ones outside. This one had a blue ribbon signifying that it was the statue Palumbo had won the contest with (bribery aside).
It was pretty impressive, but that wasn't what arrested Clark.
Its face…
A few details were stretched and shifted slightly, but there was no mistaking the core of it.
It was a statue on Simon Grant.
Why did Palumbo make a sculpture of this guy he had been terrorizing half his life?
Clark heard a creak on the stairs. Cohen was on the move.
No time to speculate.
Clark moved across the room, opened the sliding glass door as silently as he could, stepped out onto the veranda, and closed it behind him.
He heard Cohen's swift steps.
If he makes it to the window, he'll see me.
Clark lept off the veranda, he hit the grass with a soft thud.
Clark darted across the grounds, weaving through the statues as he heard the turn of the doorknob.
The door opened.
Clark stepped off the edge of the cliff into the open air.
He fell in silence.