Chapter 5- Secrets Revealed

They split up into groups, Anza and Tehama were going to go and search the school records of transfer students, Fillmore and O'Farrel were going back to HQ to interview the witness on tape, and Cody and Ingrid were going to the library to check the sign up sheets for clubs and teams to see if West was on any of them.

Walking in the opposite direction of Anza and Tehama just with Ingrid, although his mind was completely focused on the case, he couldn't think about anything else right now. This is bad, he thought, Jack didn't say anything about a fire, he said a bit of vandalism but not a fire like that…. damnit I need to talk to him about whatever he changed. How can he expect me to help him if he tries to have me killed? Unless that wasn't one of his men, but then who was it? What's going on? I am so confused With that thought he looked up and saw Ingrid also deep in thought, looking ahead he saw Jack standing there with Shawn. This would probably be bad timing but I need to know what is going on! He glanced at Ingrid again she hadn't even noticed that she was about to walk into a signpost. Reaching out an arm he caught her arm and pulled her towards him and away from the signpost.

Why is he here? I thought that he was in a juvenile detention center, unless he got out on good behavior but I doubt it, Ingrid frowned at her next thought, what if he came here and is causing all this trouble, I wonder if I'll be able to stop him? Feeling Cody's hand grasp her arm and pull her closer to him she looked up at him curiously.

" Careful Ingrid," he said softly with a bit of concern in his voice, " you were going to walk into that sign post."

" I was?" Ingrid said looking around confused, " oh I guess I was, thank you for stopping me." She smiled at him softly, but to her confusion he didn't return it like he normally did.

" Hey Ingrid?" he said looking over her head.

" Yeah?" she said looking up at his face.

" Is it ok if you go to the library alone and I'll meet you there in a little bit?" he said still not looking at her, " I just need to go and talk to someone for a minute."

" Yeah sure no problem," she said slowly, " I'll see you there in a little bit."

" Yeah see you soon" he called over his shoulder as he walked away.

" See you soon…." Ingrid whispered softly as he walked away, shaking her head she turned and continued towards the library.

Cody sighed as he walked away he hated to leave Ingrid and lie to her but he really needed to know what the heck was going on. He walked over to Jack and stopped.

" Ok Jack," Cody said in a low cold voice, " what's going on? You didn't say anything about fires, you just said a little bit of vandalism but nothing like this! What are you thinking?"

" Whoa cool your jets kid," he said with a cocky grin, " we didn't start that fire. I wish we did but we didn't even think about it. We don't know who did it but we want to find out, maybe he'll come and work for us." Cody scowled at him, and made to walk away but Shawn grabbed his arm.

" Look here bud," jack's voice was low and cold now, " you're going to do what we want you to do understand, or have you forgotten what we said to you that day? Well have you forgotten?"

" No I haven't," he said softly looking at the ground, " but fires?"

" Yes now we will be the ones starting the fires," Jack grinned evilly, " your time to act will come soon, we give you a signal. And don't worry you'll recognize our signal, you definitely will recognize it." He let out a maniacal cold laugh, which made Cody shiver, and back up a bit.

" Yeah fine," he sighed, " you just have to keep your end of the deal."

" Of course I will," Jack snarled as he looked towards the school, " but let's get one thing straight, right here and now. You cannot turn us in or you will lose them, you can't bust us or you lose them and you can't back out or you lose them. Also I think that we'll add one more to the list."

" What?" Cody exclaimed looking quite frightened, " who? What're you talking about?"

" That girl that you were walking with," Jack said absentmindedly while putting a finger on his chin, " Ingrid Third I believe, yes, she will also be added to our little list. So don't do anything stupid or you'll lose her along with the others." Giving Cody another maniacal grin Jack walked away, Shawn glanced at Cody with an apologetic look and followed after Jack. Cody felt cold fear moving through his body, and he turned and started to walk back to the school, shivering the whole way. Oh no…. oh no…. he's going to hurt them…. what am I going to do? There's nothing I can do…. It's just like last time….

