Miss Shiftwell

“Carmen Lucena,” she repeated. “And a little boy — do you have any more details on them? We have some information in the database, but any more details would be supremely helpful. Physical description, magical abilities, personal history with you.”

If Gem was being rude to her, Holley actually didn’t notice. She zeroed right in on her work.

“I’ll give all local agents a profile so we can keep an eye on her. I can also offer to station an agent at the Inn for surveillance, if you’d like,” she said. She could arrange for Leo and Gil to have some renovations done on their apartment and need a place to stay temporarily. 

“We can install security measures as well — make it seem like a general upgrade to your home systems or the Hauntley’s. I’ll put out an alert with HQ as well so we can expand the search for her to surrounding areas.” 

Holley barely missed a beat. She immediately jumped into questions, into planning.

It made him feel a little better. Gem had been reluctant to get anyone else involved in his mistakes. His family was already in danger because of him--and not Snow. That was the only person that Carmen had targeted so far, but that didn't mean she was above going after Gem's siblings. She was looking for revenge for her own, after all.

Still, planning helped Gem feel more in control. And it was nice to hear that there were resources, other agents, Holley could pull on. The only ones he knew of were her and Belle. It made him wonder...was anyone else he knew RAS? He pushed the thought away.

"She won't attack the apartment building unless she gets desperate but I'm hoping we can catch her before then." Gem didn't want to think about what might happen to her once she was. Would she go to prison? He didn't want that for anyone. Even if she'd tried to kill him.

He pushed the thought away.

"And the Hauntley is covered." In that, at least, Gem trusted Wolf.

"Maybe my family's cottage, though? It's much more secluded and my nieces live there. The boy's name is Malachi, but that's really all I know about him. I think he has some sort of invisibility...phasing? power. He's a slippery git, but...this isn't his fault, I don't want him punished.

He's...probably eight? Nine? Tan skin, brown curly hair. Skinny. I don't ever remember seeing him with MAFIA but, well, I didn't know everyone. Carmen I'd seen around a fair bit, you should have a file, but her brother, Carlos, was at Abracadabra with me."

She nodded along. 

“Alright, I can arrange something for your family home. Won’t be able to place an agent there as easily — unless you’d like your family to be more involved, in which case we can come up with some cover story. But we have other surveillance methods we can employ — cameras, security systems, an occasional check-in with a cover story.” 

Maybe it was time for Boomer to need a new structure on the ranch, or something like that. 

“We will definitely keep an eye out for the boy…” Her face softened. “I can’t imagine being pulled into something like this at such a young age.” 

Toby gave a distracted hum in response, half focused on his computer screen as he tried to read the subject line on an email.

As soon as that name was put into the room his person went still. Only his eyes moved, flickering up to peer straight ahead as his brain had to shift gears completely in order to start making sense of why that had just come out of his colleague's mouth. When he couldn't seem to think of anything, he turned to face her, too.

There...there had to have been a reason she was asking about the Minister, right? Toby had told the Squire about his memory problems, but he hadn't gone into details. How could he? He didn't remember anything about what had happened and there was no proof that Brooks had anything to do with it. As far as he knew, the police in Melbourne had probably been told to fridge that case for the foreseeable future.

So, how did Miss Shiftwell know to ask about him?

Or was this some random question about home town politics and Toby had missed a major update about what was going on back in Victoria?

Not that that was too much of a deduction, of course. 

“Oh — you know the Minister?” She tilted her head. “You sent me a whole file about him. It was quite thorough, you know. A whole list of allegations against him that were rescinded… is that something you’re working on?”

It definitely wasn’t Squire material, but perhaps Toby had been doing a longer investigative project in his downtime. For all her many, many (many, many) faults, Hearst-Pulitzer didn’t mind them taking on freelance projects, so long as it was something that they would “never ever” publish in the Squire. And a deep dive on a politician across oceans and continents seemed to fall in that bucket. 

Not that he was disparaging her work ethic. He just knew what long nights and fucked up amounts of overtime were like.

