Thanks for the welcome back! I said I was going to finish this story, and I will.
X X X X X
The rest of the day, and for that matter the rest of the week, went by fairly smoothly. Only two blips.
One, Dad, when he received the package. Buffy had sent it to the office, not home. Smart of her.
I was actually the one who got the package when the mail carrier dropped it off, too. Lucky me, that would explain my fingerprints.
Still, the formalities had to be observed. I opened the package, noted the crudely written "play me" on the videocassette inside, and promptly carried it in to Dad. Packages got taken in immediately. Checks were dropped into a lockbox (Dad did the books himself), which I did not have the key to. Everything else was separated into neat stacks and handed to Dad later, except for the junk mail, which was either tossed or made fun of, depending on my mood.
"Came in the mail," I said. "I thought you got your porn delivered at home."
"Ha ha," he said, taking the tape. "You know I have the PO Box for that."
I wanted to stay there and watch him watch it, but any kind of pressure, at this point, was a guaranteed way to make Dad suspicious. So I simply said, "Let me know if it's anything interesting," and left to make my way through the rest of the mail
About a half hour later, while I was doing some homework (skimming the history book for an upcoming quiz, on the off chance that my presence wasn't the only thing making this an alternate universe and that, say, Samuel Tilden had beaten Rutherford Hayes for the presidency), Dad called me into his office.
By the way: Hayes still won. On the off chance you were interested. I didn't think the Adversary had changed anything else. But every once in a while, I made a spot check, just in case.
"We got two checks -- what is it?" I asked as I walked in.
"Come over here," he said, sitting in front of the office TV.
"Ooooh," I said. "We got cable?"
"No," he said. "And this is serious."
I knew that, but now I publicly knew that, and quit trying to be funny. "What is it?" I asked.
"Someone sent me some evidence," he said, and clicked the remote.
I watched, for the fourth time, shaky but distinct video of Aaron Echolls beating the crap out of Holly Takamura to get three videotapes. "Whoa," I said when I was done. "Who sent it to you?"
"Nothing on the tape but the note. I assume there was nothing else in the envelope."
"Nope," I said. "I still have the envelope, though."
"Bring it in," he said.
I did just that, looking at the handwriting as I did and then realizing that I wasn't familiar enough with Buffy's normal handwriting to judge whether she'd tried to disguise it or not. "Here it is," I said. "Looks like a standard-issue packing envelope. Were you planning to track it down this way?"
"Maybe," dad said. "But that wasn't the most important thing." He looked at the envelope and frowned. "I don't suppose you recognize the handwriting."
"Not many people's I do," I said. "You, me, Lilly, and I don't think any of us sent it." After a second, I added, "So, what does this mean to you?"
"Exactly what it looks like. I now have one video showing that Aaron Echolls slept with Lilly Kane, and another one showing that he is a very violent man. Neither one of those items is proof in itself, but together they're enough to convince me that he killed Lilly. Stay away from him, Veronica."
"Haven't gotten within a hundred feet of the man since right after Parent-Teacher night. No plans to get any closer. Trust me."
He took the tape and put it in the safe. The safe itself, it should be noted, was one that even a fairly strong vampire wouldn't have been able to open by main force -- and it was fireproof and cemented to the floor. That wouldn't stop anyone determined, but it would stop pretty much anyone else.
"Are we closer?" I asked.
"We are," he said. "If I ever manage to prove Abel Koontz not guilty. Finding that prostitute ought to do it; I have a couple of leads I'm going to follow up on this weekend. But right now what I have the makings of is a piece on 60 Minutes: enough to get the public, maybe, convinced that Koontz didn't do it and that Echolls did, but not enough to convince a court -- even one not run by Mayor Wilkins' cronies." He smiled. "Still, this is definitely another piece to the puzzle."
The other blip during the week was more pleasant: After school on Thursday Sheila took me to the magic store. To my mild surprise, it was Pete manning the counter this time, and not Rae.
"Rae's taking a couple of days," he said. "I try to give it to her any time I make it back into town. She told me that Sheila was okay to use the back room for magic training whenever she wanted. I assume she wants?"
"She wants," Sheila said.
