Every Story...

There was already a car in the driveway when they arrived at Victoria’s house. This was surprising to both Kurt and Kendra who expected both of Victoria’s parents to be at the office, implementing damage control of the resultant fallout from last night’s hack. They had anticipated this to be a routine check, to make sure Victoria hadn’t returned and then they would go help some of the others or check elsewhere. For a brief moment, they were hopeful, but it soon became obvious that the car was not Kendra's. It wasn’t Victoria who had returned home.

They parked behind the car and passed by it as they walked to the front door. Neither were well enough acquainted with Victoria’s parents to know who this car belonged to. They got their answer when they rang the doorbell and it opened the door. Though he’d only met him once a few days ago, Kurt immediately recognized the tall, brown haired man as Victoria’s father, though he appeared much more tired now than he had at that time. His collar was pulled to one side and his shirt was untucked, his hair mussed, and his glasses sat low on his nose.

“Hello?” He said, his hazel eyes moving from Kurt to Kendra and back again.

“Hi, Mr. Walker, we’re friends of Victoria’s,” Kurt began, gesturing towards himself and Kendra. “You may remember me, we met at your office the other day.”

“Oh, yes, I do recognize you,” Richard admitted with a soft nod. “You were there with Ashley and my daughter. Come in.”

He stepped aside and allowed them to enter. Closing the door behind them, he then led the pair to his study where he clearly just left. The top of the desk was littered with notes and articles, so dense the wood beneath the surface was completely hidden. The keyboard for the desktop computer was covered too, and the mouse only formed a small bump beneath a few sheets of paper. There were only two items on the table that weren’t overrun. A glass and a bottle of whiskey beside it.

“What can I do for you?” He asked as he poured himself a drink.

“It’s about Victoria,” Kurt prefaced nervously. Victoria’s father didn’t seem like a violent man, but then a lot had happened to both his daughter and his business and he may not take the news of more bad fortune well. “She’s gone missing.”

“Last I heard Monica phoned Olivia and told us that Victoria was at the cabin, and that she’d lost her voice,” Richard said before downing the third of whiskey in one. “We were told that it would be too stressful for us to go and bring her home right now, but that her friends were taking care of her. And now you tell me you lost her?”

“She slipped out while we thought she was resting,” Kurt lied, but it seemed better than telling him that he’d just finished fucking the man’s daughter and she fled when she called out another man’s name. “We think that the hack might have had something to do with an…I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a boyfriend, it was a brief fling really, but he became quite obsessed, and controlling. He didn’t like that she broke it off. We’re worried that maybe she went back to him, or that he might somehow find her.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard about that,” he said, before taking a deep breath. “Have you mentioned it to the police?”

“Yes, Ashley did, this morning,” Kendra informed him.

Richard shook his head as he poured another drink. “Well, I can tell you that she hasn’t come back here. And, to be quite frank, I hope that she doesn’t come here or the office. If she’s truly under that much trauma, then the last thing she needs to see is her parents at odds with each other over this entire mess.”

“At odds? Um…I hope I’m not overstepping here but, do you know that the culprit hacked the log-in details? And used a virus to reprogram the image files to draw from a hidden folder?” Kurt asked, tentative about getting involved in the issues of a married couple he barely knew. “I don’t think either you or your wife can really be blamed for the actions of the hacker.”

“Not directly, no. But, at that time, my wife was wandering around the building, looking for me and my intern, suspecting that I was being unfaithful. The hack targeted her account. If she wasn’t so busy chasing after me, worrying and doubting, if she’d been doing her job, maybe she would have noticed something.” He sighed as he calmed down and downed another drink. “See? When I think about it, I just get angry. I don’t really blame my wife, and I know it’s the intern she mistrusts, not me, but anger is all we really have right now. We’re both frustrated at how powerless we are in this, in failing to prevent it and having to struggle to keep our company’s reputation while knowing it was our own paper that disseminated the image of our own daughter, painted like a common whore in male seed. It was easier just to take some time apart and let us both cool off, so I came here, and she stayed at the office.”

“I…I understand,” Kurt replied stiffly, feeling highly embarrassed to being told first-hand about their marital problems, more so partly because it felt like a rebuke of his own suggestion that no one was to blame, except Shawn. “I…um…I’m sure this will pass eventually. I’m sure you two can, uh, work things out, at least, for Victoria’s sake.”

