“Something on your mind Eric?” Nate asked. They were driving back home, this time with Alex Ramsey in tow. He and Ben were happy in the backseat, idly chatting, while Eric seemed lost in his thoughts.
“Huh, oh it’s nothing. Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Depends, what do you need?”
“Can you drop me off at the hospital?”
“Uh, I guess. Is it okay for you to be there? I mean, from what Dad told me things are pretty tense.” Nate said.
“Nate’s got a point Eric. Maybe you should call first, make sure it’s okay to go over. My mom said the feds are pretty on edge.” Ben added. His mother had come home last night fairly irritable from her LONG talk with the agent in charge. And though Agent Johnson was being reasonable, Agent Walker was not.
“Ya, maybe you guys are right.” Eric said, realizing the last thing he wanted to do was cause more problems by showing up. He wasn’t even sure if the feds knew he’d gone out into the woods after Spencer. (they did, but Eric didn’t know that).
“Don’t worry, Spencer’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” Nate said, patting his brother’s arm.
-------------------------------------------
Nate was right about that. Spencer wasn’t going anywhere. She was lying in bed, wishing her arm was as numb as it had been that morning. It was only two or so hours after se was out of surgery that the agents demanded to talk to her and Jeremy. Which meant Spencer had to change back.
“I feel like my arm got run over by Ghost Rider’s bike.” she complained.
“Sorry dear, but I haven’t a clue what that means.” Maggie said, adjusting her daughter’s IV.
“He’s the guy who rides the flaming motorcycle.” Evan said. Both his daughter and wife looked surprised at him.
“Believe it or not, I did read comics when I was a kid.” Evan said.
“I always took you for more of a Batman fan.” Maggie commented.
“I am.”
“Uh, listen, not that this conversation isn’t SO fascinating, but could there be less talking, more injecting morphine into the IV?” Spencer asked sarcastically. Maggie and Evan stifled laughs, and went back to helping Spencer get comfortable.
“Better?” Maggie asked.
“I can still feel my arm, so no.” Spencer groaned.
“Don’t worry. The agents won’t be here more than a few minutes. And then you can go back to wallowing and tearing the bed sheets to ribbons.” Evan said.
Spencer blushed, having apparently torn the linens in her sleep. She’d done that more than a few times before. Which is why she usually slept on the floor when she went to bed transformed. She did quite a bit of tossing and turning in her sleep, and things got in the way.
“Right, I’ll go tell them they can come in. Evan, are you gong to stay?”
“They’ll have to throw me out the window to get me to leave.” he said, putting a hand on Spencer’s shoulder. She couldn’t feel it.
“Oh thank god it’s finally started working. I thought my arm was going to burst into flames, or worse,” Spencer thought. As best her mother could explain without going into too much detail, they’d done the bare minimum so she could still change back without breaking her arm any further.
“We might have to do another surgery if the plate moves too much, or causes a splinter when you shift. But otherwise, all you have to do now is heal.” Maggie had said after Spencer regained consciousness. Again, they went a little overboard with the anesthetic. In hindsight that was a good thing considering how uncomfortable Spencer was now.
Agents Johnson and Reed came into the room. They weren’t surprised to see Evan Lawson there. After looking at Spencer, they realized it was probably a good thing the hospital made them wait. She looked pretty terrible. Not as bad as she’d looked at Jeremy beat the living crap out of her in Virginia, but still pretty bad. Which made sense, since she’d fallen down a 75 foot cliff (or so they thought).
“Holding in there kid?” Johnson asked.
“More or less.” Spencer said.
“This won’t take more than ten minutes, we’re just going to collect your statement. We’ve already got Bower’s.”
“Really? That was fast.” Spencer remarked.
“Well, he agreed to talk to us over the phone. We’ll still need to speak to him in person one more time before carting him away, but there’s not rush now.” Johnson explained.
“Good to know. Where are you carting him off to? Some underwater prison guarded by sharks and jellyfish? Maybe with some of those weird balloon bombs from Finding Nemo?” Spencer asked.
“As you can see her sense of humor wasn’t the least bit affected from her fall.” Evan sighed, wishing Spencer would take the situation a bit more seriously.
“Don’t worry, we’ll put him in the hole beneath the hole.” Johnson chuckled.
“I appreciate it. So what do you need to know? It’s all fairly straight forward. Jeremy and I got into a fight, and fell down a cliff. And here we are now.”
“How did you two end up at the cliff?”
“Uh, I dunno. Just happened. Could have ended up in the high school parking lot. That’s just where I found him. Kinda ironic, us ending up at a place called ‘Lovers’ Lookout’. I wasn’t even sure I’d find him when I left the house. I was just really angry.” Spencer said.
“Which is understandable. And Jeremy attacked you first?”
“Uh, ya. I mean, I guess so. We were both kinda egging each other on. I don’t really remember who threw the first punch, only that punches were thrown. And at some point we ended up at the bottom of the cliff.” Spencer said. She stole a quick glance to her father, who just squeezed her hand supportively.
Agent Reed was scribbling things down on a notepad, while Agent Johnson continued to ask questions. Mostly about the timeline of events, but he did ask one thing no one was expecting him to ask.
“You’re not hiding anything from us are you Spencer?”
“No. You think I am obviously or you wouldn’t ask.” Spencer said, remaining calm.
