Emma knew there were cabins out in the woods and was pretty sure Graham had them on some maps back at the office. But, before she got to them, she needed some lunch. Unless it was an early dinner by now. Food, she needed food.

Granny's was slow when she got there. The lunch rush was over and no one except her wanted their dinner yet. There were a few clusters of school kids gossiping over their drinks and a shared order of fries, and that was about it.

Just as well, Emma thought. The diner was one of two hubs for news in town and Granny's was a whole lot more accurate than The Mirror. She decided not to have her sandwich to go after all.

Ruby came over cheerfully to get her order. "We've still got room in our girls night, if you want to come," she said. "You interested?"

Emma had almost forgotten the conversation earlier today. Mary Margaret, Ashley, and Ruby were going to drown their Valentine's Day sorrows/hit on guys at The Rabbit Hole. Emma had been trying to bow out even before this came up. "No thanks," she said. "Someone's got to watch for drunk lovebirds."

"Emma, if that's how you spend Valentine's Day, you need a drink."

"Maybe next time. Besides, I'm hoping to catch Henry tomorrow morning before school. Having a hangover won't go over well."

As Emma hoped, Ruby accepted that. "How's Henry doing?"

Other than having an evil sociopath for a mother who doesn't care what he's going through so long as he stops talking about it? Just peachy, Emma didn't say. "He's OK." She didn't have to fake how empty that sounded. "Hey, Ruby, did you know Henry used to have a nanny?"

"Oh, yeah, Isabel. I remember her. Really sad, what happened."

"Hmph," Granny said.

"You don't agree?" Emma said. Granny could be a hard woman, but Isabel was dead. Didn't that earn her a few points for sympathy?

"It was awful what happened to her," Granny said. "But, even in Storybrooke, you don't go hanging out at The Rabbit Hole by yourself in the middle of the night."

Emma had a few, sharp comebacks for people who said things like that. They came up almost automatically while her brain was busy processing what Ruby and Granny just said, that something had happened to Isabel late at night by The Rabbit Hole. It was one of Nott's favorite hangouts and fit with Graham's suspicions.

But, Henry said Regina sent her out on an errand. Did Regina lie to him?

If she had, for once, it was a lie Emma could get behind, maybe one she would have told Henry herself. You don't tell a five year old his nanny's been murdered in a bar.

Emma finished that thought just as her mouth opened up to put Granny in her place, when she saw the way Granny was looking at Ruby. Ruby who spent plenty of her off time in The Rabbit Hole. And who was going there tonight.

OK, maybe I won't say that.

Emma wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to Ruby's mother. But, that was a story even Storybrooke's rumor mill hadn't been able to get a grip on. All she knew was that Ruby's mother was gone—and that there was an empty fatalism in Ruby's grandmother's eyes when she talked about bad things happening to women who stayed out too late in bars.

One crime at a time, Emma. Or two, if Keith Nott and Isabel Lacey weren't connected after all.

"She used to go to The Rabbit Hole?" Emma tried to sound . . . not shocked, Granny wouldn't believe shocked, but just a touch surprised.

"All the time," Granny said.

Emma tried to imagine Regina putting up with a nanny who snuck out for nightly drinking parties and decided her brain wasn't up to the task. She turned to Ruby. "Did she hang out with you?"

"Not really."

"But, you saw her there?" No, Emma wasn't buying that story. She pushed for more details. "You saw who she hung out with? Remember what she used to do?" Pushing for specific details helped slow down the rush of assumptions, putting the brakes between what they thought they knew and what they really remembered.

And it worked. Ruby frowned. "It's funny," she said. "I know she hung out there—everybody knew—but I didn't see much of her."

"Do you know anything about what happened to her?" It would be hearsay evidence, useless in court. But, it would be a start.

Granny snorted again. "Why are you asking Ruby? The prime witness is right over there." She nodded towards a cluster of high school girls.

"What?"

"Elizabeth Count," Granny said. "She was the one who found her."

X

Elizabeth Count snagged a French fry, ignoring the ketchup—she always ignored the ketchup. Sarah was telling them about her plans for the school dance and how Wayne Polson was going to be so sorry he hadn't asked her, when someone came up to their booth. Elizabeth glanced over and froze. The cheerful ruckus at the table stopped. The sheriff was looking down at her.

"Elizabeth Count?" Sheriff Swan said. Elizabeth nodded mutely. "I have a few questions I need to ask you."

The other girls watched as silently as if Elizabeth were being led to her execution as she got up and followed the sheriff. Sheriff Swan led her to a back room in the diner, where they could have some privacy. It was some kind of workroom with a washer and dryer. Elizabeth wondered what it was for. They didn't use tablecloths at Granny's. Maybe they washed stuff from the bed and breakfast?

"I'm looking into an old case," the sheriff said. "It's about Isabel Lacey. I understand you were the one who found her?"

Elizabeth wasn't surprised. On some level, she'd known this was what the sheriff wanted to talk about from the moment she saw her. Why else would she want to talk to a kid like her?

"Can you tell me about it?"

Wasn't the sheriff supposed to tell her about her rights? But, that was only if she'd done something wrong, and she hadn't, not really. It wasn't—it couldn't—be her fault. It was just something that happened.

