By Next Thursday

Chapter Seventeen

"It's been three hours," Jay moaned, throwing himself down onto his bed. Meredith slouched down onto his couch, defeated. "Can't you just tell us where Rory is so we can stop looking. Plus, I can't believe you made us go to school during the last twenty-four hours we have."

I waved him off without taking my eyes off the ancient-looking desktop computer screen in front of me. His annoyance only matched my discomfort and grumpiness as well. Since we'd left my dad's house the night before, I'd become more and more in pain. I would get an occasional wave of dizziness and sharp pains in my stomach and head. Because all week I'd been relatively pain-free, this was new to me and caused my mood to drop noticeable degrees.

Suddenly, the search engine popped up an article with a name I knew well, dated to the previous year. Frowning on why his name would come up in my specific search, I clicked on it.

       Renowned Lawyer, Ken Diamond's case wasn't looking good in the Hardwick case last week, where his defendant, Clinton Hardwick, was being accused of the murder of his boss and father, Edward Hardwick, the CEO of Hardwick Motors. All evidence pointed towards Clinton and there seemed to be nothing Diamond could do to prove him innocent.

       However, a surprising turn of events happened when the opposing lawyer brought up a new witness to the stand. Dorothy Johansson, was the young secretary to Edward Hardwick and was accusing Clinton of the murder. After giving her statements, Diamond's cross examination brought the woman to tears and to light the fact she had been sexually abused by the CEO for more than a year. Her accreditation as a witness began to crumble, as she had kept that information to herself.

         So, after a grueling nine hours in court, Dorothy Johansson admitted to the murder of the CEO, Edward Hardwick, and Ken Diamond was applauded for his amazing work as a lawyer and keeping an innocent man from jail. On another note,

My eyes froze on the next sentence of the article. The other lawyer was a new lawyer, fresh out of college with a lot of potential. She had embarrassed herself, though, for using a witness who was in fact the murderer. By losing her biggest case, it appeared her future job prospects were bleak. That information, though, wasn't what shocked me the most.

The other lawyer was Karen Johnson.

"Guys!" I all but screamed. Meredith jumped nearly a foot in surprise. I didn't care though, I was too excited to know it why a search of "Karen Louise Johnson" would connect to my father. I finally felt like I was getting somewhere.

"What," Jay snapped, his annoyance from earlier still extremely evident.

"Explain to me," I began, spinning around to them in my chair. "why someone would be dating the very person who destroyed their career. My dad ruined Karen's reputation as a great lawyer and now they're romantically involved?"

"So you think Karen has an ulterior motive?" Meredith said slowly, processing the new information. I started chewing my thumbnail and groaned.

"I have a bad feeling about it. Doesn't it seem a bit.. Fishy?" When she nodded in reply, I swung back to the computer. "So how was Operation Follow Rory Around School All Morning?" I laughed because I could almost feel the burn of Jay's glare into the back of my skull.

"It was grand. No thanks to you."

I rolled my eyes and looked to Meredith, who just shrugged. "We saw him in the morning, but when we tried to follow him, he managed to disappear god knows where. We decided to come home because we needed your help. Either he's hiding at school or he left, but either way we need your weird ghost powers to find out where he is."