A/N: Sorry this took so long... I thought I hadn't written this part... I could have posted a couple of weeks ago with the last batch.
Stolen goods
Emma got to work the next morning and noticed the number of cop cars parked in the Mall parking lot. She spotted Ruby near the entrance of the Apple store and greeted her. "Hi."
" Hey," Ruby said a little sadly.
" What's with the police presence outside?" Emma asked her back still turned from the inside store.
"They robbed the Apple Store, man. They took everything."
"They took everything?" She said finally looking in. The store was empty. All the walls all the counters everything was gone.
"Everything," Ruby affirmed.
"Oh, please, God, no." She took off running to her locker. "Please be there." Her locker door was open, and everything was empty. "Oh, my God… The ring. They took Kathryn's ring." Emma started to hyperventilate. She knew this was a bad idea. "Oh, my God…Oh, oh…" her phone rang, it was Awesome. "Oh no!" she breathed deeply took a seat and hoped she sounded normal as she answered. "Oh Hey!"
"Emms, what's up?" Fred said, "Dude, I figured out how I'm gonna pop the Q."
"The Q? What Q? What's a Q?" she asked nervously.
"You know, the Q, the big Q you only ask once in a lifetime." She heard him say, a bit of strain in his voice and Emma could imagine him doing a workout his hot sexy body doing push-ups or maybe those upside-down sit-ups he is fond of. God Kathryn was lucky. "Can't say right now... Mom." Emma furrowed her brows and figured maybe Katherine had walked into the room.
Kathryn confirmed this when she asked "Is that your mom? Tell her that I love that kittens-playing-with-the-yarn sweater that she knitted me." Emma almost laughed, she's such a liar.
"You got it, babe." Awesome replied. "I'm going to do it while we're skydiving."
"Really? Do you think, uh…" Emma hesitated, "Do you think that's a good idea?"
"Not the first time we've been in the mile-high club, buddy." Emma gagged "If you know what I mean."
"Yeah, uh… Listen: skydiving is a little, it's a little risky. Don't you think?" Emma attempted to temper this endeavor. " I mean, you could drop the ring."
"Whoa. Hot call, dude." He said sobering up. "Hate to lose my great granny's ring. She gave it to me right before she passed." He paused, and Emma could hear his smile when he said. "You know? She knew Kathryn was the one before I did."
Emma's heart sank. What was she going to do? "Great, great, okay, so... just, you know, let me know when you figure something else out."
"Okay?"
"But, Fred, um... take your time."
"You got it, sister."
When she was done, all employees were called onto the floor. She walked out to Marco having a conniption. "Detective Conway here is convinced that this is an inside job." He said signalling to the quiet detective behind him. "And we intend to get to the bottom of this." Then he spotted her. "Swan, get over here."
Emma moved to the lineup of employees. And waited for this all to end. "You're a suspect, too. You all are!"
Emma noticed Killian leaning closer to Aladdin and whispering something. She narrowed her eyes and wondered what those guys were up to.
"Swan, where's Blaize?" Marco asked, "Don't you two usually carpool together?"
"Yes. Yes, sir, we absolutely do." She answered. "But, uh... not today."
"Why don't you go find out why she is so tardy," Marco demanded. "Someone might find that suspicious."
"Sure, I can-I can do that," Emma said leaving the lineup. She called Mal.
"What?"
"Where are you? Marco's looking for you."
"Yeah, well, he's going to be looking for both of us," Mal stated. "Now get down here, we need you."
"No, no, no, no. Listen to me," she said. "I need you, okay? Someone cleaned out the Apple store last night. They took everything; they took my sister's ring, the one she's supposed to wear forever, even though she doesn't know it yet." Emma was panic babbling now. "Awesome is supposed to propose to her, he trusted me and now it's gone."
"Save it for your coffee break, Swan. Get down here. We got bigger fish to fry." then the agent hung up.
Emma sighed in frustration and followed the pinned location sent to her by Mal. When she got to the location she walked up to the hanger, when the massive doors opened she saw rows and rows of products. " You robbed the Apple Store?"
"We had no choice, Emma," Regina said walking up to Emma and Mal.