“Things just seems to be wrapping up rather neatly. Too neatly if you ask me, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Bower’s going away, and that’ll be the end of this nightmare for all of us.” Johnson said.
He knew that she was hiding something, hell this whole town was hiding something. But it wasn’t his job to nose around and find out what. His job was to recapture Jeremy Bower and send him back to jail. Half the job was done, now he just had to make sure the second half was done this time.
“I hope we never have to meet under circumstances like this again Mr. Lawson. Take care of yourself.” Agent Johnson said, offering his hand.
“Thank you sir. I appreciate everything you’ve done for my family.” Evan said, accepting his hand. As usual, Agent Reed remained silent, and just stood in the corner. Spencer looked at her for a moment. Something about the woman, who looked like she was just out of college, seemed odd. But Spencer couldn’t say what exactly.
Just as the two agents prepared to leave, Agent Walker came into the room. Maggie was behind him, looking quite annoyed.
“Walker, what the hell are you doing? I told you to keep an eye on Bower!” Agent Johnson said.
“Not until I get some answers of my own.” Walker demanded, trying to push past Johnson and Reed. Evan put himself in-between Walker and Spencer as well.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Johnson asked, raising his voice so loud it hurt the more sensitive ears in the room.
“I’ll tell you. This whole town is screwy! I just saw Bower’s X-Rays!” Walker said.
“Oh boy.” Spencer thought, knowing what Walker must have seen. The very obvious bite marks in Jeremy’s skull. Not the kind of injury one would get from falling off a cliff.
“So?”
“So, it looked like a bear tried to crack Bower’s skull like a peanut shell!” Walker said. Johnson looked more confused than ever. Reed seemed… more worried. Which didn’t make much sense either.
“Walker, get out of this room right now. I’d rather yell at you outside.” Johnson said in a low voice.
“God, don’t you get it? They’ve been playing us this entire time? I told you, this place is so screwy!” Walker said, his face flushing with anger.
“Sean, shut up and move before I let Evan Lawson throw you out that window like I know he wants to do.” Johnson said. And Evan did. He didn’t know how Agent Walker had gotten his hands on Bower’s X-rays, but he was going to make sure that Walker didn’t try to hurt his daughter.
“Fine. Fine! Be that way. You just want the guy out of your hair. You don’t care if he’s the victim.”
“Are you mental? Jeremy Bower is not victim!” Johnson yelled.
“Uh, maybe we should move this somewhere else?” Agent Reed spoke for the first time, but her colleagues ignored her.
“Right, and all the mysterious injuries he gets after tangling with that one are just coincidences. You explain why the guy’s head had to be stapled back together? And it wasn’t from a fall.” Walker said.
“Really? You have any proof of that?”
“I went to the crime scene, or the alleged crime scene. There weren’t any signs of a struggle, there weren’t any signs of life! I even talked to some old guy who lives near the lake. He said he hadn’t seen any kids go up there since Saturday night! No one was around Sunday!” Walker said.
Johnson had nothing to say to that. Maggie and Evan exchanged nervous glances through the doorway. Was the plan going to fall through? What would happen then? Evan was about to say something, when Agent Reed spoke up.
“Do you really want to open that can of worms Sean? What’s the point? You’ve said the entire time that Bower is a no good bastard. Just leave well enough alone. You sound like you’re trying to get him out of prison, not into it.” Reed said cooly.
That must have been the biggest insult she could have thrown at Sean, because he looked sick. Walker didn’t say another word, and stormed out of the room twice and frustrated and angry as he had been when he came in. Johnson apologized, and went after his subordinate. Reed lingered, and asked Maggie to come inside and close the door.
“Sorry about that. Sean’s always been bit paranoid. Guy believes a lot of crazy conspiracy theories.” she said.
“Right… well thanks for getting him out of here before I did.” Evan said.
“Weres have to look out for each others.” Reed said, smiling a bit. There was a group jaw drop, which only made Reed smile more.
“Ya, I know you’re probably confused. I haven’t even told the mayor or Ms. Twist yet.” Reed admitted.
“You’re a were? You don’t smell like one.”
“Well, my parents are. We moved to a town a lot like Moon Lake in upstate New York when I was a kid. They became the family weres. Anyway, when I got here things reminded me of home, so I called and asked my parents if they knew of any were-towns in Washington. Moon Lake was the first one they thought of.” Agent Reed explains.
“So why didn’t you say anything before?” Maggie asks.
“I didn’t get a chance to. Agent Johnson runs a right ship, you should know what it’s like sir. It’s hard to get a moment to breath.” Reed looked to Evan, who nodded. Spending a few years living in close-quarters, privacy was something of a luxury.
“I’d better get going before Johnson comes back. I just wanted you to know, I’ll make sure they don’t go digging too far. Though I suspect you’ve got some friends in high places who can see to that too.”
“And then some. But it’s good to know there’s someone in the know on the other side. So it speak.” Evan said.
Agent Reed nodded, and slipped out. And the Lawson’s sudden panic was gone, just like that. They shared a group hug, before Maggie was called back to work. And then Evan’s cell phone rang.
“It’s for you.” he said, holding out the phone. Spencer took it, wondering who could be calling her. She should have known better, only one person would want to call her the minute they got out of school.
“Hey Spencer, what’s up?” Eric asked. Spencer smiled, and said nothing out of the ordinary.