When the little dog trotted over, Tod slowly bent over, offering his hand to sniff, but before he could even do so, she had scurried back over to her spot. Not that he really minded. He gave her a soft "hello" and "goodbye" then left her to it.

"Sure, wine sounds good." He was already a little tipsy from the drinks at prom, but a night cap couldn't hurt.

"Thanks. I'm, uh, glad we could do this. I don't get out as much as I'd like." That wasn't totally the truth, but it wasn't totally a lie. Holley had been a lovely date.

Calm down, she repeated to herself.

With a smile, she handed him a glass, and then took a seat on the couch. Yes, that was the next natural step here. Sit on the couch with glasses of wine. Slip a little closer. Lock eyes and …

She was getting ahead of herself. She took a sip of wine. A long one. 

“I had a lovely night,” she said. “I always love to see how they transform Town Hall. Well, when prom is in Town Hall. I mean, not that I don’t love to see how they transform the other venues. It’s just that I’m in Town Hall the most, you know. For work.” 

He had thought that Belle would fill Holley in on everything so that he didn't have to. Of course, that wasn't Belle's style. She was going to force him to do it.

Annoying.

He took a breath and set the tea down in front of Holley on the kitchen island. They hadn't bought chairs for it yet. Maybe they should go sit i the living room (which was furnished), but Gem was not good at hosting. And he also didn't like people in his house in general. The less rooms she saw, the better.

Just because he saved her life didn't mean they were friends.

This was business.

"Yeah," Gem said. A long pause followed but then, Gem sighed.

"A few days ago, Carmen Lucena, a MAFIA member, attacked Snow. And me." Gem left Wolf out--not because he wasn't grateful, but he was sure the wolf wouldn't be happy about being exposed.

"We managed to get away, but only just. There was this little boy...Snow said he's been hanging around the Hauntley since I went to prison. She thought he was a ghost, but obviously, he's been spying on us. On her.

So. What's the RAS gonna do about it?" He fixed her with a level stare.

“Carmen Lucena,” she repeated. “And a little boy — do you have any more details on them? We have some information in the database, but any more details would be supremely helpful. Physical description, magical abilities, personal history with you.”

If Gem was being rude to her, Holley actually didn’t notice. She zeroed right in on her work.

“I’ll give all local agents a profile so we can keep an eye on her. I can also offer to station an agent at the Inn for surveillance, if you’d like,” she said. She could arrange for Leo and Gil to have some renovations done on their apartment and need a place to stay temporarily. 

“We can install security measures as well — make it seem like a general upgrade to your home systems or the Hauntley’s. I’ll put out an alert with HQ as well so we can expand the search for her to surrounding areas.” 

Plus Georgette was sure half her Delta Zeta sisters would have told her to gang up on this girl and make her life hell. Why? Because why not...and anyone different was an easy target.

"Oh I wont push her!" Georgette followed up quickly. "I know I can be a bit bossy but its only because a care!" Her smile was warm and her cheeks flushed at her own honesty. "I will schedule a little forced run in. I can place myself just about anywhere!"

That was truer than anything.

"You think we should maybe google or look up some stuff about her on reddit?" Georgette knew she needed to watch the series now but...no harm in looking stuff up. "At least see what people in town may be saying..." Pulling out her phone her nails quickly started to slide across the screen. "I am sure someone has said some foul mouthed dribble already!"

Holley had already pulled up Twitter on her phone and was searching the name of the documentary, along with Daria’s name. One perk of Swynlake’s usually annoying interference with her social media algorithms was that it was easy to find tweets specifically from Pride U students. 

OMG watching this new doc and I can’t believe a MURDERER goes to my school! 

Lol i think there’s a satanic serial killer in my econ class 

“Oh dear — some of these look so horrible.” Holley’s brow furrowed. “Look at this one — haha what if we pulled a carrie and poured pig’s blood on her!” 

She smiled fondly, making a mental note to text Aurora later.

“If you’re interested, I recommend starting with a lucky bamboo over a succulent — I definitely killed my first few succulents by over watering them.” 

