Beatty & The Beast

FOUR: Where the Beauty is Taken to the Beast's Castle

*Banner by Lou AKA angels & effects (Livejournal)

The same day, 7th period.

Finally, Keefe had something interesting to do in his Computer Science class.

When he got to the lab, he immediately plopped down in front of an empty computer and Googled "Andréa Donovan" before he could say "cyber stalker."

Luckily the computers in the lab, though well over a decade old, could handle some Googling. But just barely.

Most stories were old reports about her accident, reports that Keefe soon realized were mostly far from legitimate. The more respectable ones were more believable but vague. There was fire involved, caused by a nameless fan, and Andie bore the brunt of the damage ... that was about it.

But he kept on digging, and he was able to piece a few things together.

Like, for example, why she happened to be living with her uncle in Podunkville, U.S.A instead of some posh mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Keefe found several old reports about Andie's dad – apparently he was a guitarist for several popular bands – who died in a plane crash when Andie would've been twelve - which happened right around the time she started acting out. Perhaps that explained a few things.

If her father's death wasn't tragic enough, the story behind her mother was. It seemed Dora Whistlebeck Logan managed to secure what she could of her daughter's earnings and proceeded in skipping the country along with Andie's accountant, a man by the name of Will Tadley. Evidently, according to the investigators' hypotheses, it had been a ploy between the secret couple for some time.

And, what made it worse, this thievery and blatant abandonment happened perhaps a week after Andie's accident. The reports said Andie was in the hospital, in a medical-induced coma, and authorities were still looking for the couple, who they believed were somewhere in South America. And now, two years later, it didn't appear that they had been found or that they returned.

Keefe sat back in his chair and stared at the screen, not reading anything, just staring.

How could a mother steal from her child and then not only abandon her, but abandon her while she was being hospitalized for a crippling injury? Keefe couldn't even fathom how low a person could be to do that. It was so messed up, it couldn't be true. But obviously it was or why else would Andie be living with her uncle and not her mother?

No wonder she was angry.

He moved onto the image links, unable to handle any more of the sad story.

All of the pictures were taken before the accident, when she was in her heyday, and most were far from complimentary (avoiding paparazzi, being drunk and disorderly, flipping off the camera). He didn't click on any of the thumbnails until he found a headshot from an event she attended. She was smiling. Seeing the "full-sized image" of the picture, Keefe was stunned.

She was really pretty.

Her dark brown hair was done in loose, wild curls rolling over her shoulders and down her back. She had too much make-up on for a fifteen year-old, but, in the end, Keefe couldn't deny she looked good, not to mention much older. She had a very strong face, complemented with an angular, square jaw that should've looked masculine but somehow didn't. Instead it made her features sharper, it made them stand out, it made her more confident.

Her deep brown eyes were beautifully framed with long lashes and accentuated with make-up until they were downright dazzling. They even rose a little at the outside corners, making them more dramatic and alluring.