Even with the endless possibility of her limited freedom, Cindy knew better than to go out exploring when she had to conserve her energy for the day ahead. Papa Jeff locked her in the cellar and left early for work as usual, and an hour later Meghan threw some food down and tromped out. The moment the door closed Cindy was at the tattered old window Marie had always used to sneak out, and no matter how many times Papa Jeff tried to fix it there was always a corner loose.
She stripped off Alice's hand-me-down pajamas to uncover the jogging gear she'd donned underneath, pulling on the sunglasses and tying her hair up into the cap before crawling out the window. Before she left she double-checked her bracelet - still good - and lodged a small stick in the corner of the window to make sure she could get back in after the race. She still had no idea how she was going to pull this off, but lying typically came hand-in-hand with improvising, so she wasn't too worried.
It wasn't hard to find the grounds for the 5k; there were fliers and advertisements all over the city for the massive benefit, and within minutes Cindy had found the starting line. Runners had lined up and spectators were wrapping around the block. Quickly consulting a map, she found all the markers where water would be handed out, knowing that Meghan would be one of the volunteers there dosing the supplies with Botulinum. No wonder that Mycroft bloke had wanted her to wear sunglasses and a cap, or the older woman would recognize her in a heartbeat.
Under the guise of warming up, she jogged down alongside the track until she reached the first checkmark. No sign of Meghan, though there were a few kids mucking about nearby on bikes. How would she get the volunteer crew to dump out the poisoned water without anyone drinking it first?
There was a shout of laughter to her left, from the kids as they rode away down the track, and inspiration struck.
"Excuse me?" Cindy called as she strode up to the woman at the table. She was unpacking small plastic cups, but hadn't yet started filling them. Cindy was sure to put a distressed look on her face before the woman looked up. "Excuse me, ma'am, but those kids just put something in the water!" she cried.
The woman looked down the track after the accused children and wrinkled her brow. "I din't see nuthin'," she dismissed with a shrug.
Right, okay, that wasn't working. Time to get teary and make her uncomfortable.
"No, I know I saw it!" continued Cindy incessantly, letting her voice quake and lower lip tremble. "They put something in there, and I heard them talking about going down the line and doing the same at all the checkpoints! They're gonna poison us or something!"
A man's distinct shadow loomed over the water table and the woman behind it froze. Cindy instinctively tensed herself, ready to curl in a ball if blows started falling, but instead a mild, gravelly voice asked, "Everything okay here, ladies?"
Now was her chance to really sell...well, something. She spun on her heel, temporarily blinded by the sun even with shades on, and scowled at the newcomer. "Are you in charge of any of this?" she demanded, shielding her eyes with one hand.
The man chuckled, and Cindy's eyes adjusted to see that she was standing less than two feet away from the crown prince himself, Gregory Lestrade. "I'd say so, yeah," he agreed loftily while Cindy's stomach clenched with horror. She'd just snapped at the crown prince. No wonder the other woman had blanched. The prince seemed to take her inadvertent condescension well, and extended a hand to her. "Hello, I'm Greg."
Slightly stunned, she took his hand and allowed it to be shaken. "Yeah, I know," she vaguely said, then quickly snapped her posture back into its previous state. "Something needs to be done about the water." Her voice lacked the same luster it'd had when talking to the woman, but was still strong in comparison to her shock.
The prince - who went by Greg, apparently - became serious at her tone, and crossed his arms thoughtfully before nodding her away from the crowds. Cindy obediently followed, feeling distinctly like she was about to get whipped for something Marie had done, and wasn't too surprised when half the crowd was on their tails regardless. She was walking with a celebrity, after all.
"Sorry about this," apologized Greg, grimacing over his shoulder at some of the teenage girls who were still clinging on after a whole block of walking. Cindy shook her head but otherwise didn't speak as they went inside the nearest building - a cafe, by the looks of it - and Greg kindly asked for them not to be disturbed other than please bringing two coffees before sitting down in a booth. "Can't get any privacy, indoors or out." He sighed and ruffled his dark brown hair with one hand; he looked tired for someone so young. "Now, what is so important about the water being dumped out?"
