...has Two Sides

The offices were eerily quiet today. Gone was the mid-day bustle of staff as they tirelessly laboured to prepare tomorrows issues; sights and sounds that Ashley personally witnessed only a few days prior. There wasn’t even a bitchy, stubborn receptionist at the front desk to deny them entry. In their place, the office was occupied by a mournful emptiness, like an unattended wake, and in those darkened, destitute hallways, even her own footsteps sounded haunting and foreboding. She might have believed that the offices really had been vacated, were it not for the open front door and the light dimly glowing from a solitary room near the end of the hall.

A third set of footsteps joined the chorus of Ashley and Peter’s shoes. For a brief moment, hearing the addition in the low light, Ashley’s heart leapt in her chest and she slid closer to Peter for protection. But, looking straight ahead, she soon saw the source, though seeing who it was brought her no gladness. The very sight of Detective McClane made Ashley’s gut twist. As much as she might have considered the detective to be a pain her ass though, Joan McClane’s presence brought some hope. If she was here, then perhaps Shawn’s plan to **** her had failed.

“Fancy seeing you here?” Ashley quipped as the brunette neared.

“Miss Woodsen, Mr. Zander,” she greeted them, slight surprise in her voice. “I should be the one asking why you’re here.”

“We just came to see our friend’s mum, given everything her family has been through,” Ashley said, Peter nodding along beside her. “Did you ask Mrs. Walker about Shawn Lewis?”

“I did, but she doesn’t recall anyone like that being in the office before the hack, only employees,” Joan told them after a brief hesitation.

She didn’t have to tell them anything, especially regarding facts in a case that was still ongoing. However, the truth was that she had been intentionally vague and left out key details in his description that might have led to Olivia Walker identifying Shawn. The last thing she wanted was for Ashley and Peter to poke around inside Olivia’s memories and finding out that he had been there last night. So, she pretended to be forthcoming, hoping that the information would stop the young adults from probing too deeply.

“There was a window of opportunity after Mrs. Walker left the computer to find her husband. Anyone in the building could have had access, so I’m going to read through the statements taken by Officers Stallone and Russell this morning. Perhaps some of them seen something,” Joan mixed the lies with truths. The statement about opportunity was true, however the detective was not going to look for new suspects, but rather to make sure no one had seen Shawn.

Unfortunately for Joan, Ashley knew just enough to recognize that the detective was lying her ass off. Hacking the paper required Shawn to insert the algorithm into the system in person since he didn’t have the technical skills to do it remotely and the deal with Grace only necessitated that she provide him with the means. But the blonde cheerleader had to bite her tongue. Everyone had agreed, it was better this way, for Grace most of all. Though it still took a lot of self-restraint from Ashley not to immediately tell Joan how much of a disgrace she was to the badge she wore.

“It’s so nice to know that there’s someone on the police **** that we can trust to go after the real bad guys.” Her voice was devoid of any of the enthusiasm her words implied though; she simply couldn’t deny herself one thinly veiled scathing retort at the detective’s expense. Okay, maybe two. “I lost a lot of faith in the police, what with the handling of Lisa Rivera, but I think I may have judged you a little too soon.”

“Thank…you?” Joan cocked an eyebrow while mentally noting the younger woman’s tone and demeanor.

It might have been simple disrespectful taunting; lord knows she’d seen enough overly confident little shits posture in the interrogation room when they thought they had her beat. But Joan wasn’t a detective for nothing, and she detected a deeper judgement behind the words. Almost as if they already knew about her deal with Shawn. That was impossible though, and what was even more improbable was that Ashley wasn’t ripping into her. There was a reason for that too, she was sure. It was becoming very clear that these teens were much more devious and manipulative than she first expected.

“Well, I should get back to catching bag guys,” Joan shot Ashley a smile as she walked past the blonde cheerleader. “Your sister isn’t going to find herself.”

