Scandal -DP
As the head secretary for the Mayoral office, Heather is used to scandal, but what she finds in Mr. Masters' desk kind of takes the cake.
for idiot-cheesehead-archenemy's prompt: One of Vlad's employees sees something they definitely weren't supposed to see. (PR113).
1596 words. We're both Team Ghost, so, half points.
Scandal
—
Photos, the incriminating kind, come spilling out of the mayor's desk when his secretary opens the drawer.
Heather freezes, petrified. Mayor Masters' desk is an off-limits zone, and she shouldn't be rummaging around in the first place. Billionaires with political aspirations are all the same — they all have their dirty little secrets and don't appreciate a snoop. She's kept her job for thirty years by keeping her head down and minding her own business, but she has a feeling she just shot herself in the foot.
"Dammit." She kneels, raking the Polaroids together with fingers that shook, cursing under her breath. This isn't her fault. If Mr. Masters would just do his goddamn job, she wouldn't have to be in here hunting for the quarterly budget report in the first place! But nooooo. The man skips meetings, dodges deadlines, and disappears on her at the drop of a hat.
Seriously, if he didn't want this job, then why did he bother to run for office at all?
Heather grumbles, gathering everything. Maybe if she's quick about it, she can put them back without getting caught. The photos seem to be hastily tucked in place, rather than meticulously organized. Vlad's in the office so rarely nowdays. Maybe he won't even notice that the drawer had been disturbed—
—Wait, what the hell is up with these photos?
Heather pauses, fingers gripping the Polaroids like she just got dealt a royal flush at the poker table and her brain is still trying to process the cards. She fans them out, frowning, eyes skipping from one photo to another.
She'd expected photos of a mistress. Mayor Montez had similar ones stuffed in his bottom drawer, after all. But Montez's affairs had all been faceless young women in little red dresses, conquests with no name.
The big difference is, Heather recognizes this woman.
Her blue spandex outfit is, after all, unmistakable.
"Mayor Masters and… Madeline Fenton?" she asks, awed and honestly more than a bit shocked. She's met the woman more than once—the ghost invasion, the city hall meeting, several Amity Security conventions—and she'd seemed like a smart woman. A happily married woman. A woman, at least, too smart to get caught up in some lazy billionaire's schemes.
Even if the two of them did go to college together…
And that isn't even touching on the other photos. Half of them are pictures of a boy—Danny Fenton, Maddie's youngest, she belatedly recognizes. Most look like they'd been taken without his knowledge. That, alone, is creepy enough. Did he have some private investigator follow the boy?
The other half of the photos, strangely enough, are pictures of a girl—blue eyes, black hair, about twelve years old. This isn't Jazz, Maddie's girl. Heather doesn't know the kids very well, but Jazz has striking red hair, elegant clothes, takes after her mother. But this girl—
The similarities between this girl and the boy, Danny, they are… too striking not to be genetically related. Same curve of the nose, same angular features, same expressions on different faces. If not for the age difference, they could be twins.
But who is she?
Do the Fentons have a third child?
Heather stares at the photographs for a long moment, scrutinizing. Then, another, older photo still in the drawer catches her eye. Long and rectangular, taken from a Kodiak camera, colors faded out over time. College aged Vlad Masters is standing close to a smiling, curly haired Maddie - and a mulleted Jack Fenton. They're all appropriately draped in 80's attire. But there's a problem. The corner featuring Jack looks like it's been torn out and reaffixed, maybe with tape, but the quick patch can't hide the fact that the man had once been violently ripped out of the scene.
Everything about this screams man with a grudge. Heather shudders a bit at the implications.
"Maybe the three of them aren't such good friends, after all…"
What strikes Heather most, though, is Vlad's college-aged features. Apparently, he was also born black haired, blue eyed, just like the two kids in the photos.
—Which means…
Footsteps interrupt her train of thought. Heather looks up. A shadow darkens the tempered glass door, the knob turning sharply.
Instantly, Heather straightens, hiding the photos behind her back, and belatedly kicks the bottom drawer shut with her foot. She's so dead.
The door swings open.
