~a/n: knowing the way the books are going so far, I'm going to assume that the survivor mentioned in the Snicket file in The Hostile Hospital is not a Baudelaire. However, my theory is that the survivor is Quigley Quagmire, and the photograph they found was simply left behind by mistake, or was meant to go with another document. That's why I stuck Quigley in this story, so please don't hurt me.

C h a p t e r F o u r : T h i n g s J u s t G o t W o r s e

"Quagmire Publishing, how may I help you?"

"Quigley? Are you and Duncan still running your business out of the basement?"

The voice on the other end of the phone lost its professional tone. "Yeah. Who were you looking for, Violet? Duncan just left and Isadora's due home any minute."

Violet paused and took a deep breath. "Could you tell Duncan to call me? Things with C just got worse."

"I figured as much. Could you tell everyone not to contact me for a while? Technically I'm dead again, and I don't think it'll help if you keep contacting someone whose obituary appears tomarrow."

"How did you die this time?"

"An unfortunate accident involving a canoe and several carnivorous plants. I'm going undercover to investigate this business with C."

"Good luck. I'm sending the contents of the disk as well as the disk itself with Daniel as we speak."

"Thanks. Bye then."

"Daniel, look at me." The pigeon met Violet's eyes. "I want you to take this note to the Quagmires."

Daniel cooed and fluttered out the open window and Violet shook her head. "This just got much worse."