Flashback

Roughly a year and a half ago.

Cody walked out of his new middle school, he had just moved here a few months ago from X. he preferred to be at X, but it wasn't too bad here. He saw three guys standing at the foot of the stairs; he only knew two of them. Jack Curtis and Shawn Roman, not exactly old friends just some people that he used to know. He was planning on walking right past them but the one that he didn't know; on Jack's right grabbing him and shoving him into a tree stopped him.

" Hey there Cody, long time no see," Jack grinned at him and spoke in a friendly voice as he stepped towards him, " it's been a long time."

" What do you want?" Cody scowled as he stood up straight wincing at the pain in his back, from hitting the tree.

" With that tone of voice it's almost like you're not happy to see me" Jack put mock pain in his voice.

" I'm not actually," Cody glared at him, " so do you want anything or can I go?"

" I'll get right to the point," Jack's friendly voice was gone now, " we've been having some trouble here lately and we need your help. See we want to go back to X Middle School, we had a slight problem there and we got kicked out before we could, well do any damage on the school that put us in detention so much."

" So what," Cody said with a scowl, " why should I care, that's your problem not mine."

" Well that's where your wrong," Jack gave him a fake smile, " I know that you want to go back to X and we want to go back to X. see our paths have crossed for a reason, your going to help us, whether you like it or not."

" Just how do you expect to make me," Cody snapped at him, but there was nervousness in his voice.

" Well, that is a excellent story, of how we will make you," jack looked up at the sky for a minute, " I know that you have a few good friends at X, like family aren't they? Well it would be a shame if anything happened to them wouldn't it?"

Cody just looked at him in horror, " you wouldn't, would you?"

" I would, you see," Jack reached into his back pack and pulled out a big envelope, " Joseph Anza, your best friend he's like a brother to you, and look here's his picture and address, Karen Tehama, another close friend like a little sister to you isn't she? And here's her picture and address. Cornelius Fillmore, another ' brother' to you is he not? There's his picture and address, gee it would be a pity if these fell into the wrong hands wouldn't it. Oh last but certainly not least, Penny Madrid, I believe that she is your girlfriend am I right? I'm sure that you wouldn't want any harm to come to her would you?" Cody shook his head; his face still had a look of horror upon it. Jack smiled at him with a maniacal grin and continued. " Okay. Good, now that we understand each other, you will do whatever we want you to do or else, unfortunate accidents will come about on your friend's lives. Do we have an agreement? Or do you want to lose your friends?"

Cody stared at him, a cold fear moving through his body, he opened his mouth but no sound came out. After waiting for a few minutes he tried again to say something and was successful this time.

" Yes…we have an agreement," Cody whispered still horrified at what Jack had threatened him with, " What do you want me to do?"

" Get expelled from this school with us and all the others until we are transferred back to X," Jack said with a maniacal laugh, " and then when we get back to X we'll raise a whole lot of hell. So let's get to it!"

End Flashback

As he was walking through the empty halls of the school, everyone else was in class, he could still remember how scary Jack was when they caused school to be cancelled at that first school by spray painting the halls pink. Jack had gotten a few kids, and apparently they had never been a normal color since. Ever since that day he had, had a pain growing inside of him, mostly from the fact that Jack could betray him and hurt his friends anyways, but also from the fact that he had changed he wasn't a juvenile delinquent anymore. But because of Jack his record told anyone who read it differently, he wasn't completely sure what would happen at X when Jack was done, but he couldn't tell anyone or do anything to stop it, he was powerless if he did and he would lose his best friends. Also now Ingrid was involved, he hated that and he couldn't let anything happen to her or he'd never forgive himself. Looking up he realized that he had reached the library, taking a deep breath he put a bored look on his face and walked in to where Ingrid should be waiting for him. He walked in and looked around, seeing no one he began to get a bit concerned.

" Ingrid?" he called out softly, " Ingrid are you here?"

