Chapter 4:

"Well, Daze, is the mail in yet?"

"No, it's still not in, just like five minutes ago, when you asked me last."

I plopped back on the motel bed.

"I just want to find out what they found. I want this to be over with."

"You think Masters is right about the Fenton kid?"

"No, Daze, I don't. We've been watching the Fenton family for two weeks now, and I'm sure he's completely off base. Maybe…

Daisy lay down beside me, propping her chin up on her palms. "What's wrong?"

"I don't like Masters. I've never even met the man so I can't really get a fix on him like I usually can when I meet someone."

"You mean that vibe you're always able to get from people?"

"Yeah. You know, I can tell right off the bat if someone is okay or not the minute I meet them… but this Vlad Masters guy, we've only spoken on the phone, over the internet, always from thousands of miles away. And I just don't trust people who are that stinking rich."

"He's paying well." Daisy reminded me again.

"I know, maybe too well."

"Maybe not. He lives alone, no family, no girlfriend, not even a cat. Maybe he's just looking for love."

"And paying out the nose for the slightest chance at another man's wife?"

"Well, it kinda makes sense."

"In a twisted way, like mail-order brides."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, Daze." I sighed, staring at the ceiling.

"This kid, he's got a nice family. A little eccentric, but nice. I like his father. Big, overbearing, and very loud, but the guy obviously means well."

"Despite the explosions?"

"Despite the explosions." I grinned. I still had bruises from the last time we'd visited the Fentons, just a couple of days ago to pick up the ghost weapons we'd ordered from them. We'd been attacked by several more ghosts in the past couple of weeks, the first couple of times Amity Park's resident celebrity ghost hero, Danny Phantom, had beaten the ghosts off, but the last time Daisy had managed to hit the self-proclaimed Box Ghost with the Fenton utility weapon Maddie Fenton had given her… which was disguised as a tube of lipstick. I had suggested to Maddie that she market the things to urban women as a self-defense product.

"His dad is an okay guy. He shares his interests with his kids, includes them, and shows interest in how they're doing… whether they want him to or not." We both got a chuckle out of that.

"My old man never did anything like that for me. I don't even know what it's like to even have a father. Daisy, I know that Masters may be right, but is it worth it to drag the kid away from the life he's known, from the family that loves him? Is it my right to take that away from someone who has all that?"

She looked at me for a moment, and I couldn't read her expression. Did she understand where I was coming from? Was she considering the question? Completely blanking out on me like she was prone to do?

I got up and checked the cooler where I'd put the extra samples of Jack and Danny Fenton's blood.

"I'm going to send these out to another lab."

"But Chris, the results will be in today, just be patient."

"I'm going to send them to a second lab. You know, just in case something happened to the first samples."

"But you don't have the…"

"These two will tell us enough."

Daisy sat silently on my bed as I headed out to the Amity Park post office. I arranged for the samples to be sent first class, cooler, biohazard, fragile warning and all to a lab I knew back home.

I paused for a moment. The woman at the desk looked at me questioningly.

"And tell them to send the results here," I wrote down Carol's address back home. The woman nodded, adding a note to the package.

I paid the postage and watched them carry it off. That done, I headed back to the motel in time to see the mail truck drive off.

I met Daisy at the front desk and we rushed it back to my room.

I locked the door and closed the blinds.

"Well, open it!" Daisy prodded me, as expectant and nervous as I was.

I opened the manila folder carefully and read the lab results.

I read them again. Then a third time, my stomach twisted up in a horrible knot.

"What does it say?" Daisy asked, practically jumping up and down on the floor.

"It says… Well, he was right. Vlad Masters is Danny Fenton's real father."