Chapter Three
'Miss Lucy' Jones was an 82-year old woman with a head of curly gray hair and a kindly smile. Her house was one of the largest in town, yet she lived alone, which was pretty convenient for Darien and Bobby. She gladly accepted them and let them stay in two of her upstairs rooms.
"You know, I don't usually get any visitors," she commented as she led them upstairs to their rooms. "It's so nice to see new faces."
"We really can't thank you enough for your hospitality, ma'am," Bobby added gratefully.
"Oh, it's really no hassle." She stopped in front of a door. "And, please, call me Lucy. Ok, one of you may stay in this room and the other may stay here," she said, pointing to a door to the right of the first.
"I'm staying in this one," Darien volunteered, dropping a book bag full of important overnight things in front of the left door. The bag landed with a thud and accented the momentary silence.
The silence seemed to satisfy Lucy that things were satisfactory, so she smiled and started downstairs. Halfway down she stopped and called up, "There's only about an hour of sunlight left, so if you boys want to do some sight-seeing, you might want to hurry up and get unpacked." Then she made it downstairs and disappeared behind the wall.
Fawkes entered his room, and saw Bobby do likewise. The room was fairly large with a bed against the wall closest to the giant window straight ahead of him. There was a dark brown wooden dresser with a mirror above it, and paintings covering the antique-gold colored walls. The room had a yellow glow about it from the sun, and gave off a home-like feeling.
Darien whistled in awe. "Hey, Hobbes," he called over to his friend, hoping his voice would carry through the two opened doors. "Is your room this nice?"
"If by nice you mean mansion-worthy, then yeah, this room is nice." There was a short pause while they both admired the beautifully adorned rooms. Then Hobbes continued. "You know, I could really get used to this, my friend."
"Oh yeah."
~*~*~
"It's time to advance to step two," announced a man with a strange accent that sounded almost French. His face was masked by the dark shadows that engulfed the small room, but nonetheless the group congregated in front of him seemed intimidated and held on to his every word in fear. His name was Arnaud de Fohn, and he had some unfinished business with Darien Fawkes. If this was the only way to get his attention, so be it. He gave a small, evil smile as he thought of what was soon going to happen. "Once I have Darien Fawkes in my grasp, I can leave this miserable town. Take into consideration that it is in your best interest to help me. If I see another incident like Miss Sheridan, I will not hesitate to repeat her… "accident"." He stopped to look around at the group and heard a few gasps from the people. Satisfied that they would help him, Arnaud grinned and left.
At first everyone was too shocked to say anything. But after a long period of nothing, a man broke through the silence. "What's the problem, huh? We help 'im get this… Fawkes guy, an' he leaves us alone. Ah don't see any obstacles here. Ah say we lure 'im here where we'll be waitin'. We'll hand 'im over, an' they're both offa our hands."
No one spoke up against the plan.
~*~*~
"All I'm saying is that someone as strong as Superman wouldn't even consider wearing spandex. I'm telling you, my friend, if they made that part up, how can we believe anything else they say about him?" Bobby explained as they walked around the town.
Darien, walking to his right, rolled his eyes with a small laugh. "Hobbes, you do realize that Superman was made up? I mean, come on. A Man that can fly and lift planes?"
"Kind of like a man that can go invisible, right?"
"Well… okay, point taken."
"A-ha, see? Bobby Hobbes is not so easily fooled. But I still don't underatnd one thing. You know how everyone always says, 'It's a bird- it's a plane- it's Superman'? Well, how can he look as small as a bird, then as big as a plane in a couple seconds? It just doesn't make sense."
"Give it up, Bobby."
"I'm just saying…"
"It's not real!"
"So says you!"
"Look, can we focus on the case so we can go home?" Darien suggested before Hobbes could say anything else.
"Point taken, okay?" He nodded, holding his hands up in defeat. "So what's the plan, then?"
Fawkes feigned confusion and scratched his head with his left hand. "Plan?"
"You mean we don't have a plan?"
"Do we ever? At least never a good one."
"No, but I assumed…"
Darien interrupted him. "The only thing I can think of is that we should look around during the day, maybe tlak to a few people, then at night I do some investigating of my own."
"I'd call that a plan."
"Well I just thought it up after I said we didn't have a plan."
"But that's still a plan."
"Ok, I get it, all right? Let's just find someone to talk to already."
