Author's Note: I've been wanting to write this story for a long time, another take on what my have happened after the end of the series. I'm always hesitant to post a WIP. I'm hoping that if I put a few chapters out there, I will feel obligated to finish it. Just know that it may be a few weeks between updates. I appreciate your patience, readers.


I recruited the Chief to help me and after racking our brains for a week or so, we eventually came up with a solution. Or at least what we hoped would be a solution.

We called it "beekeeping."

The name stuck for two reasons. First, I was not yet ready to share either my knowledge of Carmen's latest whereabouts or my concerns about our former adversary's mental health with Ivy. So we needed some kind of code for why the Chief and I were clocking some serious hours in the evidence locker. Second, I suppose was my own whimsical homage to the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, who spent his retirement in a cottage by the sea keeping bees. I guess I hoped that if we gave Carmen some kind of…hobby…it would keep her restlessness at bay.

Three weeks after I made my first visit to Carmen's place, I found myself lounging on her immaculate grey velvet sofa as she sifted and measured case files into a trio of sloppy piles. She said absolutely nothing as she undertook this task, not even the occasional "hmm" or sigh, the room filled only with the scratch and shuffling of decades' old paper. There were kidnappings and murders in there, missing persons and wire fraud- surely at least one of them would tempt her. Carmen set the final file aside and looked at me expectantly. I couldn't tell whether she was angry or pleased, but I was willing to wager she was at the very least interested in my proposition. She wouldn't have spent the better part of an hour elbow-deep in paper if she wasn't.

"So what do you think? Can you help?" I asked, desperately trying to keep hopefulness and expectation out of my voice.

Carmen tapped a small stack of files. "Some of these cases were already cold when I was a detective, Zack. The odds of them being solved now are very unlikely."

"Are you saying it's too much of a challenge for you?" I countered.

"I know what you're trying to do." Her voice held a tone of caution, but when I looked in her eyes, I caught a glimpse of the old playfulness there.

"And you're intrigued. Admit it."

The playfulness melted into a cautious smile. "I am."

I smiled, too, nearly drunk with relief. "Good."

"I couldn't help but notice that a great many of these cases occurred over a twelve year period. Exactly the tenure of my criminal career," she said in a neutral tone.

"What can I say? Chasing you ate up a lot time and money that could have been spent elsewhere, Carmen."

"Is this supposed to be my penance?"

"If that idea appeals to you, sure." I had a feeling it probably did.

Carmen simply shrugged. She gestured to her bad leg, resting on the coffee table. "I wouldn't expect much movement on these cases for a few months. It is going to be difficult to track down suspects with my limited mobility."

If she wanted coddling, (and I suspected she didn't) I had no idea how to give it to her. So, I just teased her instead, reprising the kind of familiar banter from our games of cops and robbers. "All the more challenging for you, I suppose. Just the way you like it."

"Gives a new meaning to the phrase armchair detective," she quipped. I found myself laughing, which was odd. Usually Carmen's jokes were at my expense.

Suddenly, things turned awkward. With the business of our meeting taken care of, it seemed odd to just be hanging around in Carmen's presence. I grabbed my car keys off the coffee table and rose to leave. "I should be getting back…"

"Wait, Zack…one more question. Does Ivy know about this?" I never would have thought it possible, but Carmen for once looked hesitant. Vulnerable even.

I sighed and felt guilty. "No. She doesn't know about you…this…any of this. She's been busy lately, preoccupied. It's just not the right time."

Carmen nodded. "Where Ivy is concerned, I trust your judgment." She grasped my hand impulsively and squeezed. I squeezed back.

"Thank you, Zack" was all she said.


I meant to tell Ivy soon after that, I really did. But days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. I had been to see Carmen a couple of times more since then. She'd even cracked a few of the cases. But the longer I went without telling Ivy, the harder it became to come clean. Because each secret visit compounded, like a lie with interest, and I dreaded the day that bill came due.

Eventually Ivy caught the Chief and me in the act. We had gotten sloppy about our "beekeeping." Hell, maybe we wanted to get caught.

The Chief and I were in the control room, digging through files about a string of Belgian art forgeries from the late 80s. Ivy had taken the afternoon off and we thought we had the place to ourselves until the night shift came on at seven. I tossed the file into a box. "Oh, she is going to love that one, Chief. It's right up her alley."

"Are you sure? We've got three forgeries in there already. I don't want our beekeeper to get bored."

"It's got art, mystery, even a dash of Cold War European politics. Trust me, our beekeeper is going to think it's total honey." The Chief laughed at my bad joke and gave himself a little bee body and started buzzing around an old map of Europe, from before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I cracked up; it felt just like old times again, when we were both on Carmen's trail.

