Chapter 8- The Adventures Of Ronnie and Grumpy (Part 1)

Derek's leaving his apartment when Peter starts to talk "so what do you know about the person you're babysitting today?"

Derek turns to face Peter reluctantly "only what Scott told me, which wasn't a lot."

"Which is?"

"That it's someone Scott wants me to protect while she tries to help find Chris" Derek says

"Since when were you on first name terms with the hunter that tried to kill our whole family?" Peter says angrily

"Since he had the chance to kill me and didn't and he didn't try and kill our whole family that was Kate. I know I wouldn't want to answer for all your mistakes and bad choices so I'm not going to make him answer for Kate's"

With the Derek leaves.

By the time Veronica heads downstairs everyone's gone to school. She has 20 minutes until her 'Back-Ups' here.

Melissa is standing in the kitchen coffee in hand. "Morning again honey" Melissa says. "Not a morning person I see, will this help?" as she puts a cup of coffee out in front of Veronica.

"You're getting to know me so well" she responds with a smile. She picks up the cup and takes a sip. "So much better" Veronica says happily.

"So I have a question for you, have you call your dad yet and told him about everything?" Melissa asks

"Not yet" she answers.

"I don't want to overstep but why not, your dad needs to know"

"I know I know and I will tell him just not yet" at seeing Melissa face Veronica continues "As soon as I called my dad and tell him everything he'll make me promise not to see Mercer and I'd have to break that promise because I'm going to see him later today." Melissa looks at Veronica like she's just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. "Don't look at me like that, I need to see him so I can make sure something like this never happens again"

"Okay, just don't go see him alone okay?"

"I'm not promising but I'll try not to."

Veronica put down a now empty cup of coffee, "so Melissa I want the dirt on my back-up for today. I know the facts like that he's a werewolf but what's the deal-leo with Derek?"

"Well from what I've heard and seen he's serious and grumpy but he's been through a lot, he's a good person though, always try's to do the right thing."

"So basically I have a grumpy werewolf with good intentions as a babysitter, it could be worse."

"And look at you already using the word 'werewolf' in a normal sentence, you're doing a lot better than me when I first found out"

"What can I say I manage well under weird situations"

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"Looks like my back-ups here"

Veronica makes her way to the door and opens it.

There stunt a men with a handsome face with a stubborn look on it.

"You must be Derek, I'm Veronica" she says as she put her hand out for him to shake.

Derek doesn't shake her hand instead he moves back and says "We need to get a move on. Someone's life is at stake. We're taking my car. Hurry."

Veronica considered on saying something bitchy back before realising that he's right Chris Agent's life is at stake and God knows how many others so no time for pleasantries.

"Your right, I'm just going to grab my bag." She turns back into the house when she gets to the kitchen. Says to Melissa "your right he is grumpy"
She grabs her bag and goes to get in Derek's car.

"We're here" Derek says as they pull up to the apartment complex.

Veronica looks out toward the apartments and sees its a gated complex "oh crap" she says.

"What?" Derek asks

"I should have checked this last night" she mumbles "it's gated with 24-hour security, I can't just walk in and pick the lock."

Derek looks at the gate "I can easily break that gate open"

"Can you do it while simultaneously taking out three cameras too?" she says

"I can try" he says as he goes to get out of the car.

"Derek stop!" Veronica says "that's not how we're going to get in"

"You don't tell me what to do." Derek says in a serious voice. "What now then, you just want to give up and go home"

"That's not what I mean, I just need a minute to think of a better way" Veronica says.

Derek goes to respond but Veronica tells him to "shh"

She looks out of the car window and spots something that gives her an idea. "Perfect" she says.

Veronica grabs her phone and starts to make a call.

They answered after two rings "Morning, Beacon retails"

"Hey I'm Amber" She looks over at Derek and sighs before says. "Me and my fiancé have just noticed one of your for sales signs and we would love to have a look at it"

The woman at the other end of the phone sounded delighted. "That's great dear, what property is it?"

"One of the apartments in the apartment complex on Crescent Road" Veronica says

"I can arrange for you to have a viewing on Wednesday morning at 10 am" the woman says

"Would it be possible to have something for today it's just that we're heading back home this afternoon?" Veronica says hoping for the best.

There is a long pause and the woman says "I'm sending someone over now, she should be there in the next hour, is that okay?" She says.

"That's brilliant, thank you so much" Veronica says. Then she hangs up.

"What have you just done?!" Derek says.

"God Melissa's right you are grumpy" she states. "And what I just did was get us through the gates in a way that doesn't involve breaking anything including the law. Now we can wait 60 minute for the retailer to get here so they can walk us through the gate and then we have to pretend to look at an apartment and then after we say we want to hang back and check out the rest on the complex but really we are going to breaking into Jennifer's apartment." She says "it's a simple plan really" she adds

"That's actually a pretty good plan" Derek says

"I know, Now we only need to wait an hour so how do you want to kill it?" Veronica questions

"With silence, do you think you can handle that?" Derek counters

"I've been on 6-hour stakeouts with nothing but my own company and zero reading material. I think I can handle it." She says proudly

50 minutes later Derek is the one to break the silence. "I have a question" he says.

"I'm all ears" she responds

"Why did you change your voice when you called the retailer? You don't know anyone here and you already used a fake name" he says

"I do it to remind myself. If I use that voice every time I pretend to be Amber, Betty or whatever it reminds me their different plus people normally, not like you, respond better to happy helpful Amber then bitchy stubborn Veronica"

"That makes sense" Derek then says.

Next thing they know there is a lady in a bright yellow car pulling up in front of them. They all get out of the cars.

The lady goes to greet Veronica "Hi I'm Grace from Beacon Retail, you must be the couple I'm meeting."

"Yes, Hi I'm Amber and this is Mark"
Veronica says

"Nice to meet the both of you, let's go in, shall we?" Grace says in a more peppy voice that Veronica putting on if that's possible.

They all go through the gates.

"Do all the apartments have the same layout as this one?" Veronica asks as they walk around the apartment.

"Yes and other than this one we have 3 other apartments up for sale" Grace answers

"Okay Grace, thank you for showing it to us. Would it be okay if we have a look around the complex about we leave?" She asks

"Yes of course, please get back to us with your thoughts."

"Will do"

And then they leave and go to find Jennifer's apartment.

Once they find it Derek listens to see if anyone's home then Veronica picks the lock.

"Don't leave fingerprints anywhere" Veronica says as she goes towards the computer.

"If it makes you feel better I like Veronica a lot more than Amber."
Derek says after a minute.

"Thank you but like I said earlier you're not normal people." Veronica says with a smile,

She then finds a USB Stick from her bag and plugs it into the computer.

"What are you doing with that?" Derek asks

"This" she says pointing to the USB stick "is a present from my friend Mac, it makes a copy of everything on the computer and saves it. Did you get anything?"

"I'm not sure, I can smell her fear and anger"

"That's definitely not weird when you compare it to what I have learnt in the last few days. Right, let's get out of here. We can look at what's on her computer when we get back to Scott's" Veronica says