They watched her leave. Ashley’s fists were balled up tight at her sides in frustration. The implication that they were the bad guys, pulling the strings behind Hannah’s arrest, hadn’t gone unnoticed by the petite woman, but there was nothing she could do. The detective simply couldn’t find out about the video Hannah had of Robert and Heather. If that got out, it was all over, and all the lying and scheming to trick Hannah, her own sister, would have been for naught. Even knowing that, it was difficult for Ashley to stay quiet, used to saying exactly what she thought.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to goad her like that?” Peter leaned over and asked once the detective had stepped into the elevator at the other end of the hall. “You know it’s just going to make her even more gung-ho about figuring out the truth. She’s already determined enough as it is.”

Ashley shrugged. “It just makes me angry, to think we reached out to her for help, and Shawn got to her too.”

“That might not be her fault,” Peter pointed out as they continued on down the hall. “We heard how Shawn tricked Grace, manipulated Madison, and corrupted Victoria. He’s probably blackmailing Joan too.”

She nodded along with his thought process, but she was frowning as well, the fact that Joan was being **** to comply being of little comfort to her. “That worries me too. Think about Shawn’s usual tactics. He doesn’t threaten ****, or hold hostages. Everyone he’s kidnapped, he’s released. But he gets his way, by finding some dark secret and exploiting that, and bending people to his will.”

“That is usually his modus operandi,” Peter concurred.

“Right, so, if he really did get to Joan, that means that she has skeletons in her closet too.” She dropped her voice to a whisper as they neared the solitary lit room. “And if she’s dirty, if maybe she’s worked with criminals before, who’s to say she’s above working with Shawn as well? Just think of all the information he could **** Grace to provide her with.”

“That could be a problem. But a lot of these problems will be solved once we deal with Shawn,” Peter turned them back on topic. “And before we deal with Shawn, we need to find Victoria.”

In agreement, they approached the conference room. Ashley rapped upon the door with two knuckles though it was already open, left wide by Joan’s departure, so they walked straight in. Lifting her head at the sound of the knocking, Olivia stared at the pair with wide, puffy eyes. She had cried until she had no more tears. Her skin had turned pale, almost sickly, as if the very life had been drained from her. Not that Ashley blamed her. In one foul swoop, her livelihood and life’s blood had been the subject of raze and ruin.

It was a stark contrast to the last time Ashley had saw Victoria’s mother. She had been so lively, almost exuberant, as she’d found them the articles pertaining to Carlos Rivera’s arrests, and now she appeared utterly defeated. And alone. Aside from her sorrow, the first thing Ashley noticed was that Richard, Mr. Walker, wasn’t with his wife. These kinds of troubles tended to bring people together, or tear them apart, and their martial cohesion was to be yet another casualty of Shawn’s destructive plot to punish Victoria.

“Ashley?” Olivia’s brow furrowed. “What are you doing here? And who’s this?”

“Peter Zander, Mrs. Walker,” he introduced himself solemnly. He would even have shaken her hand, but like a kicked dog, he was wary of getting too close. “I’m a friend of Ashley’s, and I knew Victoria too.”

“Victoria…she’s not here with you, is she?” Her voice was conflicted, tinged with both hope and panic. To see her daughter, to see that she was okay with her own eyes would have meant the world to her, but she couldn’t let Victoria see her own mother in this state, so crushed, weak and crying. “She shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

“No, she’s not with us. In fact, she left the cabin some time ago, and we’re trying to find where she might have went.” The words came out slowly, feeling heavy upon her tongue, laden with apprehension. After all the distress she’d been through, Ashley was now telling Olivia that they’d lost her daughter. “Clearly you haven’t seen her, so she hasn’t come here.”

“She’s missing?!” Olivia’s voice rose sharply, cutting to the core of what Ashley had said. “What if the same person who spread those pictures is targeting her again? We need to tell the police. We need to get that detective, whatsername, McClane, back in here.”

“No!” Ashley shouted, a little too quickly and a little too loudly.

Peter covered for her. “She hasn’t been gone long, and we aren’t done checking her usual spots yet. The police won’t do anything until we’re sure that she’s actually missing, so right now we’re just trying to focus on searching places that she might go. Someone is already going to her home, but if you can think of anywhere else she might have went, that’d be very helpful.”