" Over here," she called back, " at the computers." Letting out a breath that he didn't know or realize that he had been holding in he walked over to her. Seeing her at one of the back computers he pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.

" Hey" she said without even looking up she was reading something on the computer screen.

" Hey you," he said putting on a convincing grin, " what'd you find?"

" Not a whole lot yet," she said as she glanced over at him her face was suddenly full of concern, " what's wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Your as pale as a ghost."

" Uhh…. nothings wrong," shaking his head softly he put on a real smile, " I'm fine, it's just a bit cool outside." She looked at him curiously, and he knew that she didn't believe him at all because it was actually, a nice warm September day outside.

" So…uh are you looking for Derek West?" he said hurriedly trying to make her think about something else.

" Yeah I am," she said slowly still looking at him curiously, " I can't even see if he goes to this school, everything is completely locked up. Unless you know how to hack into the main files then we can't do much." Glancing at her, he sighed.

" Move over," he said giving her chair a little push, " let me take care of it."

" You actually know how to hack into the school's main files?" she whispered urgently.

" Yeah, I picked it up a few years back from a friend at a different school" giving her a grin he turned back to the computer screen. It would take him about ten minutes to hack in, going through all of the passwords and such. Ingrid was silent as she watched him work away until, " ha! That was so easy!" giving Ingrid a wide grin he moved so that he was standing bent over the computer so that she could see.

" Alright," she said moving forwards so that she could type, " Derek West, let's see what you've been up too." After an hour of searching they had found nothing on him.

" These damned files are so messed up," Ingrid snapped getting irritated, " it doesn't let me just search for his name I have to go through all of them! This is so stupid!"

" No kidding," Cody mumbled his head was in his arms and he was about to fall asleep, until Ingrid smacked his head and with a grunt he sat up straight, " why won't it just let you search?"

" I don't know," she muttered reading through, yet another file, " but if we don't figure it out soon, we're going to be here all night!" Cody merely grunted again for an answer and pushed her lightly again, taking over the computer.

" Holy crap!" he yelped, " How many kids go to X?"

" I'm not actually sure," Ingrid said thoughtfully, " over two thousand I believe."

Cody groaned helpfully, " so we have to look at over two thousand files until we find his?"

" Unless we find a search engine or something," Ingrid said grimly, " yes we do."

" I'm gonna find a search thingy," he said with determination, " I don't want to read two thousand files."

" You weren't reading them I was," Ingrid said dryly, and he looked at her sheepishly. She simply smiled and put a hand on his arm, " don't worry, I have a photographic memory, it takes you way longer to read them then it takes me." He grinned at her, and then turned back to the computer screen.

Whoa her hand is still on my arm, his mind was screaming, who cares I like it. Hey! She's involved in this whole thing now…. that means that we could…. well…. yeah! I should definitely do something about this…. but what exactly?

I wonder if he even notices that I'm touching his arm, she was looking at him but he was completely focused on finding a search engine, oh well, something will happen when it is meant too I hope….

" I'm thirsty," Ingrid said, startling Cody out of his daze, " I'm going to go and get a drink, do you want one?"

" Yeah sure," Cody said looking up at her, " thanks."

" Okay," Ingrid said smiling down at him, " I'll be right back."

He watched her walk out of the library and then turned his attention back to the computer, after examining the program for a few minutes he found the search engine. How on earth did Ingrid miss this? It was right here, strange maybe she's not so good with computers. He typed in Derek West and immediately a file came up, whoa this is a big file; it's going to take a pretty long time to read it. He sighed and started reading, after about ten minutes he looked around wondering what was taking Ingrid so long to get drinks. Probably went back to the Safety Patrol office to check in with Anza and Tehama, he thought, although something was still bugging him about what was taking her so long, after waiting another few minutes, he sighed and got up to go and look for her.

Ok, what do you think? Hope you like it, the next chapter will probably be up after Christmas. Please Review! Merry Christmas!