"That was unpleasant."

"It's just the subway."

"I did not miss my time away from that Petri dish," Miranda scoffed as we retreated from the stairwell that plunged back down to the depths of New York.

I snorted, "You can't even touch anything right now, you'll live."

There was a pause. When I glanced over, she was shooting me an incredulous look, complete with a raised brow.

Oh, right.

"Bad word choice, sorry."

Rather than sulk and grimace, she actually tossed her head back thoughtfully as we walked forward, forelock brushed to the side.

"I suppose I did claim I would only use public transit over my dead body," she reasoned aloud, a hint of a devious smirk lining her lips.

I smiled back. The mood had certainly improved once we left that dreary hospital.

When we arrived at the townhouse, I tried not to make a fuss as I climbed the familiar steps. If paparazzi or nosy neighbors lurked, I had to own the part of a nobody employee that had every right to be there. Calm. Totally normal. Breaking into Priestly's house.

It wasn't really illegal if I had the key…and the owner was technically with me. Right?

This time around, Miranda made a show of waiting for me to go first before following me through the entryway. I looked around as I shut the door behind us, noting some ruffled carpet and a discarded bag or two in the foyer. I guess the last of the lab technicians had forgotten to take out the trash. Nothing seemed terribly out of place, but Miranda's clean minimalist concept immediately highlighted that quite a few people, likely busy cops and EMTs, had passed through here recently.

"Atrocious," Miranda hissed.

"It was briefly a crime scene," I reminded her, stepping over some crumbled plastic and starting to navigate the bottom floor.

"Then the housekeeper should have tended to this aftermath."

"She was probably scarred for life when she found you unconscious," I muttered, poking around the sitting room.

There wasn't much. After a few rooms looking untouched, I found myself standing in an extremely clean kitchen.

I looked back at my shadow. "Do you remember what room you were in?"

She shook her head but added, "I am not typically downstairs if the girls are not with me."

"Good point, their dad had them. I was hoping we'd see something the police missed, but there's not much."

I trudged back to the foyer, Miranda silently following, pausing at the first step to the second floor. I sighed deeply as I looked up the grand stairwell and multiple levels. The house seemed a lot bigger when one was hunting for clues that might not exist. How did Scooby and the gang do it?

"This place always gave me the creeps," I grumbled as I started the ascension.

"That's odd, considering how warm and inviting I am as a person," Miranda deadpanned behind me.

Ha. Ha.

"I almost lost my job the last time I went up these stairs."

The response was a hum, "Fortune favors the brave, Andrea."

I almost tripped on the next step. My name sounded good from her mouth when it wasn't coated in a tone of total annoyance.

Once I reached the landing, the first room to the immediate right was a large sitting area with cozy seating and a huge TV, more of a proper family den than the little formal number downstairs. A quick glance told me it was mainly untouched; whatever went down had not been in here. I tried not to linger too long on the family photos and personal touches around the room. Trust me, I wanted to. Badly. But Miranda had probably swallowed an insane amount of pride letting me this far, and I wanted to honor that.

This was about doing my job and saving a life.

As we backtracked to the hallway, I started to review the case out loud to try and isolate what we were looking for.

"The Times said the police found an empty pill bottle."

Miranda scoffed, "Well, Sherlock, I suspect that was planted somewhere as it certainly wasn't mine."

I opened the next door. Pink. One of the girl's rooms.

I closed the door with a frown and mused, "They were smart. It's not really a stretch for most rich, famous people like you to be taking non-prescription drugs for fun. Whether the bottle looked like yours or not won't matter."

"I'm starting to suspect it was you." She sounded almost impressed. Almost.

I chuckled, checking another room, "I come across a lot of crazy shit at the Mirror."

Another young tween room by the looks of the band posters.

At this rate, I was really starting to hope we didn't end up staring at each other in her bedroom. Ghosts and suicide aside, I would officially freak out.

The next door was already open, and as soon as I rounded the corner, I was fairly certain we had found our goal.

Miranda's office. Of course. I should've known to check here first knowing the workaholic.

It was pretty simple and modern, matching the rest of the house and even her set up at Runway. Glass desk, fancy computer. There was a small bar set up with some bottles when we first walked in. I smirked at the dark wood of the bookshelves that lined one wall, brimming full with books. While I expected the Chanel biography, I was pleasantly surprised by the titles on the spines hinting at classical art history and even some curveballs like Russian literature.

The artwork was more expressive too. Dark line work and bold modern reds on canvas. One appeared to be the vague outline of a naked woman with splashed ink. Something about it seemed less performative and expected, more genuine.

Despite the expensive furniture and décor, the general layout of the objects atop the desk and side table was normal and cluttered, like your average home office for us mortals. Here? Chaos. Items had been picked up, turned over, and incorrectly returned by someone clearly not Miranda.

"Cops tore up this room. This must've been where you were," I asserted, removing my messenger bag and hanging it on the door handle.

