Wicked Secrets

Chapter 5

'Phase two. How? Understood. Where? Not yet,' Corine thought as she was still walking. She had, looking at her watch obviously stolen, about 15 minutes, give or take. She had to be fast.

Corine had seen the foyer in it's majesty filled with chatterboxes here and there, all drinking the beverages and snacking themselves. She had seen the ballroom, full to the brim with dancers. She saw the Mayor's daughter, Elaine sitting on one of the chairs.

Given most girls her age love dancing, she expected Elaine to follow suit but she was looking around, must be in search for her partner, obviously Dean. Yet, when she surveyed the premises, to Corine's surprise and relief, was not there.

Then again, she was in disguise, so why worry? And she marched on to see the hall. Less people were there but it was more businesslike than the other two. Then, she saw Mr.Blitz among the group of men discussing. 'Definitely not this place!' Corine thought.

The rest of the rooms she uncovered were all different yet had something similar in it. Though, she couldn't put her foot on it. For the past hour after sending the treasure's photo, she tried to find the perfect place.

Yet none seemed right and she hadn't even scratched the quarter of this mansion! And now as said above,she had her 15 minutes. Luck was definitely not on her side.

She looked into another room, better described as a rec room. It was small but definitely a more comfy place to be in that stuffy ballroom or foyer. A girl was looking lavishly at a rocking boy doing karaoke.

Luckily,it was not Dean. She sighed and kept continuing with her search.

'Why am I so scared of Dean? He did nothing wrong,' Corine thought.Yet, her old life was gone... forever. So was her thing with Dean, but what could she do? What was he going to do? Sigh... stupid questions!

The next room was very spacious. The place feels a bit homey. There were rows of shelves which she assumed a library but then until she saw a bed. Definitely not a library. It looked like some master sweep and definitely a thousand times comfier than Corine's place from the present and the past.

"What are you doing here?!" a voice called. Corine spun to face a woman, her blond hair shining out like a star, she was quite pretty, almost angelic. "You shouldn't be here!" she continued, even then her voice showed no anger, only pure kindness.

"Sorry, ma'am, I'm quite unfamiliar to this place," Corine explained,"So I decided to explore a bit,".

"Oh, I see. May I know your name. I'm Mrs.Blitz. But you can call me Lily, if you want," said Mrs. Blitz. It's been a long time since that Corine had ever seen her, as well as Mr.Blitz, the changes quite astounding. But Mrs.Blitz kind heart hadn't change one bit.

"Rita," Corine answered quickly.

"What a lovely name. Anyway, you shouldn't be here. This is a private room. So please go back to the foyer and enjoy the rest of the festivities," Mrs. Blitz said.

"OK," Corine answered and returned back with Mrs. Blitz shouting, "And don't go any further from here, either. The rest is chock full of security. You wouldn't want to die, would you?".

So Corine made her way back to the foyer, having to rethink her plan. She had only, checking her watch, 5 minutes top. 'Don't fail now,' she thought.

Meanwhile, Ape was impatiently waiting for phase two to commence. It's been an hour since Shadow sent that treasure. Everyone was in awe of it. Some of them even had gold in their eyes. He clearly remembered saying to Shadow, "You got about 1 and a half hour to start phase 2. And it must be precisely on time. Not earlier or not later, understood?"