Sugar & Spice

06|rapid developments

With Jane, Keith and Michael busy with their classes Aria, Leo and Peyton decided to meet up in on a Thursday afternoon to do some research on Laura Patterson. The days here at Hudson no longer brought the joy they used to, to Aria, instead she was plagued with the fear of letting Laura see the disgust she now felt for her. This morning she dragged her feet into Laura's class and sat at the back with Jane, a place where she doesn't normally sat but she needed the distance between them. Peyton and Leo constant clicking on their laptops caused Aria to leave the unpleasant memories far back and try to concentrate on the task at hand; finding dirt on Laura. From what Laura had told Aria she had been doing seminar's for the past two years but hadn't mentioned what she had been doing before that and from the looks of it it had been kept rather secretive. 

She glanced over to where Leo was sitting and studied him in silence. He wasn't nearly as attractive as Tom but there was something about him that had Aria give him a second look - many times over. Right now he was frowning as he read something on his screen and tracing each word with a pencil, then suddenly his body language changed rapidly. From his sitting stance he now shot up and continued clicking on the keyboard for a few more seconds, until the printer could be heard awakening in the corner. Both Peyton and Aria's eyes met and both displayed a level of hope that something had been found, something that could help them. 

"I have something big," Leo announced the obvious and ran to the printer to once again confirm his finding, "Laura was telling the truth when she told you that she had been doing speaking seminars for the past two years, but I have finally found a tidbit of information on what she was doing before that." 

Aria and Peyton gathered around Leo and tried to read for themselves what it said. Aria skimmed the page until she read the words Correctional Facility For Boys and her eyes grew wide with shock. A new's article that dated back to 2016 showed that Laura Patterson had been working as a counselor at a Correctional Facility For Boys in upstate New York, with no record of why she no longer worked there - but it was something big. 

"It looks like someone has been trying very hard to remove all evidence of Laura's time as a counselor there because this is simply a photograph from a printed news paper - one that is no longer in print." Leo said with a sense of pride in his voice. 

"If someone had worked so hard on removing the information it must be because there was something to hide." Peyton concluded.

"It couldn't be anything that would leave a criminal record though because Hudson University would never have hired her, and she would've never had such success with her seminars. Not to mention the media coverage--" Aria said. 

The three of them stared at the printed out paper once again and then back at each other - it was time to get to work. 

"Peyton, I need you to call the correctional facility and ask them to verify Laura's employment there," Leo ordered and without objection's Peyton got to work, "Aria, I need you to start mapping out who was the first company or person to hire Laura for a seminar and if she gave away any information on her former career as a counselor - it has to be verified somewhere." Aria nodded and sat down by her own laptop to do as she was told. 

It was happy news indeed to have some new information on the enigma that was Laura Patterson but there was also a pit in her stomach that had begun collection concern. To know that Laura have been a counselor at a correctional facility for young boys alarmed her greatly, although it did give some insight in to what type of predator Laura truly was. These boys were in confinement and in a position of submissiveness and she had possibly taken advantage of that. It reminded her of when Michael had told her about the night when Laura made the video of her forcing fellatio on him; he had been in a submissive state or vulnerable if one would and that's when she had pounced - like a wild animal. It annoyed Aria how Laura had spoken of men's caveman mentality when she was suffering from the same thing, like a wild animal she had waited until her prey was in a state of disadvantage.