"No choice? Are you out of your mind?" Emma growled. "Do you have any idea what's going on at the store right now?"
Mal rolled her eyes and completed the explanation. "That bug you found, it isn't one of ours."
"What bug?" Emma asked having forgotten the whole ordeal from the day before. " Who, ours?"
"The one you found yesterday." Regina reminded her. "Mal only installed EM-50s. The one you found was a GLG-20. It requires a secondary recording device nearby to collect the data."
"What are you talking about?" Emma asked still not following.
"Someone is spying on us," Regina stated.
" What? !"
"Okay, listen carefully-" Regina said exasperated. "the bug you found was not ours. It belongs to an enemy agent, probably Fulcrum, and they planted it in the Apple Store."
" Why?"
"Looking for the Intersect." Mal stated "They're looking for you. We found a total of 29 bugs just like it, but we still haven't found the receiver."
"Okay," Emma said surprised. She swallowed, "Okay, well, wow. Uh, extreme... extreme measures, but, uh, decisive action had to be taken. Good luck schlepping all this stuff back to the Apple Store." She looked around and then back to the Agents. Uh, I'm going to get back there right now and pretend like I don't know anything. Got any good tips for b*ating a polygraph?"
"Emma, wait," Regina stated.
"What? Ch...? Oh, duh, yeah…" Emma chuckled, "Can I get my sister's ring back? You guys are pretty damn thorough."
"You should be more concerned about not making it to her wedding," Mal muttered.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Regina said to Mal then turned to Emma. "Hold on."
Emma watched as Regina pulled Mal had a bit of an argument, but were interrupted by another agent. "Agent Mills, Major might want to take a look at this." They followed and so did Emma. She needed to stay in the loop. "This is a surveillance tape taken during the robbery."
The trio looked at the tape. "There's nothing there," Mal stated. "Bad guy disabled the security system."
" Wait." The agent said.
Suddenly the cameras came on, and it showed a drunk Killian and Aladin enabling the system. "Hey, that's Killian and Aladin." Emma said, "And they are apparently drunk."
"It appears they've mistakenly turned the camera back on," Regina said with a smirk.
Emma then leaned closer looking at another panel. "Hang on a second who's that?"
There was a dark-clad figure, Going toward the Fish on Marco's wall. "That's the spy," Regina said.
"He's the spy who spies on spies," Emma said incredulously. "Why would a Fulcrum agent try to steal Marco's Marlin?"
"Those two dill weeds interrupted an actual robbery in progress," Mal stated in amusement.
"The receiver's in the fish," Regina said not taking her eyes off the screen.
"Marlin, actually," Emma said.
"Technically, it's a marlin." The other agent stated.
"Marlin." Mal intoned.
"You would call it a marlin, right? Yeah." Emma agreed with them.
Regina rolled her eyes. "Look."
Killian and Aladin were unmounting the Marlin and took it.
"See, there you go- done," Emma stated. "My job here is done. So now I'm sure you super-agents can figure out where the two drunken pinheads stashed the fish- marlin, four-foot marlin. I'm going to stick around here and try and find my sister's ring."
"Hey, Emma?" Regina said going after the retreating blonde. "Emma, no ring came up in our inventory."
"What do you mean no ring came up in your inventory?" Emma said frantically. "You guys robbed The Apple Store, didn't you? What happened to Awesome's great-grandmother's ring?"
"We kind of have some bigger-picture concerns right now," Regina said, her eyes trying to convey something to Emma that she just couldn't guess.
"What could possibly be bigger than me ruining the chances of my sister getting married?"
"The receiver may contain information indicating that you're the Intersect." Regina hesitated and looked toward Mal. Emma looked at Mal then back at Regina.
"Say it." Emma said, "Say what you're not saying."
"If we don't locate the receiver in the next 24 hours…" Regina hesitated again.
"You'll be stored in an underground bunker for so long you'll forget what fresh air smells like." Mal finished. "See? That was very gentle "
She was going to Jail… and she had been so good. Emma rushed out of the Hanger and went to the Apple store.