"—And I'd like that delivered to my office sometime today," Masters finishes, his ear pressed to a black cell phone. "Yes, that will be fine, I—ah! Miss Helen." He stops and frowns at her intrusion.
She frowns back. "Heather," she corrects, annoyed.
"Yes, well," he stuffs the phone in his pocket without even a goodbye. "Regardless, what are you doing in my office?" his unimpressed gaze flits between her and his desk.
"Mister Masters—" Heather starts, knowing she has to make her case quickly. Screw getting caught red handed with these photos - she's not losing her job over this. "The budget report…"
"Due today, I'm aware," Vlad says smoothly, though the twitch in his eye tells her otherwise. "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, I am on top of it. However, I do believe I made it very clear that my desk was off limits. Did I not?"
"But Mister Masters—"
"Only the people of the highest integrity should be allowed in this office," he declares, in a hypocrisy that makes her scoff internally. She doesn't have enough time to scramble and start making her excuses, because he follows this up with, "You're fired."
"What!" she yelps. "Excuse me, I have had this job for thirty years—"
"—And now you don't," Vlad says, with a condescending sniff. "I'm sure we'll be able to find someone who can grasp simple concepts like 'privacy' and 'job termination' to replace you."
Heather felt her face heat up, a rage building in her throat.
But she's worked in politics for long enough to learn how to mask it with a smile.
"Of course, sir," she says, gathering up her clipboard she'd placed on his desk at the beginning of her search, surreptitiously using it to hide the photos still in her hand. "I'll just gather my things, then, and be out of your hair by the end of the day."
"Good," Vlad says, readjusting his tie.
"Of course, that means you'll have to file the quarterly budget report yourself, since you, effective immediately, have no secretary. Shame."
Vlad opens his mouth to gawp at her, but she just smiles serenely.
"Oh," he sputters. "Well, I suppose you could keep your job until a replacement is found—"
"Oh no, sir, I couldn't possibly." She is enjoying this more than she should. "An important person like yourself shouldn't have to subject himself to lower integrity employees such as me. What a terrible prospect. It's best if I just go."
And with that, she sweeps out of the room, chin held high. Vlad sputters the entire way out. Heather is half surprised he doesn't follow her - perhaps too much like groveling for him? - so she cheerfully calls "Good Luck!" as she shuts the door.
The moment she's away, her body sags with the weight of her mistake, what it just cost her, and she catches herself on the wall.
"Well that could've gone better," she gripes. Heather's scowl comes back full force. Thirty years at one job, and in one fell swoop, she's unemployed again. Anger pushes her off the wall, and she heads for her desk down the hall.
She all but falls into the well worn leather chair, breathing out slow. The clipboard, in front of her, feels daunting. She lifts the stack of papers clipped to the front to confirm the photos made it out, that none slipped her grasp and fell like a trail of breadcrumbs back to incriminate her.
They're all here. Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton - the mysterious other girl.
Masters could notice they're missing any minute, now. In his shoes, that'd be the first thing she'd check. Unless he had other, more incriminating secrets hidden in that room. She has a slim hope that he was distracted by her exit and by the impending budget reports. But how long can that last? In days, at best, (minutes, at worst) she'll have the wrath of a billionaire bearing down on her.
Heather glances around at her desk. It's well worn, perfectly adjusted to herself over the years. Loaded down with knick knacks and minutiae amongst all the files and paperwork left undone.
She leans her elbows on her desk and buries her face in her hands, pushing away her glasses to press against her tired eyes.
It isn't fair. Thirty years of hard work, gone. And for what? For some stupid photos?
Heather sits there, speechless at how fast her world had crumbled around her.
Then, she decides.
"Fine." Heather huffs, pushing herself away from the desk and up to her feet.
"You want to ruin my life?" she asks, gathering her coat, her purse, and the incriminating photos in hand. "I'll just ruin yours first."
After all, she muses, having an affair with a married woman is one thing.
Fathering two children, however?
Secretly keeping one of them sequestered away, hiding them from the eyes of the world? A child without a past or a name, who is, in all ways except literal, a ghost?
"What a scandal," she whispers, and tucks the photos into her bag with a smile.
—