“Somewhere else…I…I don’t know.” Olivia held her head in her palms. “I feel like such a bad mother. My child is missing and I’m just sitting here, unable to even think straight.”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Walker. I told Monica that she would be safe with me, that she’d be cared for at the cabin. But I wasn’t there. I left. Kurt was there to look after her, but I should have been there. Maybe I’d have seen where she went,” Ashley pled, water filling her eyes. “I gave you my word and I failed you. I can’t even say how sorry I am.”

“It’s not your fault, Ashley, dear.” Olivia rose from the table and hugged the younger blonde. Pulling apart but still holding the teen by her shoulders, Olivia consoled her. “Not going to the cabin and bringing Victoria straight home was about the only thing out of all of this that Richard and I actually agreed on. That was the choice we made as her parents, and ultimately we’re the ones responsible for whatever happens.”

“The only thing you and Mr. Walker agree on?” Ashley echoed with surprise. “I hope he doesn’t blame you for any of this.”

The Walkers had always been the perfect family to Ashley, living and working together in perfect harmony. She’d never even heard them raise their voices against the other. Robert routinely reprimanded Heather, whether it was in front of her friends or not, and she’d become such a stable fixture in the Cole household that she’d even been privy to Brandon’s mother whacking him over the head with a frying pan. But not the Walkers. To Ashley, they epitomized exactly what a husband and wife should be. So, it was quite the shock to the system to find out that even they could fall apart.

“No, well, not directly. He blames me for chasing him around the office, trying to catch him with that floozy intern. I’d like to fire her, but I don’t have just cause. So, instead, I’m **** to watch her flaunt herself all over the office for my husband’s benefit.” Olivia stepped back and rested against the edge of the conference table as she clarified. “And he’s not exactly wrong. If I’d stayed in that room…if I’d just been there, maybe I would have noticed something.”

“Sorry, I know this is none of my business, but I’m a little confused,” Peter said. “Is he actually cheating?”

“No, at least not that I’ve seen. I don’t think that he would though. I trust my husband, though you may think that it doesn’t show. But I think he enjoys the attention of a young woman who still finds him attractive and hangs on his every word. And she feeds on that, encouraging her to be more and more brazen. It’s a small victory that because we’re not printing tomorrow, I don’t have to sit and watch her buzz around him.”

“Surely the police didn’t shut you down?” Ashley asked. “The leak wasn’t intentional by the newspaper. It was a hack.”

“No, we suspended all printing because Richard and I couldn’t agree on what we should do with the next issue. He wanted to make a formal, public apology using the front page. He contends that our readers expect a certain level of decency from our paper that was betrayed. But I refused,” Olivia relayed, bitter at the idea of begging for forgiveness for someone else’s misdeeds. “We have nothing to apologize for. As you say, it’s entirely the work of this hacker, whoever it is. We didn’t betray our reader’s expectations, they did, and they should be the only ones apologizing.”

She said those words pointedly towards Ashley, who was already preparing to say sorry again. “If it wasn’t for me, not keeping a close eye on Victoria, it’d be one less thing for you to worry about. It sounds like you already have enough on your plate.”

“Victoria has always been a very dutiful daughter. So, for her to disappear like this means she must have finally reached her breaking point. If she’s been pushed that far, even if you were there, I don’t think there’s anything you could have done,” Olivia encouraged her. “I still trust you, enough that when I leave it to you to find Victoria, I know you will, and that you’ll bring her home safe.”

“Yes, of course, I will,” Ashley said, beaming with renewed determination. “Come on.”

Though they left through the same dark and emptiness that greeted them on their way into the offices, there was a new sense of purpose and motivation coursing through Ashley’s veins. Her steps no longer rang through the halls like a bell sounding for an execution. Instead they made for an up-tempo beat as she walked with conviction back towards the elevator, determined to find Victoria, and to honor the trust her friend’s mother had placed in her.

Oh Vicky, where could you be?