"Good plan." Hobbes nodded and followed Darien's advice, which he figured wouldn't be too hard, considering the size of the town. "But what do we do? Go up to some old lady and say, 'Hi, we're federal agents. We don't mean to alarm you, but we want to know everything about this woman who was recently murdered so we can arrest the perp and get out of here.' It just isn't going to work, Fawkes. Besides, there's something… I dunno, wrong about this town. I can feel it. And Bobby Hobbes can tell when there's something evil going on."
Darien didn't reply: he knew Bobby was right. So they kept walking, until about two feet later a teenager about seventeen or so walked up to them. The boy had yellow headphones over his ears and bleach-blonde hair spikes. He was dressed in all black- jeans that seemed five sizes too big and a baggy t-shirt which was about a shade lighter than the pants. He didn't smile, and looked almost intimidating. After pulling the headphones down, he looked at the two agents with a solemn face and whispered, "You two are federal agents?"
"You heard us with those headphones on?" Bobby asked skeptically.
"They're not loud. Anyway, I guess you're here to investigate Lindsay's murder, right?"
"Lindsay… that was her name?" Darien asked, finding it was weird to think of the victim with a name. He began imagining the life she lived before death and the thought scared him a little. He pushed it into the back of his mind and looked forward.
"Obviously." The boy said sourly, but Darien suspected that it wasn't just because of the usual expected teenage attitude, but sadness.
"Do you know what happened?" Bobby questioned the boy. "And what's with the hair? You could poke an eye out with those spikes."
"Hey, tone down the attitude a bit, there, baldy. Unless you don't wanna hear what happened." Bobby glared at the kid, rubbing a hand over his head self-consciously, but was silent. "Ok. My name's Oz Sheridan. Lindsay was my sister, and that's the only reason I'm tellin' you any of this. If anyone finds out…"
"They won't, okay?" Darien reassured Oz, although he wondered if he would be able to keep that from happening.
"It doesn't matter anyway. I just you to get this asshole out of Hafen."
"So it's not someone from town?" Bobby asked. He didn't really trust Oz yet, but so far he was the only one who gave them information. Once they got more stories to compare, he could decide who was lying. Listening to a lie wasn't going to hurt anything, just waste time.
"No. About a week ago this weird-lookin' guy came into Hafen and just sort of took over, not like it must've been very hard or anything. He just used everyone's fears against them. And my sis was an example of what would happen if they disobeyed him."
"What did she do?" Darien was feeling a wave of deja-vu come over him, as he thought of his brother, Kevin, who was killed for no good reason. Kevin was a scientist who had helped the Agency develop The Gland that currently resided in Darien's head.
Oz shrugged his shoulders and his blue eyes turned downward. "The guy- y'know, the one who took over the town, I'm not quite sure what his name is- he caught her trying to call the police. So he shot her. He killed her for doing the right thing. And I want him to pay for it. I'd say getting him arrested is a good enough way to get payback, wouldn't you?"
Darien nodded, surprised that jail was enough revenge for the kid. When he heard that his brother had been killed, he wanted to go out and kill the man who murdered him. Arnaud. Darien had even tried to kill him before, but the man still lived. He wished that he didn't have such a desire to do such damage, and apparently Oz had a reasonable way of revenge.
"Ok. But there's sort of a problem."
"Isn't there always?"
"I'm assuming since you two're the only ones here that I don't know one of you has to be Darien Fawkes, right?"
"That would be me. Trouble just seems to follow me around." Darien shook his head and sighed. "Now what is it?"
"Well, I'm tryin' to help you guys and all, but I'm the only one in town." Seeing the confused faces staring back at him, he continued. "See, the only way this dude's gonna leave is if he gets you," he said, pointing to Darien. "And since everyone wants him out of here, they're kind of… helping him."
"This is great, just great. A town full of people after me." Then Darien paused a second. "But I want to know one thing- who would want me bad enough to hold a whole town hostage? And who would be vicious enough to do it in the first place?"
Bobby chuckled lightly. "You're not exactly narrowing down any lists. I think everyone after you would go to these lengths to get what they want."
"That's true," Darien agreed. "So you don't know anything about this guy? Not even something that stands out?"
"Well," Oz began, "he has some weird name, I think he mentioned it once. Plus, he has this really strange accent. I can't really explain it."
"Damn."
"What? You know who it is?" Oz asked.
"Arnaud," Bobby and Darien chorused.