After being momentarily preoccupied with looking around the cafe - she'd never been inside anywhere other than her own house within memory - Cindy snapped back to face the prince and folded her hands, suddenly more nervous than she'd been all morning. Lying to some random woman was one thing, but lying to the future king of their nation was a horse of a different color. Hell, a different spectrum.
"It's...my kid brother," she forced out as though the whole affair was horribly stressful and embarrassing. "He and his mates thought it would be funny to put, er," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "-laxatives-" and brought it back up as Greg snorted, "in the water for the race. Only, well, I looked at the directions he used on his computer, and I don't think what he made was a - one of those."
Greg's eyebrows shot up and he leaned forward slightly. "And what do you think it is instead?" he inquired in a low voice too husky to be allowed. Heat shot right up Cindy's back and into her face.
She swallowed roughly, half part of the act and half trying to pull herself together. "I think he accidentally made a poison. I don't want him to go to jail for some stupid prank, sir - er - your Highness?" Really uncertain of what to call him, she bit her lip as he chuckled again.
"Just Greg's fine, really," he assured her. "I'll have the water replaced in just a tick if you're so worried, okay?" She nodded with a grateful smile. "Then, once that's all cleared up, you can take off those sunglasses and tell me what's really going on. Stay here." His voice had gone firm and deep on the final command, and with enviable ease he rose from the booth they'd been sequestered in. It hadn't been a suggestion; it had carried the hard edge of I'll be back with the authorities and if you're very, very well-behaved I'll let you claim insanity and be sent to a nice mental hospital instead of federal prison.
Of course the moment the door swung shut Cindy was on her feet, watching. Greg - the prince, dammit - didn't look back, so perfectly confident that the rank of his office would keep her in place. Well, too bad for him, she'd been raised in a house that despised the royals. She slipped out the door and into the crowd before he was finished giving the orders, which were thankfully genuine.
"...all the way down, yes. We've had a tip-off about possible tampering with the water..."
It was easy, almost child's play, to disappear - so much easier with pliant bodies than it was with furniture or wall corners - and for a moment all Cindy craved was to do just that, to vanish among these people and never return. Surely Papa Jeff couldn't find her if she ran away now, could he? London was vast and damn near infinite, it sometimes seemed. She could do it. She could find some dumpy little flat and some dumpy little job in a dumpy little shop and it would be perfect because it wasn't that goddamn house.
But then she thought of all of the information she could find on this terrorist bloke while she was at Papa Jeff's, of all the people who could get hurt if she wasn't in the right place at the right time, of Marie's - Anthea's - disappointment in her, and the longing was staved off. Just two more days. Two more days, and she would be out of Hell for good. Too bad she didn't believe in God.
She jogged home in contemplative silence, chucking out the sunglasses and cap as she neared home. Then she pulled the note left from Marie out of the window frame, shimmied through, stripped off the jogging kit, pulled on the clothes she'd left under the stairs, climbed back out, chucked the kit in the neighbor's bin, shimmied back in yet again, closed the window, and waited. Three hours after she returned, her bracelet flickered back to life, and she fought a sigh. Back to the old grind, but not before reading Marie's note.
Midnight. Back garden behind the shed. -Marie
Meghan came home from the marathon near sunset in the throes of a fully-onset tantrum, screeching like a cat and throwing things in her rage. Cindy did the maths in her head - Meghan had probably stayed around after the run to keep an eye on how quickly the poison progressed. Botulinum only took a few hours to take effect, so she would have noticed something before leaving. She knew it hadn't worked, that someone had ruined their perfect plan.
