Chapter Eleven – "Jily Joins In"
Previously – Ryan has passed the Script around to Derek, Adam, Krystal, Babe, Amanda, Tad and Di. It clearly implicates Zach in the disappearances. Some believe it. Some don't. A skeptical Tad and Di are on their way over to check out the basement of Zach's Casino while JR goes home and Zendall heads back to their office. Lily and Jonathan are meeting in their tree house, unaware that in the Script they are investigating the Mystery.
Lily waited patiently for Jonathan to join her in their tree house. When he didn't come by five minutes after the time they had agreed to meet, she began to worry that he had vanished along with her Father and Erica. So she was overjoyed when he appeared, grinning his grin.
"Why are you happy, Jonathan?" she greeted him.
"Because I'm seeing you," he replied at once. "Seeing you makes me happy, Lily."
His answer made Lily smile too, although she knew that smiling was the last thing either of them should be doing.
"Jonathan, we need to solve this mystery," she told him earnestly. "We have to find my Dad and Erica and all the other people who have disappeared. I think we should begin our own investigation."
Jonathan nodded solemnly. "But, Lily, aren't the Police already trying to find everybody whose missing? Wouldn't our investigation get in their way?"
"I'm better at solving mysteries than the Police," Lily knew for certain. "Ask anyone."
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Tad and Di arrived at the Casino at the height of Happy Hour.
"How are we going to get into the basement?" Di asked Tad after they had made their way through the noisy crowd of gamblers to a semi-quiet spot.
"I'm an expert at covert entry," he replied confidently. "Basements happen to be my specialty."
"That's comforting," she commented, not sounding in the least comforted.
He gave her a withering look. "We create a diversion. Watch and learn, Watson!"
"Who's Watson?" she asked him.
"Doctor Watson was Sherlock Holmes' assistant," he explained with a straight face. "You are my assistant. Hence I refer to you as Watson."
"Do I look like Doctor Watson?" she asked him.
"Prettier," he told her. "But you're still Doctor Watson to me."
She thought that through.
"So that makes you Sherlock Holmes?" she hooted.
"If you weren't so beautiful, I'd be highly insulted," he told her, appreciating how beautiful she was for the first time since he found out she wasn't Dixie. "Kindly stop laughing at me."
Di couldn't stop laughing so Tad went forward with his plan.
"Thief!" he began to scream lustily. "Security! That man ran off with my wallet!"
Security seemed oblivious to Tad's lusty screams.
"I don't think they heard you, Sherlock."
"If I scream any louder, I'll wake the dead."
Di frowned, remembering one dead person who wasn't as dead as everybody thought she was.
"Should I give it a try?" she asked him.
He gave her another withering look.
"Masher!" Di screamed. "Masher! Takes your hands off of me! Help! Help!"
Twenty-six security guards surrounded her almost immediately, giving Tad his opportunity to invade the Casino's basement in search of the Vanished.
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Zach and Kendall headed back to their office as dispirited as they were crazy in love with each other. They had already left messages for the people listed on the bedroom wall at Myrtle's, the About to be Vanished. Nobody had answered their phone, which worried them.
"I am so tired of hearing that stupid song," Kendall sighed. "I still can't place it."
"Cheer up, Lovely," Zach tried, dropping down on the couch. "We'll find them all. Everybody's got to be someplace. For instance, your place is with me. My place is with you."
"Forever," she affirmed.
"So there's nothing to worry about, Mrs. Slater" he concluded.
Mrs. Slater wasn't so sure.
"Zach, there are forces at work here that I don't understand. How could names disappear from one wall and appear on another wall all by themselves?"
Zach shrugged. "Invisible ink," he suggested. "Somebody could have timed out the whole thing. Why not?"
Kendall laughed and plopped down on his lap. "Why not indeed? How'd you get so smart?"
"Not so smart," he smiled up at her. "Just incredibly lucky."
"Your luck has run out, Slater!" a booming voice at the door told Zendall in no uncertain terms.
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When JR got back to the Mansion, his family and Amanda had just gotten back from the police station. Quickly, they filled JR in about the Script and how it implicated Zach.
"I gotta go tell Kendall," he realized. "She's with that fiend!"
"Don't worry, JR," Babe soothed him. "Ryan and Dereck are on their way now to arrest him. He won't get away with anything!"