"I was coming home from Sarah's house—Sarah McArthy, she's a friend of mine. It was the first day of school, but we'd already been assigned this big project. We were talking about it and our classes and. . . ." And it didn't really matter. All of that seemed like something that had happened to someone else in another world. It was like a story Elizabeth knew the words to but couldn't really remember what they were supposed to mean. Projects, classes, curfews, they'd seemed so important. Till they weren't.

"It got late," Elizabeth said, sticking to the part that mattered. "I had a curfew and I needed to get home. I—I cut through the alleyway, the one by the pharmacy. I'm not supposed to. But, I did."

She wasn't supposed to. What happened had already happened. It wasn't because of her, of what she did.

So, why didn't it feel that way? Why did if feel like everything that happened was because of her? She'd stayed out late. She'd cut through the alley. She'd found the body. It was like fairy tales. Stay out past midnight. Talk to strangers. Bad things happen.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, as if that could keep her from seeing what was inside her own head. "I didn't even know what it—what she—I didn't know what I was looking at. I—I saw the pools on the ground. The dark one, that was blood. The pale one, that was milk."

"Milk?"

"There'd been a big container of it. It got thrown against the wall and went everywhere. But, it hadn't mixed with the blood, not really. I saw—I didn't even know it was a body at first. I kept staring at this small thing, trying to figure out what it was. It was red and pale and black, about the size of a rat. I wondered if it was a rat, a sick one that had lost its hair. But, there was this black mark on the back, the shape of a shoe heel, a big one, like a guy's hiking boot or something. It had. . . . I was trying to figure out why a rat would have five tails or how its legs could get twisted around like that or. . . . And, then, I saw it was a hand. I—I don't know why I didn't see that before. It was a hand. Someone had stopped on the hand and left a big bruise, the black mark I saw. And it was attached to an arm. And the arm belonged to a person. The blood was all hers."

It had taken forever to see it. Even when she knew what she was looking at, she couldn't believe it. She remembered thinking the arm was sticking out of a pile of trash or rags or something, that it had to be from a mannequin or—or something, anything but a person. Even now, when she thought back, it didn't seem real. It had to be some crazy dream.

The only thing that was real was the smell of blood. No matter how hard she tried, she could never get that smell out of her head.

"What did you do then?" the sheriff prompted.

"Nothing," Elizabeth whispered. "Screamed. I didn't do anything. I just stood there and screamed till the ambulance came and took her away."

The sheriff frowned. "How'd you get home?"

"The sheriff—the old sheriff, Sheriff Graham. He gave me a ride. He must have talked to my mother. I didn't get into any trouble for being late."

And, whatever the sheriff said, her mother hadn't asked her about it. Elizabeth went to bed, got up early, and ran to school before her mother had a chance to ask her anything. She got through the whole day as if nothing strange had happened.

And the next day.

And the next day.

And the day after that.

This was Storybrooke. If you left things alone long enough, it was like they never happened.

Elizabeth wanted to leave this alone. She wanted to go back and eat her fries (no ketchup, she'd never been able to eat anything with ketchup since that night) and try to forget about it again. Instead, she blurted out something she'd never told anyone.

"I tried to go see her."

"What?"

"In the hospital. I went after school. But, they were only letting family in."

"Isabel had family?"

"Not that I saw. That's just what they told me. They let the mayor in. Because she was her boss, I guess. And she's the mayor. And Mr. Gold."

"Mr. Gold? Why?"

"I guess he was her lawyer? Or something? The mayor and him were having some kind of argument. I didn't stick around for that."

"I . . . see. Is there anything else you remember? It doesn't have to seem important. Anything at all might help."

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, that's all. I'm sorry."

"It's OK. What you've remembered helps a lot. I don't know if he ever told you but I'm sure Sheriff Graham appreciated your help, too." She started towards the door.

"I didn't help him."

Sheriff Swan stopped. "What?"

"I didn't help him. When I found her, he never asked me anything."

"But, later, when he was investigating—"

"There wasn't any later. That was it. He took me home. Nobody ever asked me about it again."

X

In the basement beneath the hospital, a door grated open. Keith Nott stopped his restless pacing and glared.

"About time! I thought you were never coming back."

"I'm glad you waited."

"Waited? Like I had any choice! The door was locked."

"Was it? Well, we had to make sure you didn't go running off into the sheriff's arms somehow, didn't we?"

"You think I couldn't handle her?"

"I think we'd all be happier if you didn't have to handle anything at all."

"Do you know how long I've been stuck here?"

"Long enough for the sheriff to be looking in the opposite direction." The speaker tossed Nott a set of keys. "The car's out back. No one will be looking for it. Just drive to the town line." It was impossible to see, but the voice seemed to hold a self-satisfied smile. "Once you're past that, you're out of the sheriff's jurisdiction. All your worries will be over."

X

Note: I don't know if anyone reading this has ever seen or heard of a British show called Young Dracula, but I had an idea a while back for a Once/Young Dracula crossover. It didn't go anywhere, but Elizabeth Count is based on the Storybrooke persona I made for the Count's daughter, Ingrid. Remember, Storybrooke personas are often nothing like the original person.