All It Took

12.Alison

Alive and Kicking // Simple Minds

2 days earlier

Misty drives like a maniac. I knew this. I've been bumming rides off her forever. But when our recon moved into stake outs, her flare for drama hit its max.

"Slow down." My voice is steady, but my nerves are not. "I'm not interested in visiting the emergency room."

"I'm not interested in losing him after waiting this long to catch a glimpse." Misty is doubling down on this new secret agent persona. Once she had the chop sticks and take out in her hands with a google search on illegal performance enhancing drugs pulled up, the girl morphed into her favorite CSI characters and I haven't seen her since.

Almost two weeks of hunting for answers has come to this. Following Reign's oversized SUV in the truck Misty borrowed from her brother in hopes of getting a payoff.

"This is so dumb. Exactly what I told Jeff and my dad to stop trying to do."

"Nope. They were passive about it, sitting back and waiting for Reign to slip up. That was going to take years. We are ultra pro-active. Make things happen, that's my motto. How do you think I found out about Danny's chronic cheating? I could have just left it at sleeping with our neighbor, but I'd had my suspicions before. I cyberstalked him on the deep web and found his secret tinder and bumble. Dude had issues that I never let myself believe. I paid the price. But not you, babe. We're getting your boo out of this poo poo."

I literally facepalm myself. Only Misty. "Ugh."

"No ughing allowed. Get your lenses prepped," she says, pointing to my camera case. "I have a good feeling about today."

"That's what you said yesterday. And the day before that."

Misty shrugs, hands locked on the steering wheel. "Well, I've gotta be right eventually."

***

2 days later

I gather the file folder from the passenger seat and jump out of Misty's car.

"Wait here!" I call back to her as I break out into a full run toward the athletic offices. The sound of my shoes smacking against the asphalt reverberates around me. I'm excited in a strange way, a way I didn't expect after the last time I talked to my dad. But this time I have something with teeth to toss at him.

I rush down the hallway to the main offices. It's a Sunday and Dad shouldn't be here. He should be at home having Sunday dinner with me. I've been avoiding him, so I guess he kept busy at work. Things are about to change.

The second I'm standing at Dad's office desk I slam the file of documents in front of him.

His arms fly up as he rolls his chair away. "What's this?"

"Research. Potential evidence." I lean forward so I can speak quietly. "A plan to keep you and Jeff out of jail."

"I hardly think-"

"Correct. You were hardly thinking. I can't believe you talked Jeff into keeping all of this between you two and then forcing him to do recon."

"That's not what was going on."

"Stop, Dad. Stop trying to talk me into this. It doesn't matter that you had good motives. Your method sucks. Let me put it into terms you'll understand. Your game plan has put you on a losing streak. Stop trying to force a bad play."

Dad drops his head, rubbing his hand down his face and sighing.

"Fine. Show me what you found out."

I nod. Finally, a reasonable male. They're hard to come by lately. I open the folder to the first document I printed out, sources for illegal steroids.