I almost didn't get this out... Just got horrible news that one of my dears friends passed away. It sucks. she always read my fics in one of our yahoo groups and we both shared a love for wrestling...I love you Mags, you will always be in my heart.
Since I seemed to have lost a lot of readers/reviewers, I think I'm going to put some focus back on my other fics. I think I will go to updating once a week, so keep an eye out the beginning of each week.
I'm trying to incorporate the FB game and the series, so some incidents may seem off or not in place properly, but don't worry, I'll get it all in there LOL.
... ... ...
"Ready?" Scott asked as they stopped just outside the main doors to the school.
"No." she replied. "I don't know what to do."
"Just, hold my hand." He held a hand out for her and she hesitantly took it. Sure deep down inside she had wanted this but not like this. She had this horrible feeling it was going to go horribly wrong but at least she was getting nothing from him. No premonition, nothing. Or was that a bad thing? She was actually going into this blind.
He led them into the school and to her locker, Cat's heart hammering as people stopped to stare, more so when she saw Allison already at her locker.
"Hey." Allison said with a big smile, refusing to look down at their clasped hands. "Again, I really appreciate you guys talking to me but I really am okay with you two dating." She spoke a bit louder than normal, knowing that most people around them were listening in.
"I'm glad it's not weird or anything." Cat said with a weak smile. "I need to get to the office though so I'll see you guy later."
She went to go leave but Scott tugged her back, placing a kiss half on her mouth and half on her cheek. She wiped the startled look off her face, smiling instead before turning and walking to the office. She needed to put some time in at the office before she raised suspicion.
She noticed that it was empty and dropped Gerard's keys on the floor by his door so he would think he had dropped them. She moved to her desk, not at all surprised to find an email from Gerard the day before.
from: Gerard Argent
First things first. I need access to the school's data systems. I've given you access to my computer so you can set that up for me. The school secretary has resigned. I can't imagine why. Must've been something I said.
I'm looking for a replacement for her. But in the meantime, you'll have to work harder. Much harder. I'm putting a great deal of faith and confidence in you. I expect you to live up to it. Don't make me regret trusting you.
Gerard Argent
Work more but I won't pay you but I have trust, blah blah blah, don't make me regret it. Oh how she would love to tell him where to shove his trust. But she had to play nice. She replied back with her class schedule as well as a note about her phone. She might as well be a big suck up for now. Who knows, maybe she would get to see his reaction when he found out she was "dating" Scott McCall. What had she gotten herself into?
"Ah, Ms. Danvers. So glad to see you in the office. I trust you got my email?" Gerard asked as he entered.
"Yes." She replied with a big smile. "And ready to work sir. I've sent you a copy of my class schedule for whenever you need me. I should tell you though, my phone has met an unfortunate accident with water and will be awhile getting replaced. So it may be harder than normal to contact me at all times."
"Do not worry about that Ms. Danvers, I will make sure you have a new phone as soon as possible. I need to be able to reach you whenever possible."
Cat was shocked. She would be getting a new phone a lot sooner then she thought and it was being given to her. "Wow, thank you Sir."
"No need to thank me." He replied with a kind smile. "It is for selfish reasons after all. I will need you more than usual until a new secretary is hired and I believe I can trust her. Trust is important to me and I have done a great deal by putting trust in you."
She looked properly humbled as he began patting down his pockets. "Thank you sir, that means a lot."
"Do you have your keys Ms. Danvers, I must have forgotten mine at home."
"I do but I do not know if it works for your actual office sir." She grabbed her keys and led the way to his office, going through her keys to find one that fit. After the second key, she looked down in surprise. "Oh? Principal Argent, are these yours?" She knelt down and picked them up, handing them to him.
He looked at them in shock and surprise. "I know I put them in my jacket last night when Allison and I went to the game."
"Maybe there is a hole in your pocket?" she suggested. "I'll go work on getting access and everything set up for you. I should be done by second period."
"Thank you Ms. Danvers. Allison has told me you are an exceptional student so I trust that missing a class now and then will not harm you academically."
Another fake smile. "Of course not. Class wise, I'm done for the year and have started next year's work."
He looked pleasantly surprised at this. "That is amazing. Keep up the good work."
"Thank you." She returned to her desk and opened up Gerard's remote desktop so she could give him everything he asked for. She was done before the first bell for class started but she didn't want Gerard to know just how good she was with computers. She needed to hold onto that little bit of information so she was free to roam wherever she wanted. Kind of like now as she clicked on a folder in Gerard's desktop labeled Confidential.