I knew if there was anything important, it was probably sitting in a police station in an evidence locker somewhere. But if I could find something that didn't belong or something obviously in use that night, maybe we could jog Miranda's foggy memory. Even better, if this looked like a suicide, maybe, just maybe, something from an unknown villain was left behind.

When I started perusing the top of her desk, I heard Miranda ask, "What precisely are you looking for?"

I looked up, moving to the bookshelf as I spoke, "Assuming a pill bottle was planted, someone wanted to frame this as a suicide," I turned and crossed my arms in thought as I continued, "So the real question is, how did they actually try to kill you? It would've needed to chemically match whatever was supposed to be in the pills, which according to the Times, was some kind of pain killer."

Miranda offered a nod, so she was at least following my theory. She too seemed to be glancing around the room.

I stepped towards her and stated gently, "I need you to take me through what you remember from that entire night."

"As I said before, it's...limited," she strained with a wince. Or perhaps it was a glare at a footprint on the carpet.

"I know it's hard," I said sympathetically, moving into her field of vision so I could look her in the eye, "But your memory is all we got. My contacts with the cops aren't exactly good enough to know the latest on Miranda Priestly's suspected suicide. Even then, they got it wrong. You're the only one that really knows what happened that night."

I wanted to help. I just needed a hint.

Miranda stared back at me in silence. I could see the blue of her irises clearly flicker in movement as her gaze searched mine. I didn't realize how close I had stepped to her. I held my breath. She didn't turn away, didn't step back, didn't look infuriated, and I was stupidly waiting to be of service, to be needed.

She tilted her head, still looking at me, murmuring as if in a daze, "It was late."

That was a start.

Her face finally turned, looking at the desk as she added, "I'm unsure of the time."

She took a step forward, forehead wrinkling in clear frustration. As she stood in the center of the room, she soundlessly tapped her foot, the signature red bottom catching my attention as it had that morning.

"Is that what you were wearing?" I asked eagerly, "When it happened?"

She glanced over her shoulder at me. "Why?"

I offered a grin and shrug. "You think in clothes. Focus on that."

Her eyes shifted to the bookshelves nearby. The room was quiet as she grew still.

"Irving had an abysmal tie on in our meeting that day," she drawled before slowly turning back to me, raised eyebrows hinting at surprise, "I stayed late to review our budget for the third time. To pacify him and smooth some damage from stepping on his toes in Paris."

"Did the second assistant stay late with you?"

"No. I sent her home. The pattern on her scarf made my eyes hurt," she explained, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple.

I frowned in thought, picturing my life back at the office, remembering Miranda's usual schedule. "So no one would've brought you food, you'd be hungry."

"I am capable of providing for myself," she scoffed.

I stared back at her, crossing my arms to match her posture.

"Right. Sure."

She pursed her lips. After a beat, she took great care to inspect the wall behind me.

"Emily procured dinner and had it delivered to the office."

I rolled my eyes, but continued with focusing on our main concern.

"I don't think she'd try to poison you."

Miranda shook her head as she added, "She was not physically present, I had dismissed her for the evening as well. I called her. It was delivered. Security brought it up."

"So the food is probably not how we ended up on CSI: Couture," I sighed before moving on to the next possibility, "Blood work said you had alcohol."

She had a bar setup at work. It was possible. I had never seen it used, but, hey, what did I know?

"Not there," Miranda confirmed, closing her eyes again.

The wrinkling of her forehead strained as she screwed her eyes shut even tighter.

"Open your eyes. Look at the room. Try to remember," I instructed gently. We were so close.

Blue flashed and again inspected the walls, the furniture.

"Yes. Home. It was here," she whispered, gaze finally settling on the bar, "Long day. A new bottle."

"What'd you have?"

She breathed the answer, "Bourbon."

I turned to the small collection of bottles, decanters, and glasses, looking for the dark liquid and reading the labels. My expertise did not extend beyond the bottom shelf at the liquor store, so the brands made little difference to me, but the alcohol in question was easy enough to find. The bottle actually had intricate eagle wings on the stopper. It looked expensive.

And apparently deadly.

I gulped as I stepped towards the shelf.

"So cops assume you work late, eat dinner at the office. You're tired and maybe wallowing in your suicidal misery when you get home," I said as I slid my hand deeper into the long sleeve of my hoodie, "Have a drink. Maybe too much. Take too many pills, either on accident or purpose. But if the pills never existed, then this," I plucked up the bottle by the neck, using the fabric of my sweater to avoid leaving fingerprints, "is our attempted murder weapon."

Miranda glared at the brown that sloshed in the glass. Rather than purse her lips or continue to show what I assumed was displeasure, she offered a nod. My hypothesis was supported.

I gingerly cradled the bottle in my arm and asked, "Did you buy this, or was it a gift?"

"Gift."

"From who?"

Her eyes suddenly started scanning the wall again.

"You are useless without an assistant, do you know that?" I stated flatly.

She scoffed, throwing her hands into the air. "I receive countless gifts."

I shook my head as I turned to safely deposit the fragile container in my bag.

"Pretty sure this one wasn't from an adoring fan."