A Condemned Haven

Chapter 43

They day went by pretty fast as Clarke made her way to lunch. James wouldn't be there because he was suspended, but Jack and Sammy would. Sammy was already at the table, but Jack didn't seem to be anywhere in the cafeteria. Clarke was confused, when she saw him earlier, he didn't say anything about being gone for lunch. Sammy was just sitting there reading a book before Clarke sat down.

"Hey where is Jack?"

"I don't know I saw him talking to a teacher when class let out, but that was like five minutes ago." Talking to a teacher about what? She didn't need to worry about it anymore as Jack walked through the doors of the cafeteria and to the table.

"Hey what' up? Why were you talking to a teacher?"

"I had to get work for James since he was out today." Jack had promised to pick up all of James' work while he was on suspension.

"Yeah why is he at home?" Clarke was wondering why Sammy was asking her that. Wouldn't she know that James had gotten into a fight?

"He got into a fight yesterday and got suspended."

"What? No, he didn't." Clarke's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What do you mean he didn't?"

"He's not suspended, he's juts out sick. Unless the fight was after school."

"Yeah it probably was." Clarke let it slide. It probably was after school and someone caught them on school grounds. It wasn't unlikely. Either way she had more important things to focus on then what James was up to.

School went by fast as she couldn't focus on anything other than what was going to happen to Andy. That bat had to have something on it. Andy hadn't seen the search coming so there was no way that he could've prepared for it. There was no way, right? The ringing on her cell phone pulled her out of her thoughts. It was detective Vale again.

"Clarke, they let Andy out. I thought I would just give you a heads up."

"What why?"

"The bat had no evidence on it. I don't think it was the right one."

"Shit."

"Clarke just don't do anything crazy." She mumbled a quick goodbye and hung up. She was going to go and finally finish this. She was going to get a confession. He wasn't going to get away with this if she could help it.

She got into her car quickly racing exactly where she needed to go. She was right. She had to be. All the evidence pointed at him. The football team picked on him. He wanted revenge. He wrote the notes to Brandon when he couldn't get his hands on the photo. He wanted to make them pay and when he couldn't get the photo, he found another way. That had to be it. There were no other options. She was pushing eighty on the long road towards Andy's house. No one was ever on this road, so she had no worries as she raced down it. That was until she saw the blue lights flashing behind her. Shit. She pulled over to the side of the road. The cop car had come out of nowhere. When the officer walked out of his car, she realized the situation was even worse than she thought. She rolled down the windows.

"Well good afternoon Detective Vale."

"What do you think you're doing Clarke?" Shit why did he have to chase after her?

"Come on just let me go over there."

"If you think this is the way it's done then you're a lot stupider than you look. If you're right about this kid, you could end up very much dead. Go home Clarke. I'll follow you all the way there."

"Dammit."

Vale trailed her car all the way into her driveway. It was frustrating how she could have ended all of this and he wouldn't let her. She walked into the house not forgetting to wave at detective Vale as he prepared to pull away. Caroline was home, but what was odd was that her father's car was also in the driveway. He was never home from work so early in the afternoon. The crashing from upstairs is what caught her attention first. Did someone break into her house again? She raced up the stairs and into Caroline's room where the noise was coming from. She heard the shouting as she entered the door.