How could he tell Daniel the truth after he had just been so sincere. The man knew the boy meant well, but he couldn't risk telling the boy right now. After all it could wait until morning right?

Chapter 18: Interrogation and Lies

Danny didn't seem to be getting g an answer to his question so he simply opted to answer vald a first.

"I'm...okay?" Danny said skeptically.

"You sound hesitant..did something happen?" Vald asked concerned.

"No, nothing happened, well other than a ghost attack that sent everybody home for the day... Sam and tucker. Regardless you seem worried, what's wrong?" Danny replied.

"I know you don't want to hear this right now.." Vlad tried to reason.

"No, dad tell me." Danny said firmly.

Vlad sighed "some people want to talk to you about your former friends."

"Oh is that all it is? Jeez you had me worried." Danny laughter lightly.

"Wha- Daniel! Are you not worried!" Vlad asked incredulously.

Danny knew they were being watched so he had to phrase this carefully.

"Why would I be worried? They only want to talk, I may not have been the fondest of them, but I'm certainly not a killer." Danny said smoothly.

Thats when Vlad caught on.

"Right of course. Well, how does dinner sound?" Vald asked standing up.

"Sounds great!" Danny said.

Once the pair had left, Danny went intangible, careful to stay hidden from the camera in case it had infrared. Once he was close enough, he used an ecto blast and watched the frail machine fall to bits. He then quickly located the microphone and just as quickly smashed that too.

"Don't think I'm that stupid. I know when we're being watch..." he whispered reappearing again.

Danny did a quick sweep of the house, destroying any other measures as surveillance he found. The teen knew what was and wasn't part of Vlad's personal ecto surveillance systems. Once he was sure there were no more measures of surveillance left, so he left for dinner with his father.

"How are you so relaxed?" Vlad asked with a sigh.

"Because I'm good at lying. Besides, there is no evidence or anything to connect me to their deaths. There are no finger prints, no foot traffic, no witnesses..." Danny mused.

"They won't leave this as a cold case Daniel." Vlad Warned.

"They won't have to. Skulker and I have already arranged a deal. He will take credit for this 'hunt' as he called it, and I will owe him a favor or two in the future." Danny said waving his hand dismissively.

"I never thought I'd see the day I could be proud of you for malicious ghost activity." Vlad spoke with a slight laugh.

"Neither did I..." Danny smiled.

Later that afternoon Danny had been brought in for some questioning by the amity park police department. They had started with the basics, saying Danny had been a suspect. Danny didn't even flinch at that, so they moved onto motive.

"You had issues with them, and your father has enough influence to make them disaster without a trace!" The accused.

Danny simply laughed in their faces.

"You really think I waste my time on backstabbers and harassers? Don't make me laugh." Came his cold reply.

Seeing that tactic had no traction the deputies tried something that had caught Danny slightly off guard.

"We planted cameras in your home." They growled.

The officers had smug and pleased faces by the teens reaction to that news. Danny was genuinely shocked. Normally they wouldn't admit to that act.

"Your telling me, you illegally planted cameras in my home without a shred of evidence connecting any with the home to your murder case?" Daniel asked.

"Who said there was no evidence?" The female deputy asked.

"If there was I'd be in cuffs right now instead of on a visitors pass." Danny deadpanned.

"Okay fine. Your right." The male officer confirmed.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Danny spat.

"No. They all fizzled out within minutes of you coming home from school." The female raged.

"That's because when I get home from school we activate the security measures. Vlad is a very important and very private man. If there's someone potentially spying on him he'll know. He has very specific tastes in camera and security systems, so the tech wards are activated when I return home so the wards can detect any of my devices as familiar and allow me usage of them. Any unfamiliar device is immediately shut down as counter measure." Danny informed.

Of course this wasn't a complete lie. They did have ecto wards, just not tech wards.

"Would you register the cameras, or do you have something to hide?" The man asked.

"As I said Vlad is a very private person. He won't allow the cameras in our home. He is the mayor, do you not trust your own mayor?" Danny scolded.

"Of course we trust him!" The girl said as she began scrambling for words.

"Alright fine. There's clearly been a mistake here..." the man sighed.

"I'd be happy to help you with your search officers." Danny offered.

"You both know I have the resources to do so." He said at their weary looks.

"Fine. If you find anything call me. Your officially cleared of suspicion." The man said as he held out a business card.

"I will. Good day." Danny said taking the card as well as his leave.

Danny knew there had been higher ups watching that footage and he knew if Vlad perused charges against those officers they'd be ruined. Danny however didn't care either way as he had officially been cleared.
Danny made his way home and flopped onto the couch as soon as he was in the living room. He was about to drift off into a nap when Vlad walked in. Danny groaned in annoyance.

"How did it go?" Vlad asked.

"Better than I anticipated." Danny sighed.

"Oh?" Vlad inquired.

"They tried the usual suspect routine, but that obviously didn't work on me, so they admit to illegally planting cameras in our home." Daniel laughed.

"Usually they don't admit to that." Vlad chuckled.

"That's what I thought. I think they were hoping it would get them somewhere, but it didn't. In the end they cleared me, so I offered to assist to keep up appearances. I am the mayor's son after all." Daniel informed.

"So what now then. It's your plan little badger." Vlad spoke.

"Now we wait on skulker." Danny said simply.

_
Sorry for the super late update guys! I've been swamped with school work this year as well as actual work, so I haven't had much time to write and update. Thank you all for your lovely and continued support and hope you enjoyed this chapter, even if it is a slightly shorter one.