Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
Friday evening. Saint Francis Memorial Hospital.
"I can do that", Ilsa had insisted.
Chance hadn't looked convinced. "Winston is still busy with the cat's autopsy results and we'll be at the school's dance night. You'd be without backup."
"I'm going to question a heartbroken mother and a bedridden teenager, pretending to be a social worker. How terribly hard can that be?"
"At least it won't be terribly dangerous", Guerrero had agreed.
In the end Guerrero and Ames (she was definitely not going to risk Ilsa's wrath again) had outvoted Chance (who really regretted that Winston wasn't present, he'd surely have vetoed the plan).
So now Ilsa was knocking on a hospital door, ready to flash a fake ID.
A faint voice called her in.
To Ilsa's great surprise, Sophie was alone. What a saddening sight: The girl all on her own in an utterly silent room, no TV on, no mp3 player… She was just staring off into the distance.
Ilsa introduced herself as Ilsa P…Palmer… (damn! She almost said her real name!) and explained that in cases of suicide attempts social services routinely got involved. She also apologized for the unorthodoxly late hour of the visit and mentioned case overload. Guerrero had walked her through that back story several times to make sure she got everything right. An unnecessary precaution, as it turned out: Sophie was barely listening.
"Is it okay if I talk to you without your mother being present?", Ilsa asked cautiously. She really hoped so – it would make things a lot easier.
At the mentioning of her mother, tears welled up in the girl's eyes.
"She's mad at me", she whispered.
"I'm sure she's relieved you're alive, not mad." Ilsa took Sophie's hand. The poor thing looked terrible, grayish-pale, ten years older than she actually was. Guerrero had hacked into her medical report. The pills she had taken had damaged her lungs. The doctors still weren't sure how permanently.
"I did a terrible thing."
Ilsa realized she wasn't talking about the suicide attempt. On the one hand that was great – she had the feeling she was about to find out why the girl had tried to take her life. On the other hand she had the feeling she'd be hearing something no one wants to hear and suddenly her stomach flipped. Did she really have the guts for all of this?
Well, Sophie was going to talk now, whether she wanted it or not.
… … …
The high school. Same time.
To his great chagrin the first thing that had greeted Ian Fontainebleu when he came back from the school trip was his blinking answering machine and the principal's voice, informing him that they were one man short for chaperoning at tonight's school dance.
Oh great, back to hell immediately. He had counted on having at least the weekend to get mentally ready for taking up work again.
Guerrero was surprised to see Fontainebleu's name on the list of chaperoning teachers.
No, he didn't cause Mr. Garibaldi, the Spanish teacher, to slip in the school corridor and sprain an ankle. Fontainebleu's appearance at the school dance really was a coincidence. It was NOT Guerrero's doing.
Doesn't mean he didn't seize the opportunity.
"I've substituted in one of your chemistry classes", Guerrero introduced himself.
"And you survived it?" Fontainebleu's voice was tired. He looked bad; nervous and tense.
"There's this girl, Chastity Burke. You've been giving her straight A's for the past six months. I asked her an easy question about hydrocarbons and she failed miserably. Care to explain?"
Fontainebleu's face took on the expression of a hunted down animal. "That's… She's… She probably just…"
Then he broke down.
His knees started to buckle, he started shaking all over… Guerrero barely managed to catch him and lead him to a chair. A grown man, collapsing like that… What in the world had that girl done to him?
A stiff drink later he knew.
"Ames?" Retreated to a quiet corner, he first informed Chance, then contacted her via earpiece. "Remember the suggestion you made? Go ahead with it."
… … …
Saint Francis Memorial.
"My mom can't work fulltime, her nerves…. Ever since Dad died she's been having these panic attacks, so we pretty much live on his pension alone… not much to go with…" Tears were streaming down Sophie's face and she was breathing raggedly. Ilsa worried what all this crying would do to her lungs.
"I don't know what got into me, but one day I… I took… I took money out of a boy's wallet. It was so easy, he had it in his jacket and the jacket was just lying there… I know it was wrong, but I wanted… it's so ridiculous, but I wanted a certain pair of shoes…"
Oh my. She had stolen from her peers. What a secret. But worth a suicide?
"We were going through a rough time back then… mom was having more and more attacks and I… I consoled myself with stuff... books, cinema, DVDs… "
Ilsa was listening intensely. She had the growing feeling that there was more to come.
"One day Chastity caught me."
There it was.
"She told me she'd go to the principal if I didn't share my profit with her. It would have soiled my father's name! I couldn't let that happen! So I carried on…"
Ilsa took a deep breath, trying to control the enormous wave of anger that was washing over her.
And it was going to get worse.
… … …
The high school.
Chastity and Ames had sneaked out of the building for a cigarette.
"Nothing like a smoke in the cool night air", Chastity smiled and took a deep puff.