"I don't believe that Script for a second," Amanda told them flatly, although nobody had asked her. "I think it was planted to throw suspicion on the Newbies and Recasts. We're being set up."
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Jonathan and Lily decided the first stop on their Investigation should be to check in with Tad/Aidan.
"Aidan was my first boyfriend," Lily confided to Jonathan on their way there. "But it wasn't serious. Not like us."
"Did you love him?" Jonathan asked her haltingly.
Lily shook her head in an extremely negative fashion. "I've never been in love." She regretted saying that when she saw the effect her words had on Jonathan. "But if I were in love, Jonathan, it would definitely be with you."
Jonathan frowned. "You don't have to be in love with me just because I want you to be, Lily."
"I know," she knew. "But I'm pretty sure I'm almost there."
Lily knocked at the door of Tad/Aidan's Agency, but nobody answered.
"Nobody's home, I guess," Jonathan told her. "Maybe they're out investigating the disappearances."
"Maybe," Lily said doubtfully. "Let's go see Zendall."
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From the empty basement of Zach's Casino, Tad was calling his office. All he got was his machine.
"Aidan and the others should still be there," he told Di, real worry stabbing him. "I told everybody to stay put. Didn't I tell everybody to stay put? Well, I meant to tell everybody to stay put."
Di looked on as Tad methodically tried calling Aidan, Brooke, Opal and Stuart. Nobody answered but their voice mails.
"I'm so sick of hearing that damn song," Tad said to Di. "I still can't place it."
Di placed it all right. She wondered why Tad couldn't.
"You should call Dereck and tell him this place is deserted," Di advised. "Do you think that means the Script is a red herring?"
"I don't know what it means," Tad sighed because he didn't. "I don't know what anything means anymore. Let's go look at Myrtle's walls. The Script said two of the walls were lists of the already vanished and about to be vanished."
"Tad, there's something I need to tell you," Di said to him, knowing she should have told him before.
"You know where my family and friends are?" Tad asked without much hope.
"No, but that song may be a clue. And I recognize it."
"Spill it, Watson," Tad commanded, wondering why he was afraid to know. "It may be important."
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Ryan, NuGreenlee, Dereck and six policemen were at Zendall's door.
"If you don't open up, we'll break the damn door down!" Ryan hollered.
"Lavery, I'm not going to tell you again," Derek warned him. "Stop doing my job."
"Come in, guys," Kendall greeted them uncertainly. She let them in and left the door open, just in case she and her husband needed to make a quick exit.
"Oh, good!" Zach cracked. "The circus has come to town!
Ryan was waving the Script.
"Your Reign of Terror is finished, Slater! We've got proof of what you've already done and what you're planning for this town!"
"A new casino?" Zach asked innocently.
"Ryan, what are you talking about?" Kendall demanded. "Zach and I have been investigating the disappearances. What sick fantasy has the witch Greenlee talked you into?"
"This isn't about Greenlee," Ryan maintained.
"She isn't even the real Greenlee!" Kendall reminded him scornfully. "She's some Recast that none of us ever saw before today! What did you say your real name was, girlie? Gina?"
NuGreenlee rose to this challenge. "You're changing the subject, Kendall. You're trying to protect Zach, but you can't. The truth is single-spaced in black and white."
"What is she blathering on about?" Kendall asked Derek.
He explained to Zach and Kendall about the Script NuGreenlee found and what it seemed to say.
"Oh, please, spare me!" Kendall laughed. "Gina planted an incriminating script. Big deal. Maybe she wrote it herself! Scratch that. I'm not sure she knows how to write. Anyway, she paid somebody to write the damn thing. Who cares?"
Ryan needed Kendall to believe him. He forced the script into her hand.
"Read it for yourself," he directed.
"Go to hell," she directed.
Zach got between the two of them before the confrontation had a chance to escalate..
"May I have a look at that?" he asked Ryan politely.
"Be my guest," Ryan replied between his teeth. "It's my favorite scene."
How will Kendall feel about the Script once she's read some of it? What did Di tell Tad about that tune? Is Amanda right? Is it all a set-up to discredit the Newbies and Recasts? Will Lily solve the mystery before everybody disappears? Darned if I know. But return for the next thrilling chapter, and maybe we'll all find out together! All Reviews are answered promptly and in the friendliest possible manner:)