A/N: This chapter is a continuation from chapter 42. Also, it's day time when the events of this chapter are unfolding.

GAVIN

I drove into the cemetery compound and parked my red convertible under a weeping willow. My feet made contact with the over grown blades of grass as soon as I stepped out of the car. Dry leaves crunched beneath the sole of my converses as I navigated the place. It was so quiet...the creepy kind of quiet. This is not the kind of place I would want to hang out so why in the fucking universe did Natasha ask to meet me here? Speaking of Natasha, where is she? She was supposed to be here five minutes ago.

I'm here, where are you? I shot her a quick text.

Got held up with something. Be there in a few. She replied.

Fucking great. Now what am I supposed to do in the mean time?

"Excuse me, young man." A shaky voice said behind me, followed by a light pat on my back. I turned to face the intruder and was met by an old lady. She was holding a bouquet of roses in her left hand and a purse in the other. "Are you the new groundskeeper?" She inquired. Her grey eyes which were shielded with a pair of black rimmed spectacles gazed at me curiously.

"No. I'm not the groundskeeper." Can't believe she would mistake me for a groundskeeper. Am I that underdressed? Or is it my disheveled hair?

"Okay. Have you seen him? He always shows me around when I visit." She enquired.

"No. I haven't seen him."

"Could you show me around? I need to place these on my Gerry's grave." She was talking about the bouquet.

"Of course." I had every right to refuse her but I couldn't because she is old and could probably get lost in this creepy ass cemetery.

She handed me her oversized hand bag and hooked her frail hand around my arm. She was slow as a snail so I had to deescalate my strides. She was talkative too. Ended up telling me more than I needed to know about Gerry, her deceased husband. He served in the army and died in Iraq 20 years ago. By the time we got to Gerry's grave, I had gathered so much about him.

"I miss him every day. Life has not been easy without him." She expressed trailing her scrawny fingers on his tombstone. She planted a kiss on the bouquet and placed it on his cemented grave. "Roses were his favorite." She reminisced, a smile crawling to her wrinkled face.

I couldn't begin to imagine the pain she went through after losing him. Gerry was her whole world. Waking up every day and not being able to talk to him or see him or touch him. Not being able to watch him sleep next to her. The emptiness that his absence left in her life. It was the worst kind of hell imaginable.

"Do you have a special someone?" She inquired after paying her respects to her late husband.

"Yeah." I retorted, my mind travelling to a certain blue eyed boy. One who I couldn't imagine a life without.

"Tell me about her." She requested, taking out a cigar from her purse. We were perched on a metallic bench, a few meters from her husband's grave. She offered me a cigar but I declined.

"It's actually a him." I clarified.

"Oh. I'm sorry for assuming it was a she." She stated, lighting her cigar.

"It's fine." I checked my phone for any new messages from Natasha. She was taking an awfully long time to get here.

"Tell me about him if you don't mind." She took a whiff of the cigar and released the smoke through the seam of her thin creased lips.

"He is brilliant, sassy, caring, loving, understanding and really gorgeous." I spilled, a smile settling on my face.

"You are blessed to have a wonderful guy like him." She complimented. Just then, her phone started ringing. While she was taking the call, I got up from the bench to text the bitch who had kept me waiting for God knows how long.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting." Didn't need a voice detector to discern that the voice belonged to her. Tearing my gaze from my phone, I glared at the Asian who was standing a few meters from me, an apologetic smile glued to her round face. She was dressed in a thigh length floral sundress that brought out her porcelain skin. Her long black hair was dyed brown at the ends and done in a perfect French braid. Pink lipstick adorned her small pouty lips. She looked nice.

"Lollipop?" She was handing me a lollipop. An act of generosity that I wasn't used to from her.

"No thank you. It could be poisoned for all I know." I declined her tempting treat.

"Gavin, I get that you don't trust me after all the shitty things I have written about you in my blog but I am here to make amends. I mean it." I wanted to believe her but being the conniving snake she is, I couldn't bring myself to trust a word that came out of her mouth.

"Yen, you asked me to meet you here. Said it was important." I went straight to business.

"Yes it is pretty important. My feet are getting sore from all this standing. Let's take a seat, shall we?" She proposed, strolling towards an empty bench which she plopped on as soon as she got there. I joined her on the bench soon after. The bench was situated under a leafy tree, shielding us from the scorching rays of the midmorning sun. She unwrapped the pineapple flavored lollipop that I had declined and started sucking on it. Looks like it wasn't poisoned after all. Still doesn't mean I trust her.

"This place is pretty dope. Don't you think?" She was referring to the uncanny cemetery.

"We have very different definitions of dope." I stated, not loving every second spent in this place.

"Do you ever think of where dead souls go to? Like does the afterlife even exist? Or is it just a myth? I swear death is a mystery." She yapped on while enjoying her lollipop.

"Did you call me all the way here to talk about death and the afterlife?" Exasperation was gnawing at my insides.