The fact that he needed her to set all this up had her believing that he wasn't exactly tech savvy so there was no way he would know she was on here.
Her curiosity piqued at seeing what now lay before her.
The Argent family history.
"Hello Catalina?"
She looked up, trying to keep the guilty look at her face. "Hi. Sheriff Stilinski. Yes, I'm Catalina, call me Cat though please." She looked back to her computer, quickly closing it and exiting Gerard's desktop. She would have to go back at another time.
"I was hoping you would have a moment to speak with me."
She nervously wiped the palms of her hands on her jeans. "Of course, did you want to go somewhere to talk?"
He shook his head. "This is fine, I was just hoping we could have a chat, completely off the record of course."
"Of course." She replied with a smile, behind him, she could see Gerard standing at his door, listening to them. Lovely.
"Do you believe that the former Principal of Beacon Hills High has been forcefully taken against his will?"
"I don't know. I think the abrupt way he left was odd, but that's really all I can tell you."
"There's no proof of foul play, but the press has locked on. I mean, I agree that his sudden disappearance is somewhat suspicious, but there's nothing I can do about that." The Sheriff explained. "Did he say anything about wanting to leave?"
She shook her head.
"Do you happen to know if he had any blood-borne illnesses? Something that might discolor his blood?"
She saw Gerard lean out a bit more out of the corner of her eye and she put an appropriate confused look on her face. "What? No? what does that have to do with anything?"
"Just a few questions is all. Do you think you could get me an emergency contact for him?"
She nodded, pulling up the appropriate file on the computer and writing down the number for him.
"Thank you Cat, I just have one more question. You know a lot that goes on around the school, don't you?"
She nodded, noticing Gerard was completely in the hallway, openly listening to them now but she acted oblivious.
"I mean, working in the Principal's Office. Those walls must have ears. There's something I haven't been able to figure out. Something that's been weighing on my mind for a while now."
Cat was really sweating now. Gerard was watching, the Sheriff was right in front of her, she would never be able to pull off a convincing lie.
"Do you think my son will ever get to play in an actual lacrosse game?"
She inwardly sighed in relief as Gerard stepped back into his office. "Of course. Everyone will have a chance to play at some point I'm sure."
He grinned. "That would be a very proud moment for me. I think I'll speak with Ms. Morrell next. I understand she was good friends with the Principal. Thank you for your time." He tipped his hat at her, left the office and Cat sat back with another sigh of relief, returning to some other work.
Right before next class, she looked around one last time and re-entered Gerard's remote desktop, entering into the confidential file. She began looking through all the files, finally stopping on the one that included the full details of the Argent Family history. She didn't have time to read it, instead emailing everything to herself. Chances were, they'd find something important in here.
… … …
"Hey Stiles, have you seen Scott?" Cat asked later that day as she stopped at Stiles locker, leaning beside the ones next to his.
"Yes, I- we, need to meet him in the library but I never got to ask how things went with Lydia, did she say anything about me?"
Cat bit her lip as she thought back to the conversation. "Not that I remember, I'm sorry."
"Hey Cat."
She looked up to see Jackson walking towards her. "So, you finally learned my name."
"Well as I see, it's worth knowing now." He replied with a smirk, looking her up and down.
"What, no hello for me?" Stiles sarcastically asked.
"Shut up Stilinski."
Cat sighed and shook her head. "Really guys?"
"What do you want?" Stiles asked.
"I want you to shut up so I can talk to Cat. So," He turned back to her a smile on her face. "Did you catch all of the lacrosse game? 'Cause you know, I led the team to a spectacular victory. All me."
"And Scott and Boyd." Stiles reminded him.
Jackson turned to scowl at him. "Well, it definitely wasn't you, was it? We're all clear on that fact. And it probably never will be."
Stiles returned his scowl "I'm pretty sure Cat was too busy to watch the whole game, she was cleaning up one of your messes."
"I don't leave messes."
"Yeah? Then why was Lydia crying hysterically in the parking lot?" Stiles challenged him.
"Well that's her problem. Whatever. I gotta go." He turned and abruptly left.
Stiles shook his head, watching him leave. "What a douche. I can't believe Lydia was so into him. What's to be into? I mean aside from a perfect face, athletic body and ridiculous amounts of cash." He made a face. "Ugh, now I'm depressed."