"That's so interesting, I know people say start with succulents because they don't need so much water, that's fascinating that they're not actually plants for actual beginners!" Joy said, genuinely interested in learning this, though she doubted she'd try to grow anything herself.

"Do you have a favorite plant you have?"

She smiled and then shook her head, focusing back on her meal.

“My goodness, this is delicious!” she said. “Not that I didn’t think it would be. But you must teach me this recipe. It’s so good.” 

I want to go back to there...

She even found herself at Hatter's with her favorite type of coffee: a mocha cappuccino. She settled in to wait for her company. Luckily, she didn't have to wait long. "Holley, over here!" She called out with a smile, gesturing at the table she'd found for them both.

She took a sip of her drink and smiled as Holley finally sat down across from her. "Hey. It's good to see you. How're things?"

Not that it was terrible, but — it was lackluster. She really felt that when she was talking with her friends and they had all gushed about their prom dates and the Isa even got engaged.

Meanwhile, she’d spent most of prom away from her date. And then after —

Well, she was keeping busy. And she was happy to meet Ashely again. They’d connected over the letters and there was definitely the potential of flirtation in their interactions, but Holley also admittedly was quite terrible at reading these situations. Also, she liked Ashley very much and didn’t want to completely ruin a friendship.

“Oh, I’m quite well,” she said. “Been so busy — summer’s just full of events! We like to have at least one person on staff at each one." She took a sip of her vanilla latte. "Plus my boss has been harping on us about page views and numbers and that's just been very taxing." She rolled her eyes. "And yourself? How’s the intern life been treating you?” 

It was also--weird. He felt out of his body most of the time. It didn't feel like a place he should be. And he was itching to be back in the A&E. At work. It was a stupid thought.

Holley was perfectly sweet and if this could work out, maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe it would take his mind off the fact that he would rather be at work. Or that Krish had proposed to Isabela in front of everyone and Tod hadn't known anything about it. Because they weren't friends anymore, why would Krish tell him?

He had been lost in his own thoughts, suit jacket thrown over his shoulder, bow tie undone, when Holley surprised him. Tod had expected maybe a kiss good night. Holley seemed the buttoned up type, not that Tod minded. He had plenty of sex elsewhere, so if she wanted to take it slow...that was fine.

But, apparently, she didn't. Or he had somehow unlocked a new play through. He could see the options floating about her head: say yes, say no and he thought he knew what part of the game might come next depending on his answer.

"Sure, that'd be nice," Tod said, flashing a small smile to let Holley know he was interested. They entered the elevator and started up to her floor. "You lived here long?" he asked, doing his best to make small talk.

That was why the butterflies in her stomach. It was good nerves! You were supposed to be nervous when you invited a man up to your flat after a fancy date. In fact, the butterflies were so strong that she almost missed his question.

“Oh? For six years,” she said. “Ever since I moved here! I had a roommate originally, but she moved out and by then I was making enough that I didn’t need to find one to cover the cost. So I have a home office, which is quite nice for when I have to work after hours.” 

More so for RAS work than Squire work, but still.

The elevator doors opened and Holley’s butterflies were still a full force tornado in her stomach. 

“Evelyn might pop in and say hi, but I do believe she’ll go right back to bed,” said Holley, unlocking her door. Sure enough, her dog trotted over, gave a dainty sniff, and then decided that Holley’s guest was not worth the anxiety, promptly returning to her bed in the corner of the living room. 

Holley took a deep breath.

“Would you like … wine?”

Wine was a good thing to offer… right? 

Gem had called Belle and she had told him to get in touch with the "local branch of the RAS." Which had him rolling his eyes. Unfortunately, he had been trained to do what Belle said.

So, like a good, obedient dog, Gem took out the card that Holley had slipped under his bedroom door all those months ago. He resented the fact that he had known he should keep it. That, maybe, one day, his past would come back to haunt him.

He told Holley that he needed to speak with her, privately. Begrudgingly, he offered up All Summer for their meeting place. There were still boxes everywhere, but it was secluded and felt safe. Away from the rest of town, free of any curious ears or eyes.