"Go right ahead," Pete said.
"Got any board or anything lyin' around?" Sheila asked. "Anything it won't be a problem if I break?"
"A couple of packing crates in the alley," Pete said. "Nothing I can reuse. Go to town." Sheila nodded and headed towards the back of the store. I lingered for a second.
"How was your trip?" I asked.
"Pretty successful. A lot of herbs this time, not so much artifacts. Not what you'd expect from Greece, but truth is, the place has been picked over for two millennia. Any artifact left there's either under heavy guard – and not all of that by humans, let me tell you – or is way out of my price range. Herbs, though, they got plenty of, and happy to have the business."
"Glad it was a success," I said.
"Thank you," he said, and got back to looking over what I guessed were the store's books.
I headed to the back to find that Sheila had just lugged in the second crate.
"So," I said, "I've seen find the target, focus, and witchfire. What's next?"
''sone I call the phantom punch," Sheila said. "Watch. And stand out of the way. I think I got the aim down but 'drather not knock you down findin' out I'm wrong."
"I appreciate the courtesy," I said, moving against the side wall.
She placed one of the crates towards the middle of the room, and stationed herself in the corner. Closing her eyes, she muttered to herself for a second, then opened her eyes and threw a punch.
The crate rocked up and moved about a foot. Impressive enough to me, but apparently not what Sheila was looking for.
"Shit," Sheila said. "Do me a favor, manhunter. Put that thing against the wall you're leanin' on. I ain't lookin' to knock the crate back."
I shoved it – it was more than I could carry – until it was where Sheila wanted, saying, "I thought that looked pretty good."
"Thanks. Still not what I wanted to do. Now clear out of the way."
I cleared, and Sheila repeated what she'd done a couple of minutes ago, only this time she threw the punch about six times.
The wood cracked on the fourth punch, and the side of the box shattered on the sixth.
"Okay," I admitted, "That is more impressive."
"And it doesn't bruise my knuckles, either," she said. "Look." Sure enough, her fist showed no sign of wear. If she'd hit that crate directly it would have been scraped raw.
She then proceeded to reduce the second crate into splinters, only she mixed punches with kicks. By the time she was done, she was breathing a little heavily, but once again grinning her trademark evil grin.
"You're tired?" I asked.
"I'm still throwin' punches, manhunter, even if I'm not connecting with anything. It's not a way for me to avoid work, just to do it at a distance."
"Imagine this combined with focus," I said.
The grin got wider. "I already am."
After we cleaned up, we left, going back through the front of the store.
Pete was talking to a customer; I couldn't see her face. He broke off for a second and said, "Did everything go well?"
"Yup," Sheila said. "I've got another spell down. That's four so far. Thanks."
"No problem," he said.
The customer, meanwhile, perked up when she heard the word 'spell,' and turned around.
I froze when I saw her face.
It was Amy Madison.
Amy went from good to evil fairly quickly; at least, that's the way it seemed. But think about it.
She obviously had started well down her mother's path by the time of Gingerbread; even if she had been mentally affected by her three years in rat form, she'd clearly known and been going to Rack well beforehand; he treated Amy like an old friend, not a new customer like Willow was.
And even in Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered, she had no ethical problems with either magically making her teacher believe she'd handed in a paper, or with doing the love spell Xander blackmailed her into. If she wasn't one of the bad guys by that point, she was certainly well on her way.
And I was going to make damned sure Sheila had nothing to do with her.
"You're a witch too?" Amy said.
"Yeah," Sheila said. As far as I knew, Amy wasn't even on her radar; I had no idea what she thought of her.
"Cool! Maybe we could get together sometimes and talk magic."
I tapped Sheila on the shoulder and whispered, "Get us out of here" in her ear. To her credit, Sheila didn't react to what I said, but did start walking again, saying "Amy Madison, right?" as we passed the girl.
"Yup."
"Maybe we can. Sounds like fun. And sorry, but I have to get going or we could talk now."
"Give me a call, okay?"
Sheila nodded, and we left.
Once we were in my Le Baron and were driving away, I said, "Please don't. Stay away from her."
