Author's Note: I own nothing.

22 More Questions

Dev frowned. His conversation with the Captain had gone better than he'd expected. He'd sort of hopped he'd get shot down and maybe assigned to a new case. But no the Captain had told him to chase the lead as far as it took him. This was the definition of busywork. He shook his head as he stepped up the front steps of Fenton Works. He really wanted to know when they got a building permit for the giant neon sign or the metal monstrosity on top of the building. He shook his head, he had other things to focus on right now. He knocked.

"Hang on I'm coming." A voice called from the other side of the door. It took a moment but soon the door was opened. A teen stood there. She wore a NASA t-shirt, jeans and had pulled her black hair up into a ponytail. For some reason she had a sack of flour in a diaper balanced on her hip. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm Officer Wulfric of the Amity Park Police Department. I'm looking for Jack Fenton." He pulled out his badge. She shot him a calculating look. "I wanted to talk to him about an old journal he might have. A few years back he submitted a few pages of it to a museum in Salem." The teen frowned, looking a bit surprised but the calculating look in her eyes never left. Her stance relaxed though.

"Oh, yeah ok hold on. Dad! It's for you!" A large man in an orange jumpsuit stepped into view with a grin.

"Be there in a second Dani bear!" So this was Dani then. Angelica had mentioned her at dinner a few days back. But Dev had never met either of the Fenton girls before, all he knew was that they had two. She shook her head at her father before turning back to Dev.

"Come on in. He's gonna be a minute." Dev nodded his thanks to Dani as she stepped aside.

"Thank you. Um, this may be an odd question but what's with the flour sack?" He asked as she led him into the living room.

"Health class project." She said and Dev frowned. The sack looked threadbare in places and there was at least one hole in it. Dani glanced at it and shook her head. "You think this is bad, the rest of the class's ended up in cookies. Cannot wait to see my teachers face when she finds out about that tomorrow." She said with a laugh as Jack came around the corner. He was holding a device in his hands. It looked a bit like the a hand-held vacuum cleaner, except there was no chord, or power source that he could see. Dev frowned but Jack smiled at him.

"Hello! I'm Jack Fenton, are you here to talk about ghosts!" He asked practically bouncing across the room. Dev raised an eyebrow but nodded.

"Sort of yes." He said and Dani, behind her father, shook her head slightly; her free hand coming up to rub her temple. Jack's eyes lit up, he looked like an excited Great Dane. Dani quick stepped out of the room into what Dev would guess was the kitchen.

"You wanna hear about my newest invention? The Fenton Ghost Weasel!" Jack asked bouncing slightly. Dev raised his hands.

"Actually I'm here following a lead. See I'm Officer Wulfric of the Amity Park police department and I've been assigned to find the ghost girl." A crash sounded from the kitchen.

"Dani Bear? You ok?" She stuck her head around the doorway clutching one hand with a paper towel.

"I'm fine, just dropped a glass. You know me total butterfingers." Jack frowned.

"You hurt?" He asked stepping closer to his daughter. She shook her head.

"Nah, just a scratch. What were you guys talking about?" Jack perked up.

"That ghost girl your mother and I are hunting! Officer Wulfric here thinks he has a lead on her!" Dev watched Dani's face as emotions flashed across it. It was all in the eyes, like she'd schooled herself not to show negative emotion on her face, a sure sign of abuse. She glanced at him, a calculating look in bright blue eyes. Wait were they blue, for a second there he thought they were green. No definitely blue and mistrusting, even though the rest of her face was smiling.

"Cool, that sounds interesting."

"Sure does! But I'm not entirely sure why you're here Officer Wulfric. What we know about the ghost girl is already on file with the precinct. Maddie makes sure of that." Dev nodded. He'd been through their file, there wasn't much there. They didn't even know her name. He hadn't updated the file. Something about Phantom didn't add up to him and he wanted to get to the bottom of it before handing any information to the overly clinical scientists.

"Dev please, I had a CI come forward with some possible new information. It's probably gonna end up being a dead end but there are a few old legends about spirits that might be the ghost girl. One of them came from Salem, an old journal by a John F. Nightingale?" Dev said turning to Jack. He kept Dani in sight though, just out of the corner of his eye. She looked relieved, then confused.

"Oh yeah I've got that upstairs! He was my six time great grandfather, might have been five actually. Hang on, I'll run get it!" Jack rushed out of the room. Dev turned to Dani, she still looked confused.

"It's Dani right?" She jumped and nodded. The mistrust in her eyes was back, for some reason she'd decided he was a threat. He didn't want that. But now he was curious. She'd been completely civil… Up until he brought up the ghost girl. Did she know something? Something she clearly hadn't shared with her parents who knew basically nothing about Phantom. It was worth a shot. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He asked and she shrugged.