She shook her head. "Don't be. He's a shell, an empty shell and that will only get him so far."
"Oh, I have something else here." He handed her a flash drive. "When I got home yesterday, I copied this. It's recovered footage."
She cocked her head to the side as she took it. "Is it the kidnapping I saw?"
"I don't think so, I think it's the Principal's abduction and that's why my dad wanted to talk to you, how did that go by the way?"
"Fine, I guess but how do you know it's him?"
"You need to watch it, in fact we all do."
She nodded, following him to the library where Scott and Allison were already waiting, a laptop opened in front of them.
"Do you have it?" Scott asked.
Stiles nodded and pointed to her. She held it out and Allison took it opening it up on the laptop and playing it.
"How come I didn't find this?" Cat asked.
"Probably because of what you did find, you probably weren't thinking to check more." Allison said.
When the video finished playing they all stared at the now blank screen, Scott finally breaking the silence.
"I can't really see any of the faces."
Stiles shrugged. "This security system was always complete crap. Even pre-vandalization."
"What was that light from inside the car?" Cat asked.
"A taser." Allison quietly replied.
"So we know the Principal was kidnapped. But he wasn't dragged out of the school. He walked." Stiles said.
"Maybe he was taken back inside only to be dragged out later?" Allison suggested.
"Why would they do that?" Stile asked, shaking his head.
"Maybe things got out of hand but this video shows several people. The video Cat saw was just one person dragging another." Allison pressed play again, pausing it at one point. "Do you see that guy outside the car?"
"Do you know him?" Stiles asked.
"We all do." She said with a sigh, sitting back. "It's my father."
"What?" Scott asked in disbelief. "Are you sure?"
"It's the way he's standing, the way he's tilting his head. I'd recognize it anywhere."
"Why is he standing outside of the car?" Cat asked.
"Maybe there isn't room in the car?" Scott suggested.
"Maybe he doesn't agree with what they're doing." Allison said, sending him an annoyed look.
"That's a wild leap of logic. He just held the guy at gunpoint and practically pushed him in there." Stiles told her.
"My father is a complicated man."
"oohkay, so whose car is that?" Stiles asked.
"I don't know." Allison replied with a sigh. "But most importantly, where is that car now?"
"The police are looking for it, but the footage was pretty much useless for them. No faces. No license plates. They only think it's the Principal because he was in the light for a split second."
Scott looked at Allison. "So I guess you and your father need to have a talk, huh?"
She sighed before nodding.
"Dude, lacrosse practice in five." Stiles reminded him.
Scott nodded. "We gotta bail. We'll talk later." He went to go give Allison a kissed but paused, turning to Cat instead and giving her a quick kiss.
They left and Allison looked up at her with a pained smile. "Want to talk to my dad for me?"
Cat raised an eyebrow at her.
"I'm just kidding but ugh, I'm not looking forward to this one. I mean how does that conversation start? Help me strategize it."
Cat sat down beside her. "How about, Hey dad, kidnap anyone lately?"
The curly haired brunette gave her friend a look. "Nice, but seriously, I'm kind of stumbling over the idea of asking him. We've gotten closer, but I can tell he holds things back from me. I think there's a big part of him that's just hanging on to his little girl. And I really do think there is a part of him that didn't want to be there that night. And if I ask him about it, he'll know that I know what he did."
"But what choice do you have?"
She sighed. "I'm not sure if I should just blurt it out or if I should play innocent at first and see where they go. If they deny it all, should I let them get away with that?"
"Allison, you can't do that. This is our only clue to finding out what happened to Principal Thomas."
"I might need you to back me up, Cat. If I bring one of my family members to you, will you back me up on how I saw the video?"
"You just had me go out with your boyfriend under the pretense that I was clueless as to who he is and not 24 hours later, you want me to blow that cover?" Cat asked in disbelief.
Allison nervously chewed her bottom lip. "Maybe I can tell them- what I mean is- ugh I don't know. Maybe I can tell my dad about this and say I haven't given away the secret about Scott yet?"
"They won't buy that. Any sane person wouldn't watch a video of a kidnapping and just accept it as a fun family romp without asking more questions."
"you're right. I have to do this on my own. I'll come up with something. I should go though, I'll talk to you later, Cat." She gathered up her laptop and left leaving Cat alone.
… … …