Cindy would have smiled at this small victory, knowing that no one had been hurt, if Meghan hadn't stomped down the stairs and taken out all that anger on her. She curled up in a ball as she always tried to do before the real violence began, but Meghan kicked the small of her back until the muscles sprang painfully and made her arch, then started punching her savagely in the stomach and sides until the frustration and anger were gone. Panting heavily, the older woman calmly rolled Cindy into some semblance of the recovery position with one foot before going back upstairs.
For what felt like hours Cindy lie perfectly still except for the involuntary trembling in her screaming muscles, trying not to be ill. She could hardly move her legs without pulling the bruises and possibly cracked ribs, but when she heard the door open when Papa Jeff came home from work forced herself up without a sound passing through her lips. He and Meghan talked for a few minutes a she clearly explained what had happened at the run. It became deadly quiet upstairs, and Papa Jeff's footsteps started creaking toward the basement stairs. Cindy tensed and shook, trying to mentally prepare for two beatings in one day, which wasn't too uncommon but still very unpleasant.
"Cindy, come up here," called Papa Jeff quietly from the top of the stairs.
With apprehension and pain dragging through her gut, Cindy pulled herself up to the kitchen, flushed and panting after even that small trek. Papa Jeff stared, coldly calm, as she put an indignantly wounded look on her face and wrapped one arm around her middle. "What have I done now?" she asked.
Papa Jeff shook his head with a frown. "Nothing. The floors are a mess, clean them up."
"I just did it last night."
She immediately regretted the decision to speak as he struck her across the face. At least it was open-handed; it would be hard to be undercover with a black eye. "Then do it again! Or do you think you're too good for a bit of work, is that it? I took you in and didn't leave you for the wolves, I feed you, I put clothes on your back, I give you a place to sleep at night, and you can't even clean the floors, you little fucking princess?" He hit her again, harder but still open-handed, and she quickly bowed her head to avoid more blows.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it!" she conceded, ducking even further to get the cleaning supplies from under the sink. Papa Jeff watched her for several moments before shuffling into his office with Meghan on his heels, complaining about her shit day all the way there. Under the pretense of wiping up a stain, Cindy crawled to the office door and listened at the keyhole.
There were a few moments of puttering about before Papa Jeff spoke. "I know what happened, Meg. My employer called. An anonymous tip?"
"Apparently some woman showed up and demanded the water be dumped out. At all the checkpoints. Someone must have gotten sloppy and left plans lying about."
"Or cold feet."
A stunned silence. "What, me? Dad, I would never jeopardize us like that!"
"Not maliciously, no."
"Dad!"
"Sweetheart, it's alright. I know what you're feeling; it's your first big project and there's a lot at stake. Of course you'll be-"
"Have you really forgotten who made Mum her morning tea the day she died?"
A moment of sputtering. "That was an accident."
"No, that was genius."
Silence.
"Dad, I'll make sure nothing goes wrong tomorrow. I've even got a special artifact set aside to bait the prince."
"Let me hear it." Papa Jeff's rickety chair groaned as he lowered himself into it.
"DCI Donovan's family has decided to auction off dear lost Sally's favorite stuffed animal. The prince is a sentimental fool, and will feel good about spending an exorbitant donation on something as useless as a stuffed toy. I've planted all of the leftover pupae inside of it so the rest of the royal family can get a taste as well."
"Perhaps you do have the brains for this after all."
Cindy could practically hear Meghan beaming from behind the door.
"I won't let you down, Dad."
"You couldn't let me down, my love, but it's not me I'm worried about."
Cindy scurried to the other side of the room before Meghan left, flinching as the elder passed only because she knew it would boost her arrogance even further. Confidence led to mistakes, nine times out of ten.
-
Greg and his best mate/assistant/live-in security officer Sir John Watson of the RAMC (just sired last week, thank you very much) staggered up the stairs into Greg's flat at eight, feeling it was more like 2am. They collapsed onto the sofa, rubbing their faces and groaning, silently wondering just how to persuade the other to make tea, for several long minutes before Greg started giggling like a schoolboy.
