November 18

11:25

Some House in New Jersey

The Detective stared at the computer closely while Martha, Jared, Jenna, Michael and Jeremy crowded around her. The message on the screen was a short one, so they were confused as to why the Detective was looking at it like she was discovering the hidden secrets of the universe.

Jeremy wondered if he could go home soon. They did kind of break into Veronica's house, and he suspected that Veronica's parent's would not take: 'It's for the truth!' as a good explanation.

The Detective finally moved away from the screen. "Well, it's very clearly written by an amateur," she mused. "It'll be a hard line to balance, both with making it sound like we're the same person and not tipping whoever this is off."

Jeremy frowned. "Wait, what?" he asked. "But that's illegal!"

"Yes, yes, but," the Detective told him. "It's for the truth."

Jeremy frowned even harder. "I don't really think-."

"Well, we've kind of been breaking the law for a while now," Jared pointed out. "So, oh well."

Jeremy wondered if it was morally bad that he wanted to run home. "O-Oh."

"Don't worry, we won't get caught," the Detective assured him. "I never get caught."

Jeremy gulped. "That's... not really something a good guy would say..."

"Come on, Jeremy, its fine!" Michael told him. "Besides, we need to do this because, like, nobody else is and 'great power' and stuff."

Jeremy didn't think that was right, but he wasn't willing to argue. "I... guess?"

"Right," the Detective agreed. "Although I'm still expecting to get paid."

The Detective leaned closer to the screen, pulling up a new draft. She typed in the guy's email and started on a message. While she was typing, Jeremy leaned into Michael.

"How much are you going to pay her?" he whispered.

"She'll tell us after," Michael whispered back.

"Oh," Jeremy thought for a minute. "How are you going to pay her?"

"Uh..." Michael didn't answer.

Jeremy was about to press him, but the Detective interrupted him, leaning back and saying "There we go. Our first deception."

"Can, uh, can we not call it that?" Martha asked.

"...Our initial deception," the Detective corrected. Martha sighed, but she didn't say anything.

Jeremy read what she had written.

______________________________________________

Dear Mr Trancer;

Hello again, and I apologise for the long wait. The project we had in mind had issues that cannot be disclosed. If you are still willing to accept our offer, please contact me back. Thank you.

Yours Truly;

Danielle Walters

________________________________________________________

Just as Jeremy got to the end of the email, the Detective pressed send. The message disappeared from the screen, and was replaced was by a message saying:

You have previously blocked this person. Are you sure you would like to send this email?

"Well, this'll make things interesting," the Detective muttered, and she pressed yes. For a second, no one did anything.

"Uh... now what?" Jenna asked.

"Now we wait," the Detective replied, leaning back. The others frowned at this.

"We have school tomorrow," Martha pointed out.

"I have to study for a test," Jenna remembered.

"I'm tired," Jeremy mumbled.

"I'm tired," Jared said, louder.

"That sounds like your problems," the Detective replied. There was a beat of silence before she twisted around to look at them with an annoyed expression. "You realize I'm not your babysitter, right? You can do what you want while I do what you paid me to do."

It took a second to click, but when it did, Jeremy was out of there, through the window and following Michael to play video games for the rest of the night.

He had no clue what just happened, and he was sure as hell he had gotten in over his head about this. But if there was one (just one!) thing Jeremy was sure of, it's that getting out would not be easy. He was in this, no matter what.

But for tonight at least, he could pretend that nothing had happened, ever. He didn't get involved in this 'true crime' type thing, no one was murdered, and he never ever had to go to Denaro.

While he and Michael were on level ten of Apocalypse of the Damned (The Gymnasium and the hardest level) he could pretend that nothing ever happened ever.

It didn't last.

November 19

11:25

Some House in New Jersey

Jeremy wondered if the Detective even slept, because 12 hours later when he and Michael snuck into Veronica's house again (Jeremy still had iffy feelings about that) she was still in the exact same position they had left her. Jenna, Martha and Jared were already there, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

When Jeremy and Michael tumbled through the window, rather ungracefully, the teenagers looked over, while the Detective continued to type away on Veronica's keyboard, eating a piece of food that Martha probably bout.

Jared laughed. "Well, that was pathetic."

"My bad," Jeremy grumbled. He managed to pick himself off the floor and he looked over the Detective shoulder to see she was doing.

However, before he could get a good look, she suddenly stood up, making him jump back.

"Did...Did you get something?" he asked. The Detective huffed, looking frustrated.

"No, of course not!" she said. "You saw those emails your friend sent, there is absolutely no way I can use that to any advantage. For the past ten hours, all I've been doing is going in circles."

The Detective stepped back from the computer, glaring at it. "I believe..." the Detective seemed to hesitate for a moment before continuing. "I believe that the only way to do this would be to take a more hands on approach."

"What the heck does that mean?" Jared scoffed. Jeremy was confused as well. How could they take a hands on approach to emails?

The Detective hummed. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "We need to find Joe Trancer, and ask him about this. Face to face."

"Oh," Martha still sounded confused. "So we're like, going to go to his house?"

"Exactly."

"Isn't that even more illegal?" Jeremy asked.

"How are we going to do that?" Jenna asked, almost at the exact same time.

The Detective chose to ignore Jeremy, instead answering Jenna's question.

"Well, it's simple," she began. "I-"

"Oh, did you manage to hack his email?" Michael asked, excited. "How?!"

The Detective rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't hack his email," she huffed. "I found a dating site with his name and address on it."

"Oh," Michael sounded disappointed. "Well. That sounds kind of dumb. Putting your address on a dating website."

"Maybe," the Detective said. "Let's go. I want to get this done today."

Without much arguing, the six once again snuck out of the house they broke into, and the Detective led them through the streets, making sure not to get caught. At first, Jeremy didn't recognize any of the streets that they were going through, but as they continued, everything started getting more and more familiar.

A pit formed in Jeremy's stomach once he realized the neighborhood they were in was one he had walked through every day. That yellow house down the street belonged to Justin Laboy, who also went to Denaro. He was a nice boy, if misguided at times.

The big, kind of odd looking house next to it belonged to a woman named Catherine, and all of her five roommates. They were also nice, but they were kind of intimidating to Jeremy.

And the one next to it...

Jeremy and Michael exchanged a wide eyed glance as the Detective stoop in front of a beige house, which looked a little run down, but the 'hadn't been taken care of' rundown, and not the 'poor' rundown.

"Well, this is it," the Detective announced. "This is where Joe Trancer lives."

"What?" Jeremy asked. He didn't notice how loud he was until he heard his voice echoing around the street. Despite this, he didn't attempt to lower it. "This can't be his house, Detective, this is my house."