"You are no fun." She muttered with an eye roll then threw away the lollipop. "The reason I called you here is because someone has been sending me death threats and a bunch of other disturbing texts. Principal Lucia hasn't been able to uncover who is responsible. It's why I need your help."

A laugh absconded my mouth at her confession, "And what makes you think that I will help you? For all we know the person who is sending you the threats is one of your victims. You must have published something bad about him and now he is after you. Natty, this is a war you started and I want no part of it." I stated, getting up from the bench.

"Wait." She gripped my arm, halting me. "I know that I deserve the shit that's coming my way but the people on this list, don't."

"What are you talking about? What list?" I queried, confusion tugging at my senses.

"Here." She handed me her phone. A list of names came to view. I recognized most names as parents from the school and some of them were board of directors at my parent's company. My mom was also on the list.

"What's this? And why is mom on this?"

"She is a target. The cyberbully asked me to publish some very incriminating stuff about her and everyone else on the list. Your mom and a bunch of other people on that list are very influential in this town. Think about how badly their image will be ruined if some things about them gets out. Some of them could go to prison. I don't want that. It's why I need your help to uncover this person before things get worse than they already are." Natasha's confession threw me in a sea of shock.

"If I don't do as he asks, he will come for me. He already sent a box of a dead headless rat with a note saying that I am next. Gavin, if I don't air dirty laundry about the people on that list then I am a dead bitch. You understand why I urgently need your help." She added, fear dripping from her voice.

"What does this person have on my mom?" I managed to ask. I needed to know what was capable of implicating my mother.

"Bribery and murder. Apparently, your mom bribed some guy years ago and when he tried to snitch, she had him killed. Being the powerful woman she is, she covered up her tracks but not well enough. Gavin, you understand how bad this will look if it gets out. I hear your mom is planning to run for mayor. This could ruin her political career even before it starts." She explained.

Fuck. This is really bad.

"Why haven't you told the cops about this black mailer?" I directed the question at her, still absorbing the news.

"Because he threatened me not to do it. If I go to the cops, everyone on that list goes down. Including your mom. I'm trapped Gavin, don't you get it?"

"Fuck." I got up from the bench and started pacing back and forth while running my calloused fingers through my ruffled hair.

"I came to you because you have resources. You can help me find whoever is doing this then I can put an end to his bullshit."

"How sure are you that it's a he? What if it's a girl? Natty, you have so many enemies and any of them could be responsible for this. Fuck." I argued, pacing back and forth.

"Will you stop pacing? It's making me fucking dizzy!" She demanded.

"You are in no position to be making demands. It's because of you that we are in this situation in the first place!" I fired.

"Yes it's my fault and it's why I need your help genius. If you don't help me then I'll have no choice but to publish every dirty laundry of the people on that list. Need I remind you how many lives will be ruined?" She reminded me of what I already knew.

"Since when do you care about the lives you ruin? As long as your gossip blog gets traffic, you don't care who suffers. You have already ruined so many lives and your black mailer is giving you exactly what you need. He knows how much you enjoy tearing people down. Natty, don't you pretend that you suddenly care about people's reputations because you fucking don't." I addressed her.

She got up from the bench and walked up to me.

"I never cared about anyone but my gossip blog. I have always wanted to be a journalist like my late grandma. She was good at what she did. I promised myself that I will do her legacy justice. It's why I joined the journalism club. It wasn't so fun because I was the laughing stock of the club. The shy errand girl. The punching bag. My ideas were made fun of and that's not all, even my appearance was ridiculed. I remember Tory Adams the journalism captain then, poking my eyes and asking why they were so small. She even asked me to get eye surgery to make them more American. Gavin the point is, I was fucking tired of being a joke so I started my gossip blog. Guess who the first subject of my blog was?" She paused, letting the information she had pumped into me to sink in. I never knew that she was once a victim of bullying and racism. It must have hurt, being discriminated and mocked for her race. I couldn't help but pity her for what she had to go through.

"Tory fucking Adams. I wrote a whole expose of her bullying and racist remarks. The blog became popular and I was voted the new captain of the journalism club. I kept writing more and more articles. I felt powerful writing the latest gossip and tearing my enemies down. Through my blog, I made tons of foes and honestly, I don't regret it." She added without a hint of remorse.

"When I received that email asking me to write incriminating stuff about a bunch of powerful people, that's when I knew how fucked I was. Maybe I deserve the horrible shit that's coming to me but the people on that list, don't. Gavin, can we please put our differences aside and work together to uncover this black mailer and stop him or her once and for all?" She made a request.

"Fine. But we'll do things my way." Working with Natasha was the last thing I had expected to do. But alas here I was.

"I wouldn't have it any other way. So, when do we start?" She asked.

"Today. The sooner the better, right?" I suggested.

"Absolutely. Are we gonna need code names or something?"

"No." I sternly replied.

"Whatever." She stated with an eye roll.

*****

A/N

There goes chapter 43. So, how was it? Gosh I had fun working on this. It was flowing so easily and I loved every bit of it. What do you think of Gavin and Natasha team up? And most importantly, who could this black mailer be?