"S'not funny, Greg," muttered John. "Someone tried to assassinate you. And about a hundred other people."
That only seemed to make Greg laugh harder. "But it was Botox!" he cackled, edging into hysteria after several moments of floundering.
With a sigh John sat up straighter and squeezed his mate's shoulder until he calmed down. "Botulism poisoning is serious stuff. If we hadn't been tipped off, everyone who touched that water would be dead or dying by now, and we would have no idea why because the stuff's damn near untraceable. Well," he amended, "Sherlock could probably figure it out."
Greg let out a groan. "Again with your bloody boyfriend!"
"Oi, he's not my boyfriend."
"Could've fooled me."
They glared daggers at one another for several moments before Greg resignedly got up to make the tea. Crawling pitifully along the length of the sofa before he was lying astride it, John buried his head into a cushion and silently bemoaned that a 25-year-old should not feel this exhausted at eight in the evening. "What about that girl, then?" he called out into the kitchen over the clinking of cups and the hiss of the kettle. "The one who tipped you off."
There were several minutes of silence as Greg prepared the tea, though obviously using the time he had to think about what he would next say. "I'm not sure," he finally admitted, shuffling out of the kitchen and passing John his mug. "I just heard a fuss, went over to see what was wrong, and she was getting so worked up I took her aside for some privacy. Said it was her kid brother messing about trying to make a laxative."
He'd seen right through that, of course. It had been too easy to see how anxious she was, the way her hands fiddled with her coffee cup, keeping her sunglasses on even in a dim cafe, the hesitation before beginning her false story.
John nodded knowingly. "Bit hard to make a naturally-occurring poison from a kid's chemistry kit when you're trying to make a laxative."
"Mm."
They pondered over their tea for several minutes, the only sound in the flat that of them sipping and stirring restlessly. Then, John asked, "Was she pretty?" He winced as a spoon hit him in the side of the head.
"Come on, John, she had to be about twenty!" groused Greg petulantly.
"Twenty-seven's not that bad in comparison," shrugged John back with a wicked grin.
The elder rolled his eyes with much less elegance than one would expect from royalty as he reclined back further in his chair. "Whatever, mate. And I dunno if she was pretty. Kept her sunglasses and cap on the whole time, didn't she?"
The amused tension in John's shoulders vanished to be replaced by a tension of a different sort. He went dangerously quiet, and Greg braced himself for the explosion.
"You're telling me..."
"Yep I am."
"That you went to a secluded area..."
"Sure did."
"...with a woman..."
"Mm."
"...who kept her face hidden..."
"Quite."
"..and didn't call me first?"
"Listen, John," he finally sighed, leaning forward onto his knees. "I know you're upset-"
"Your father's going to skin me alive if he finds out I let you go off on your own!" John groaned, pressing both hands over his face and leaning back into the recesses of the sofa. "She could have killed you!"
"-but I can take care of myself!" finished Greg as though John hadn't spoken. "I went to Police Academy for four years, you know. I studied body language among a dozen other things. She was a specky, skinny little thing that didn't look strong enough to stay upright in a decent gust of wind. It was a gut feeling. Not to mention she was tipping me off about the assassination attempt. Usually people preventing my death aren't out to kill me."
John looked as though he dearly wanted to argue the point further but was so apoplectic that he couldn't speak. Instead he picked up the mail from the coffee table and instantly threw it back down with disgust. "Looks like you're hopelessly in love again," he muttered. "Don't know why you get these rags, anyway."
Shrugging, "They're funny," Greg scraped the magazine toward him with the heel of his foot, examined the front cover, and grimaced. "Cripes, that's just not right." He tossed it in the vague direction of the bin, not too bothered when it didn't land. John silently despaired. "Well, who knows, maybe our mystery helper will be back with more information tomorrow."
"Yeah," snorted John, "because anonymous tippers always come back." Then he sighed and stared at his teacup. "Fancy a beer?"