"Wasn't planning to," Sheila said. "I like doing this on my own. Don't think I like her, though. How about you? What's your problem with her?"
And now I was kind of stuck. I had nothing I could tell her, because everything but 'The Witch' was in the future, and that had been Catherine Madison, not Amy. Sure, I wouldn't know that, but Amy would cheerfully tell Sheila given the chance, and then where would I be?
I said, "Instinct. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something off about her. I'm not sure what."
Sheila nodded. "Okay. That's good enough for me. You're a pretty good judge of people, manhunter. I'll brush her off."
"Thank you," I said. If Amy was going to go down that road, she was going to go down it alone.
Was she going to go down it?
Was she a sociopath? Or did she just learn everything from her mother, including how not to have a conscience? I stretched my mind, thinking of anything genuinely good she might have done, and was having a hard time coming up with anything, even in BBB or Gingerbread. It's possible the Scooby gang saw her, initially, as a victim because of what her mother did, and then never really changed their mind until Smashed and Wrecked forced them to.
I think the three years as a rat didn't pull anything out of Amy that wasn't already there.
Still, I needed to do my due diligence.
Here, Amy. Hop up on my plate, please.
(It would be easier if she were still a rat.)
X X X X X
So, those were the blips. Both had repercussions, but I wasn't going to deal with either one right away unless it was shoved in my face, which, given my life, my wager, and the nature of this universe, I wasn't ruling out.
Lilly's murder was back on Dad; Amy and Sheila weren't going to be friendly, and Willow was taking things very slowly, assuming Rae was telling me the truth.
My search for Epimetheus was stalled, because she hadn't needed to make an appearance in a while. I was dutifully checking my recordings and asking Giles if he'd heard anything else, but apart from that, I told Giles he may as well stop paying me until she made another appearance, though I would keep checking the recordings.
All of the money he'd given me, incidentally? Straight to the local SPCA. I wasn't going to profit off of this, but I still couldn't figure out a way to do it for free, not and not get everyone suspicious.
Still, when the weekend came, for once, I had one and only one item on the agenda:
Ted Buchanan.
I knew the timeline once the episode started. I didn't know, at this point, how long ago Joyce and Ted had met (thinking it over, I was reasonably sure they had by now, because they'd clearly been dating for quite a while – Buffy'd mentioned something about her mother spending some long nights at the gallery.
Still, Ted and Buffy hadn't met yet, so maybe I could upset the applecart a bit.
First things first, though. Speculation was all well and good, but if I was going to try to play Ethan this episode, I needed confirmation.
So, Friday evening, I went for a drive down by the art gallery. Dad was already on his way back to Las Vegas, to check up on the hooker. I hope he finds her this time. We need that smoking gun.
If anyone asked, I was on a case; but no one asked. I did have my water pistol in case any vampires got frisky, and my sneakers, for that matter, so I could run like hell while they were screaming in pain.
Neither one got a workout. Thankfully. My life is interesting enough, don't you think?
Note to the Adversary: That was not a question for you. Please don't answer it.
I parked about a block away from the gallery, which was open Friday evenings (because if it wasn't, I was just wasting my time), and walked there uneventfully. It was advertising an exhibition of local artists.
Art? Really not much of my thing. I can tell the difference between Starry Night and Dogs Playing Poker, but in the middle, where most of this stuff was likely to be, I wasn't so reliable.
But no one said I needed to be. A lot of people went to art galleries whose aesthetic judgment was less than stellar, and I would be one of them. And – added bonus – local artists often went the "I'll take anything" route in terms of asking price, so if that needed to be part of my cover, I was good.
Joyce Summers was nowhere in sight when I walked in; there was a woman sitting at the front desk, presumably to make sure no one made off with the merchandise. I couldn't see Ted Buchanan, either. Three other people were wandering through the gallery, and I joined them.
After half an hour or so of looking at sculptures that wouldn't have even made good doorstops and paintings I wouldn't have put on my refrigerator if I were the artist's mother, I finally saw what I needed to see:
Ted. Leaving Joyce Summers' office, after clearly giving her a quick kiss in the doorway.
And now, he was seeing me.
Hmmm. Not quite how I hoped this would go.
