"When's your dad getting back?"

"He said he's gonna try and make it to the game Friday night, but it'll be tough, so probably Saturday."

"Your dad is gonna miss the game?"

"I guess. He'll see it later; he has all my games on DVD. And I mean all of my games, from pee wee up to now." JD and Scott Taylor walked through the basement of the McCoy mansion and stopped in what looked like a bedroom. "You were right, Saracen is gone."

'How'd you find out?"

"Julie told me the other day when we were working on our social studies project." JD grinned. "She's really messed up over it. We were talking about her car getting fucked with and I asked why she didn't get a ride from someone, like her parents or Saracen. She started crying and….it was great. She said that Saracen's grandmother broke her leg and is in the hospital and Saracen's mom is gone as well, so she doesn't have any idea where he is or even if he's alive. Best of all, she's not sure if she wants to know where he is."

"What? So much for true love. That's messed up. They were really, really tight."

"I'm not so sure. You said they broke up a couple years ago, and she started seeing this stoner musician for a while, right?"

"Yeah, but they got back together last year."

"But they were arguing or having problems or something earlier this year, like right before he left."

"Dude, who cares. If she was telling the truth, he's gone. Your path is clear, right?"

"Julie's not stupid, and she still doesn't trust me or believe me, at least not much, and she's gonna get suspicious if I ask her out tomorrow or show up at her house or anything like that. She said that her dad would freak out if I came over to her house. I'm gonna have to play this out for a couple weeks, maybe longer."

Scott looked around the room. There was a king size bed against one wall and the opposite wall was open to another room from ceiling to approximately waist height.

'You used to have a fish tank in here, I mean in that wall?"

"It was here when we moved in, with fish and everything, but my mom or dad never paid much attention to it."

"What kind of fish?"

"I don't know, but one of them was some kind of shark, not a man-eater or anything, but it was shark."

"So why'd you get rid of it?"

"It was leaking, and the fish started dying. Like I'd come in and there'd be a dead fish floating on top every couple of days."

"So how did you explain the mirror thing to your dad?"

"I told him I'd been reading about some isometric exercises and wanted to have a big mirror in the room, he doesn't know that it's a one way mirror." JD and Scott walked into the room next to the bedroom. "The thing to remember is that the lights in this room need to be off or very, very low, otherwise it's pretty much just a pane of glass."

"What about microphones?"

"Installed last week. One centered on the bed and there's gonna be a directional mic in here. It's gonna be nice. We'll test the whole thing out say, middle of next week; everything should be done by then. Bring a couple of rally girls over." JD smirked. "Did I hear right? People are videotaping Julie getting pushed and tripped and shoved down the stairs at school? And there are videos of people slashing her tires?"

"Yeah, but they aren't on YouTube or anything. Yet."

"Nice. Tell 'em not to put anything on the Internet yet."

"Well, when?"

"Soon."