"What's so funny? And what is this obsession with bees?" Ivy's clear bell like voice startled me, I nearly fell out of my chair.

The Chief quickly made his bee costume disappear and started speaking very quickly. "It's nothing. No one. Nada. Nothing to see here. Did someone say bees? I meant sneeze. Or fleas. Pepperoni and cheese?" He was such a terrible liar.

Ivy rifled through the files. "You two must have some good reason for dragging all of these files out of storage," she said pointedly to me.

I briefly considered denying the whole thing, making up some ridiculous story about this beekeeper I had a crush on, but decided there was no way I could sell it. I'm not that great of a liar either. Instead, I decided to come clean. "They're for Carmen, Ivy. She's been consulting on some old cases for us."

My sister froze and I could almost see the ice creeping up her spine and lodging itself squarely in her green eyes. "For Carmen," she said tightly.

"Yes, the Chief and I…we've been going to see her. The cases were my idea…I thought they'd help her pass the time, keep her mind off her injury." Ivy frowned and said nothing. I continued on, maybe a little too cheerfully. "You know, I think it's actually working, she's making real progress on her physical therapy, even cracked a twenty-year old missing persons case…"

Ivy just stared at me and crumpled the file she was holding into a shriveled little ball. My sister had never hit me…not even in a kind of rough house way when we were kids. In that moment, I seriously thought she might put me in Intensive Care. "Let me get this straight…you thought it would be a good idea to share confidential files with a criminal mastermind who was and still is this agency's top priority because you thought it would help her pass the time?"

I gulped. "Well, she's been helping us, too, more like a two-way street…"

Ivy ignored my explanation and rounded on the Chief. "And you were in on this, too?"

His pink face withered like a deflated balloon. "Uh-huh."

"How long has this been going on for, Chief?"

"About six months," he answered sheepishly.

"I can't believe this!" Ivy picked up the box of files and hurled it across the room, seething with white hot rage. "For six months, you two have been palling around with Carmen, sharing little secrets behind my back, probably laughing at me the whole time…"

"Whoa, Ivy, it wasn't like that. I was going to tell you eventually." Even as I said the words, I realized how lame they must have sounded to her.

Ivy folded her arms and glared at me. "Then what was it like, Zackary?"

"I don't know. I was worried about her. I wanted to help." That was the truth. "You know it's not good for her to get bored…"

Ivy just looked at me, eyes full of pity and condescension. "You have a good heart, little bro. Maybe too good. But this isn't like when Aunt Judy had cancer and we needed to take her to chemo. You're not a Boy Scout and Carmen Sandiego's not some old lady you're trying to help cross the street. You're an Acme detective and she's a criminal," she said with finality.

"Was," I corrected. "Was a criminal. Now, she's just a woman in a lot of pain."

My sister snorted. "They have drugs for that."

"Not just physical pain. The other kind."

Ivy's lips thinned. "They have drugs for that, too, I suppose. She's not your problem, little bro. This," my sister gestured to the files decorating the floor, "has to stop."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

Now I was angry, too. Ivy wasn't the only one in the family who could be stubborn. "You heard me. No, I'm not going to stop visiting Carmen. I guess you'll have to lock me up if you want to stop me. The Chief, too." The Chief's pixilated eyes looked fearful, but he nodded with certainty.

Ivy looked at me, more hurt and wounded than I had ever seen her. She looked like she wanted to cry, and I hadn't seen her do that since our grandmother's funeral. "So, that's how it's going to be. My own brother is choosing Carmen Sandiego over me."

"I don't see it that way…"

"I do." She brushed away the tears in her eyes roughly and pulled a worn white envelope from her back pocket. She threw it at my feet. I picked it up. Georgetown University College of Law was printed in navy blue ink in the top left corner. "Well, guess what, little bro? I've been keeping a secret, too. I'm leaving Acme," she spat.

"Law school? The East Coast?" I tried to picture my sister as a prosecutor in one of those law dramas that are always on TV and just couldn't.

"Yeah. I thought about deferring for a year…I wanted to wrap up things here, see that you were settled with a new partner. But, it seems you've already moved on without me," she said bitterly.

"But, Ivy, you love this job…"

"I loved this job. Not anymore." She gave the Chief a sharp look. "Consider this my two weeks' notice."

I opened my mouth, but didn't know what to say. I was fluent in fifteen languages and in that moment I knew that nothing I could say in any of them would stop Ivy from leaving.

"Thanks for making up my mind for me, Zack." She turned for the door and never once looked back. Almost like another girl detective I knew.