I was told that my information was slightly off in the first chapter. "Sidney" was spelled "Sydney", and Walker was not six foot tall but five foot two. Sorry for the mixup.
Chelsea Meets Her Father
Part 2
Monday morning came, and Walker told Chelsea that she had to ride the bus to and from school so that Rodriguez wouldn't connect the two of them together. She agreed, but was disappointed to hear that. Over the weekend, her father worked with her martial arts skills and taught her a few fatal moves. She was also told about the senator's niece being kidnaped by the man that they are chasing. The senator's niece had only been missing for a few days, and was a few years younger than her. When she got home with her father, she thought that she had gotten away without a punishment or lecture from him about reading case files. She was wrong, he did give her a lecture on the importance of not doing so. Also to enforce the necessity of it, he called Alex, who was away on a two week criminal lawyer conference in Houston, to tell her what could happen if she was caught by Walker's boss.
Chelsea got on the bus as planned, but she didn't see the old beat up pickup truck parked behind some trees. The bus took off toward the middle school she attends, and the truck followed at a distance behind it. A few minutes passed, before the bus pulled up to the front of the school to let the kids off. She stepped off the bus and moved a few feet away before taking a look around her like her father said to do, just in case if she could catch a tail. She mentally filed everything she saw in her mind, almost like taking a mental picture of her surroundings. She didn't see her friend walk up to her until he spoke, "Hey Chelsea, wuz up?"
Chelsea spun around to look into her friend's hazel green eyes, hiding behind his red bangs. She smiled at him before answering back, "Nothing, Sean. How was your weekend?" She asked him, while she was making her way into the school building to get off the sidewalk to see if any one would follow her inside. She also knew that she really can't tell Sean anything about her weekend. She listened to him tell her about his fishing trip with his father, and that he had caught a nine pound bass, but had to through it back because it was too long. They were able to get to their lockers before the first bell rang, and they parted ways. She opened her locker and retrieved her books for her morning classes, before leaving to her first class of the day.
Chelsea's first class of the day was PE, so she went immediately into the locker room to change into the proper outfit. Once she was done, she exited into the gym and sat down in her assigned spot waiting for the class to start. She was slightly surprised to see Ranger Francis Gage walk out onto the floor in a similar outfit and introduce himself, "Hello class. My name is Frank Green, but you may call me Mr. Green your substitute teacher for a few weeks. Your regular teacher had gotten sick over the weekend with the flu." He looked over the class very carefully, when he looked in her direction he seemed to look at her for a few moments longer that the rest of the class. Once he had a general idea of how many students there are, he began to start the class by doing roll call.
The rest of the class went smoothly, and Chelsea had a pretty good workout. Gage had let the class cool down before letting them go change back into their school clothes and reapply their deodorant. Her next class was home room, and she did not receive a sub there. Nor did she get one in English and Computers, but her last class of the day she got the surprise of her life. She walked into her science class only to find Ranger Sydney Cooke erasing the chalkboard, she didn't say anything to her friend turned adoptive aunt so that she won't jeopardize the assignment. She really didn't think Sydney could do much science as was required in the class she was expected to teach to a bunch of seventh graders.
The tardy bell rang and Sydney had shut the door to signal that tardiness will not be tolerated by her. She had turned to the class and took a slow look around and stopping like her partner did earlier, she looked for a few extra moments at Chelsea before continuing her classroom sweep. Once that was done, she introduced herself, "I'm Sandra Clark, but you may call me Miss Clark. Your regular teacher had gotten sick with the flu this past weekend, so I will be taking his place." She started in a tone that told everyone that she will not accept disrespect to her or the class, and she then told them under no certain terms should she allow anyone to enter her class late without a pass from a faculty member. Other than that, Chelsea found the class to run efficiently and effectively. (She also found out that Sydney knew more about science than she led everyone at the office to believe.) The dismissal bell rang as the class was finishing up the end of the chapter questions. As the class began to gather their things to leave for the day, Sydney barked out over the noise of the class "If you haven't finished your class work and handed it in to me, I expect you to finish it for homework and handed it in before the tardy bell rings the next time I see you. Miss Walker, I need to speak with you before you leave." She watched as the young woman nodded her head in answer to her request.
Chelsea knew that Sydney had something important to tell her, of what was anybody's guess. She continued to slow down her packing of her backpack, but not quiet slow enough to give herself away, to give the rest of the class enough time to leave the room before walking up to Sydney. Still being careful Chelsea used the name she gave the class earlier, "You wanted to see me, Miss Clark." She watched the look of surprise spread across the older woman's face, before she answered her.
"Yes, Chelsea, I did. Your father told me to tell you to be careful until he comes home. We all have to stay on school grounds until five o'clock, state law unless there are plans that can't be broken." Sydney passed on the message from Walker. She watched as the young girl nodded her head in understanding and thanked her, before leaving the room to hurry and catch the bus before it left. When she cleared the door, Sydney picked up the phone and dialed an extension to tell Walker that his daughter had left for the day.
Later that evening, Walker pulled up in his trademark pickup truck in front of his ranch house. He parked the massive vehicle and entered his house through the front porch door, and smelled something delicious coming from the kitchen. He had to go see what his daughter was doing in there, so he quietly walked in and stopped in his tracks and smiled big. He saw Chelsea standing at the stove stirring a pot of something and he noticed the oven was on. He leaned against the door jam and watched her do whatever she was doing, he did notice that she had on his apron he used whenever he barbeque on the grill. She cut off the burner that the pot sat on, and then check the stuff in the oven. She must have decided that it was done, because she pulled it out and sat it on the stove next to the pot. She turned around and jumped as if she saw a fairly large spider, "Daddy, why do you do that? You seem to know whenever I'm sneaking around behind your back. Supper is done. I thought we could have some baked chicken, a pot of mixed vegetables, and some slices of bread." She calmed down as she realized it was her father standing in the doorway, and pulled off the apron she had on.
Walker answered her, as he pushed himself off of the door frame. "I didn't expect you to make supper, Sweetheart. Supper sounds good, as well as smell delicious. To make up for my little habit, how about I teach you how to do that later? Okay?" He asked as he gave Chelsea a hello hug and kiss. He fixed his and his daughter's plates and sat down with her to eat. He asked the usual questions, 'How was your day?' and 'Anything I should know about?'. She told him how her day went, and also told him about the pick up that seemed to follow her bus this morning. She failed to get a license plate number due to the distance between her and the vehicle. Her father told her to look for it again tomorrow morning on the way to school. She told him she would do as he asked. By the time they had eaten, it was Chelsea's bedtime. She gave Walker a good-night hug and kiss, and went to bed for the night. Her father followed her shortly, after putting up the leftovers and cleaning up what little mess there was to clean.
TO BE CONTINUEDRight after I listened to Ray Stevens' 'Too Drunk To Fish' for the umpth time.