“You’re an optimist. I’m not so sure. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at my daughter’s face again without remembering this. But…why am I burdening a couple of teenagers with my problems?” He chuckled to himself, missing the peeved expression Kendra’s face bore, wondering if she still looked like a teenager despite being twenty-one. “I’m sorry I can’t help you, but I haven’t seen Victoria since she came to the office with you and Ashley.”

“We’re searching a few places we think she might have gone, but you’re her father so if you can think of any where she’d go that we might have missed, that’d be a great help too,” Kendra said with pleading eyes. “Somewhere that she might feel safe, or calm, or just somewhere that she might go to think.”

He tilted his head to think. “Hmm. There is one place that might fit the bill, but she hasn’t gone there in some time. Whenever she used to go, she always seemed so peaceful and full of joy. I mean, even more so than usual. But, as I said, she hasn’t been back to that church in some time, so I’m not sure if that place still represents any sort of sanctuary for her.”

“Church?” Kendra echoed, her face lighting up. “That would be the place where she met Dustin, right?”

“Her first boyfriend.” Richard nodded as she remembered the brooding, shy young man that she’d dated, and how sad she had been when he moved away. He had stopped attending church services some time before that, but now that he thought about it, around the time that he left town was when she stopped going too. “If she’s looking for any sort of affirmation or absolution, she might have gone there.”

Kurt and Kendra looked at each other and nodded, eager to check it out. It was somewhere that was important to Victoria and it also had a connection to the Lewis’. It was somewhere she could have chosen to go on her own, though they were also acutely aware that it was a place that Shawn might have chosen too. Where better than to cement his rule over Victoria than in the very location where Victoria had first met Dustin, and set a course to come into contact with Shawn. All the more reason for the pair to get there and quickly.

“Thank you, Mr. Walker. You’ve been a great help,” Kurt said, already backing toward the door. “We should get going now then, but we’ll be sure to let you know when we find her.”

“I’m glad I could do something then,” he said as he poured another drink. “Feel free to let yourselves out.”

Kurt and Kendra returned to the front door in silence, though they had much on their minds about Victoria and her father, and how he was handling the situation, but they weren’t going to be so rude as to talk about it in his own house, just down the hall where he might overhear. Instead, they hastily made for the door, hoping that they could still reach Victoria in time. But as they opened the front door to leave their found their path blocked by another obstacle.

With ruby painted lips and rose gold hair, a young woman in a tight dress stood on the doorstep, her hand poised in a fist to knock upon the door. Beneath her other arm, was a small folder. Her steely grey eyes widened slightly when the door opened, and the two unfamiliar faces greeted her. Her glossy lips parted but she made no sound, speechless, panicked like a hare caught in headlights. Kurt stared back at her. He didn’t know her, but he could guess that this was the ‘intern’ Richard had mentioned.

“Hello. We’re friends of Victoria Walker,” he said coolly. “And you?”

“Oh, um, I’m Alexa, I work for Ric-ahem, Mr. Walker,” she said, as she shifted slightly to more prominently show off the folder under her arm. “He mentioned a folder at the office that he needed, so I decided to bring it to him.”

Kurt noted that she didn’t say that Victoria’s father had actually asked her to bring it. “Ah, well, I’m not sure he’s in any state to see people. We were-”

“-just leaving,” Kendra interjected, pulling at Kurt’s arm, dragging him onto the front space, as Alexa stepped inside the house, switching places with them. “You can see for yourself. He’s in his study. You know where that is?”

“Mmm, yeah,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Is…is anyone else here?”

“Nope, just him,” Kendra informed her.”

“Oh, good. Bye.” Her words were as abrupt as the door slamming in their faces.

Kurt pulled out of Kendra’s grasp, though he made no effort to return to the house. Instead they walked to the car, though Kurt felt rather dirty about leaving the intern home alone with Mr. Walker while he continued drinking.

“Do you really think that was a good idea?” he asked over the top of the car as he opened the driver’s door. “The way she was dressed…she’s definitely trying to take advantage of this whole situation.”

“If he does, it’s his decision to make,” Kendra replied with a shrug. “He’ll be no better than his wife suspects if he actually fucks her.”

“Even if he’s been drinking and dealing with the breakdown of his family and his company?” Kurt countered while sliding into his seat. “I think it would be understandable how a pretty young thing like that might convince him that a couple hours of escapism would make him feel better.”

“So, infidelity is permissible if you’re sad enough? Maybe it’s more forgivable, but not any more acceptable. And above all, not our problem,” Kendra answered from the passenger seat as she pulled her door shut. “Now, let’s go to church.”