"Why did you do that milk thing?", Ames asked, trying not to inhale. It had taken her years to get rid of her smoking habit, she really didn't want to start all over again. "Were you after this boy, Gordon?"
Chastity burst out laughing. "Me and Gordon? Nah!"
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because I could!" Chastity couldn't stop laughing. "Kelly is such a hopeless little thing. A natural born victim. I believe everybody has a god given place in this world. Some are winners, some are losers. It's enormous fun to remind her of that elemental order every now and then."
"Aren't you worried she might strike back one day?"
"Don't be ridiculous, what should she do?" Chastity lit a new cigarette. If she kept on smoking like that her skin would look like crocodile leather ten years from now.
"You poke somebody long enough, he goes off the rail…", Ames said, then wheeled around. "Did you hear that?"
"Don't know what you're talking about."
"There was a noise." Ames slowly walked off into the darkness.
"Hey, don't leave me here!"
Ames stepped away from the faint light that was coming from the illuminated gym hall. To Chastity it had to look now as if she'd just disappeared.
"That isn't funny!"
Ames made loud gasp/shrieking sounds and broke a few branches from a nearby bush, as if someone was attacking her.
Predictably, instead of checking on her, Chastity dashed into the building.
Suddenly the deserted, dimly lit corridors of the gym hall didn't look like a good opportunity to break the rules anymore. They looked dangerous, as if something horribly could be lurking in every shadowy corner.
Chastity was running. Where the hell was her bodyguard? Wasn't he supposed to watch over her? Granted, she had sneaked away with that new girl, but shouldn't he have managed to keep track on her nevertheless? Her footsteps echoed in the empty hallways. She needed to make it back to the gym hall. There she'd be safe. Only a few more passages!
The lights went out.
In the darkness Chastity lost her footing and stumbled. A split second later she clearly heard a door behind her open and close again, then footsteps.
Oh God, that wasn't happening.
She got up, started running again, rounded the corner – and directly crashed into someone. Strong arms took hold of her. In total panic, Chastity started screaming and struggling.
"There you are!"
The lights went back on and Chastity recognized her bodyguard, for whatever reason grinning.
… … …
Saint Francis Memorial.
"After a couple of weeks, Chastity wasn't content anymore with her share of the profits. She told me to make a certain amount of money each week… so I had to steal more… I started going after my friends… In the end I stole from Kelly!"
Sophie sobbed heartbreakingly.
"I just couldn't bear it anymore!"
Ilsa embraced her tightly. "No matter what you did, I'm sure your mother will forgive you."
"Then why isn't she here tonight? Ever since I told her yesterday she's been acting strange and now she isn't here… She's mad at me."
… … …
The high school.
Chastity didn't have much time to ponder the subject of her grinning bodyguard. He suddenly pressed his hand against his ear and looked as if he was listening really carefully. His face turned grave, his whole behavior alert. "I got it, Ilsa", he said, and then: "Guerrero, did you copy that?"
What Chastity couldn't hear was Guerrero's answer: "Don't worry, I'm on it."
Chance took Chastity and moved her to a safer place.
… … …
"You don't want to do that, believe me." Guerrero's trained eye had spotted the bulge in the middle-aged woman's jacket immediately. He guessed it was one of her late husband's weapons. Military people often had weapons at home, too. "You're Sophie's mother, right?"
"Who are you?" She was shaking terribly.
"Someone who knows what happened."
"That beast almost killed my daughter."
Guerrero shook his head. "No, your daughter almost killed your daughter. She made a ton of bad decisions. Chastity didn't help, but that doesn't mean she's solely responsible."
He held out his hand.
"She needs you to get out of this mess. That's what you should be doing right now. Sorting things out with her. Not playing avenging angel and making the whole thing even worse."
The woman started crying helplessly.
Guerrero took the gun from her and walked off.
… … …
"So where does this leave us?", Chance asked after listening to Guerrero's report via earphone. "Somebody started hassling Chastity three weeks ago. Can't be Sophie's mother, she only found out about the whole mess yesterday. Can't be the teacher, he was on a school trip all of last week. Can't be Kelly, she reacts allergic on cats."
Chance caught the faint sound of Guerrero's mobile signaling.
"Just got a message from Emma."
"Emma is involved in this?"
"Relax, dude. Just asked her to do a tiny background check for us…. Kelly withdrew money from her bank account three weeks ago. Exactly one dollar less than the amount she was allowed to withdraw without her parents' consent."
"So she was trying to keep it a secret…" Chance sighed. Damn. He liked Kelly. "Sounds like she paid someone…"
"And I have just an idea who that might be…" Winston didn't sound happy, too. All those young girls… What was wrong with the world?
A/N: Big thank you to veniceit and Dreamin Sio, you really helped to build this chapter! Another-all-nighter: I'm sorry, the Fluffy explanation had to wait till next chapter...