When Holley arrived, Gem led her down the main hallway, turning right at the last door and took her right into the kitchen. He liked that about the house, the four doors in the hallway only gave glimpses into the various rooms. Keeping them private.

"Would you like any tea?" Gem asked, stiff as if he was a robot, programmed to do so. He kind of was. His parents and Snow both always did it when people came over, so he supposed he should too. Even if he did want to jump right into it. Waiting and making small talk made him itchy.

Gem had finally reached out!

Holley was trying to be levelheaded about this. She knew it was because of Belle, because Belle had given her a heads up. And that was completely and totally fine. Holley just really didn’t want to mess this up, because she knew she’d already messed things up with Gem multiple times.

She knew she’d been aggressive, but at the time it had seemed the only way to make up for what had happened. Especially since he’d completely avoided all her other attempts at reaching out. 

But — the fact was, he did reach out. And she was going to approach this professionally and calmly.

“Oh tea would be lovely, thank you,” Holley said, with a smile. “Whatever you have!”

It was the polite thing to do, you know, accept an offer of tea. 

That being said, even though the polite thing to do in a social situation would be to make idle small talk, Holley restrained herself. 

Interacting with Gem, she’d realized, would be a lot like when she first adopted Evelyn. She had to wait for Evelyn to come to her, let Evelyn set the boundaries and approach Holley on her own terms. 

That being said, like with Evelyn, Holley had to offer a small something to get him to come closer.

“So, Belle told me you had something to discuss.” 

Toby was not one would call a Type A personality. He didn't color code his notes or have the need for everything to be a certain way, but he was largely an organized individual. More so when it came to everything on his computer since that was where most of his work got done and the last thing he needed was a file getting lost in a drive because he forgot where he put it.

That being said, when deadlines were a-plenty and a small publication like the Squire was a bit short handed that meant he had been a liiiiittle sleep deprived recently. There was just so much going on with all the summer activities and ground to cover!

So, last night, he may have attached the wrong file to Miss Shiftwell. Not that he noticed, since as soon as he had been able to click Send he had shut down his laptop and went to bed himself.

What was on this file? Well, it had been one of the files he had in his Minister Malcome Brooks folder regarding some of the connections he had found between the politician and multiple allegations placed against him for various reason, only for said allegations to be recanted later on due to lapses in memory.

Oblivious to this, Toby had come in the next day without a worry in his mind about it. As he waited for the computer to wake up, he set his bag down, picking out the little SD card case he had to start uploading the selected and edited photos for the latest issue. He looked up when he heard someone else come in and brightened when he saw his colleague.

This was not unusual. They often emailed after hours. That was the nature of the job. Especially now that Toby had wisened up, Holley found herself collaborating with him more. They were trading drafts and Holley had been expecting to see Toby’s write up of Besydus’ annual rose gardening festival.

Instead, she found a file about some Australian politician.

She’d meant to email him back, telling him he’d sent over the wrong file but — well, Holley was curious. Very very curious.

Especially when it looked like this file was a smaller piece in something bigger. Holley knew an investigation when she saw one. She wondered what Toby was up to…

When she got in the next day, she was relieved to find that Hearst-Pulitizer’s door was closed (ie; she did NOT want to be disturbed) and that Toby was already here and gabbing on about free time. 

“Oh that’s lovely — I’m behind on some transcription for a bigger piece — say,” she turned her chair to Toby, “what’s this about a Malcome Brooks?”

"Exactly! This is my first flat-- my older brother is my roommate. He says it's only while he saves up for his own place, but I really don't mind living with him. He doesn't mind me decorating the place all how I like it."

Frankie was just happy to be there.

"Oh, it would! Are you good with plants? I just kill them, I'm also impatient about the growing process. Lord help me when I have kids one day on that point."

She smiled fondly, making a mental note to text Aurora later.

“If you’re interested, I recommend starting with a lucky bamboo over a succulent — I definitely killed my first few succulents by over watering them.”