"Sure." One word answers, not a great start.

"Have you seen the ghost girl around town?"

"No." If she wasn't lying to him he would eat his badge.

"You're sure? It's been reported that she's been spotted at Casper High a few times. You've never seen her there?" She shook her head. He switched tracks, if he could throw her off maybe she'd slip up and reveal whatever it was she was hiding. "What about this Red Hunter?" Technically the Red Hunter wasn't on his docket, or anyones for that matter. He only went after ghosts and had been insanely helpful during the invasion of almost a month ago. For now the police were more or less ignoring his existence.

"What about him?" She was back to the defensive stance, her arms crossed, injured hand all but forgotten.

"So you do know him."

"He's a ghost hunter. My parents are ghost hunters." That wasn't an answer and they both knew it.

"So your parents know him." The elder Fenton's had given a statement that they didn't know who the Red Hunter was.

"No." She knew she'd been backed into a corner, he could tell by the look in her eyes. She glanced up the stairs to see if her father was coming back. "Look I saw him after he'd been in a fight, some of his equipment was damaged. I helped him out. He gave me a ride home." There was a blush dusting her cheeks. "My parents don't know. They aren't sure if they can trust him cause he wears a mask." She was telling the truth as far as Dev could tell.

"And you? What do you think?"

"I'm a kid, my opinion doesn't matter." That was a red flag, one that had the words emotional abuse written all over it. The problem with that was he hadn't witnessed any of it yet. If he had he could call CPS and get her out of here, but he'd be keeping an eye on her from here.

"Your opinion matters to me." She blinked at him for a moment before speaking.

"I think he's a good guy. I don't think the police need to be after him."

"We aren't. I'm just gathering information. I think he's helpful. Phantom on the other hand I'm not sure about." And there was the deer in the headlights look.

"Phantom who's that?" For someone with a secret Dani Fenton was a terrible liar. She knew the name Phantom and the fact that he knew it unnerved her.

"My CI, they said the ghost girl told them her name. Said it was Phantom." It was a bit of a gamble on his part sharing this information with her. But it might tell him a few things. First if the Fenton's file got updated Dani was sharing more information with her parents than she was willing to share with him. If it didn't then her parents likely had no idea she was hiding something. If Dev had to take a guess she'd met the ghost girl, maybe even as up close and personally as Angelica had. But before he could think about it more Jack Fenton came back down the stairs and Dani slipped back into the kitchen.

"Found it! Not sure it'll be of much use to you though. The ghost girl can't be an ancient spirit." Dev raised an eyebrow. Dani rejoined them throwing away a dustpan full of broken glass in the trashcan near the door.

"Um, why not?" He asked as he was handed the book, which was old, with yellowed pages.

"Because the majority of the time a ghost manifests in what their human body died in. See ghosts are echoes of humans, impressions on ectoplasm; like a footprint left behind. Maddie wrote a whole paper about it!" Dani was staring at her father, drinking in the information, but her eyes told a different story. Her eyes were saying he was wrong. But about which part? "Maddie got an up close look at the ghost girl during her attack on city hall. Her clothes are modern, very modern like in the last ten years or so. Maddie thinks she died in a lab accident, her outfit looks like a Hazmat suit." Was that nervousness in Dani's eyes? Dev couldn't be sure without looking right at her and he didn't want to give away any form of her discomfort to someone who might be mentally abusing her already. "So the ghost girl couldn't have been in Salem, she had to have died in the last decade at most. Of course it doesn't really matter who she was before. Whoever that was is gone, there's just the echo left behind, and a dangerous one at that! Keep us updated on what you find! We'd love to get our hands on that ghost girl."

Jack was looking at Dev and missed his daughter flinch away from him. Dev though spotted it. Was the abuse more than psychological? Jack turned to Dani pulling something out of his pocket.

"I also grabbed the little first aid kit on my way down Dani Bear! You want me to take a look at your hand?" He sounded so concerned. Was it an act because there was a police officer literally in his house? Dani grinned and took the small kit.

"Nah, dad I'm fine it was barely a scratch. I'll put a band-aid on it and I'll be fine. I promise." Jack grinned at his daughter, turning back to Dev.

"Is there anything else I can help you with Officer Dev?"

"No." Dev shook his head. "I think I've got everything I need for now. But if you don't mind I may come by later to ask some more questions." Jack nodded enthusiastically.

"Of course! We're more than happy to help find that filthy ghost!" Dani flinched again as she slipped through the door of the kitchen. Dev nodded to Jack and left. He had a lot more information than he'd expected to have and a lot more questions than he'd started with.