Summary: Post Chapter and Verse. Sara's POV.

Standard Disclaimer: I'm just a fanfiction writer. All hail the rightful owners.

"Did they read it?" I wondered aloud.

My boss frowned at me. "Sara?"

"Your little book… biography… thing." I gestured with my arms. Spoken prose isn't my best discipline. "Did they read it? The detectives?"

Her lips pursed. "They did not."

"Oh."

"Does it matter?" Carmen picked up the book. We'd left it there, when making our escape, but retrieved it on cleanup. Keep your lab bench clear and all that. "It's just a diversion, Sara. Nothing there."

That's a lie, I thought. Reading people was difficult, and with Carmen the noise was above the signal. However she held the book with the 'Fabergé grip.' You know, the kind we use on the expensive and irreplaceable. Priceless artifacts, valuable treasures, a pound of cesium over water, that sort of thing. "So you just whipped up some pages? You didn't actually write your memoirs?"

"Didn't I tell you to worry about the computers?" Carmen glanced through the thing and then closed it firmly.

I don't think she knew I could see it. I've got good eyesight when my prescription goggles are on. I still couldn't make out the words, but I could glimpse the text. It appeared typeset, small print, with figures and footnotes. When I saw that, I knew the high and mighty Carmen Sandiego would not be fooling me. I've been down that road and formatted those graphs and I knew that you don't typeset something glossy-paper-style unless you're going to publish it.

"My God." I whispered. "You have data."

Carmen snorted. "You think everything is data, Sara."

Everything was data. Someone like Carmen who practically drew trend lines over her thefts ought to get this. She wouldn't choose a distraction at random. Themes or common points to her thefts did not indicate a point of redundancy. My boss was not a solved system.

Carmen definitely had data, and it wasn't low-impact journal caliber. This was take a deep breath and send it off as a communication before you lose your nerve. This was a tenured professor shouting at you that you didn't have to apologize for quantum mechanics but you did have to do it correctly.

This was Carmen Sandiego's autobiography.

Cold was coming off of Carmen, like the vapor over liquid nitrogen. Something important was in that book, some novel connection that we'd been missing.

And they didn't even open it.

I reached out. "Can I read it?"

She actually jumped a little. "What?"

Wanting that surprised even me. I don't bother with humanities books usually. "I… I'd like to read the book you wrote. If that's alright, I mean." Asking for permission now? I really needed to stop breathing electronic fumes.

"No." Carmen answered, calmly and brutally.

I swallowed. "Sorry."

"No one will read it." Carmen said. Then she locked the book away. That's the end of it. I've worked for her long enough to be 99th percentile certain that when Carmen Sandiego locks something up, it will take a better thief than me to retrieve it.