When she got there it was Chaos, Aladdin, and Killian were at the center of a gambling ring. Where the crowd was betting on Thumb war fights.
" One, two, three, four. I declare a thumb war!" The two idiots at the center said as she approached them.
"Oh! Come on, Killian." the crowd shouted.
"Killian, Aladin, we got to talk, it's important," Emma said not caring what they were doing.
"Yeah, see, this is your problem, Emmy." Aladdin said, "Why is your time more valuable than mine?"
"All right," Mal said annoyed pulling on both their thumbs. "Let's go."
"Easy on the shirt, Narc," Killian said as Mal was pulling them to the hallway and pushed them menacingly onto the wall.
"Where's the fish?" Mal asked.
" Fish?" Killian asked. "What fish?"
Mal growled getting close to his face. Maleficent was statuesque and really kinda hot if Emma thought of it. "Okay, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." And if Emma thought of it, this was probably turning Killian on. "Easy way is I shove his foot up your ass."
"What's the hard way?" the man foolishly asked.
"I use my foot... In stilettos." Mal answered.
"Look, we've seen the surveillance footage, guys," Emma said interrupting this and looking at both men. "Okay? We know you were here last night."
"Yeah, right," Aladdin said not believing Emma. his misogyny was really irritating her.
"Yeah, no, you two geniuses thought you were turning the cameras off, but, instead, you turned them back on," Mal stated.
"We won't say anything to Marco, I promise," Emma said playing good cop.
They did not talk, so Emma looked at Mal and she nodded. "Okay."
"Come on, wh-what's happening?" Aladdin asked feeling the tension shift in the room.
Agent Blaize turned to Emma. " Ms. Swan, would you give us a few minutes, please?"
She nodded and waved goodbye. "Emma... ?" Aladdin said nervously. He may not respect a lady, well not Emma's authority, but Mal was a scary dragon lady.
"It was his idea," Killian said throwing Al under the bus.
"What?!" Aladdin said turning to Killian. "The whole reason we snuck in was to get your alcoholic ass another drink- you were getting the shakes."
"Not cool. It's a disease." Killian protested.
"You're a disease, and you've diseased us all... me, Emma, this lady."
"C-Calm down. Calm down." Emma said. "Okay. Look, Killian, I totally understand your plight. We sympathize with you, okay? And we don't judge. Just tell us what exactly happened?"
They told the story of a nightcap gone awry. They broke in to steal Marco's alcohol. So they stole the Marlin to get back at Marco for not having any alcohol left. "And that, friends... is the story of the missing marlin."
"And where is the marlin now?" Emma asked.
"I'm afraid I'm going to need a little compensation," Al said. Mal grew tired of this and pulled on his ear. "Emma's! We took it to Emma's pad!"
"What? My apartment? Why?" Emma asked.
"We didn't want to get busted with Marco's fish," Killian said.
The two women looked at each other and then headed out of the store again.
They searched the apartment... Her closet, her sister's closet the hall closet. As they searched under the couch Kathryn walked in. " Emma?"
The younger blonde paused and smiled. "Hey, sis."
Kathryn turned to the older woman. "Maleficent."
"Hi." the agent said.
"What are you two up to?" She looked around, "What's going on with the apartment?"
"I'll clean it up later. Right now, we're looking for something."
"What is it?" The older sister asked
Emma answered frantically. "Look, I-I promise you whatever you want to talk about is not as important as what we're looking for right now."
"Okay." Kathryn shrugged. "What are you looking for?"
Emma looked at Mal. "A stuffed fish."
"A fish?"
" Marlin, actually, about four feet long," Mal stated. "Got a spear-like nose. And a mouth... Yeah."
"Okay, Emma, I get it," she said stopping the inane description. "Besides, if anything really important were going on, you have plenty of people in your life you can talk to about it."
Emma furrowed her brows. "Hey, Kathryn, wait."
"What?" Emma ran to her sister, this could be the last time she sees her so she held her tight. "Oh!"
"I love you," she said to her. "Just in case."
"Just in case of what?" Kathryn asked
"Uh…" Emma hesitated, "Just-just in case I can't find the fish." Emma turned to resume searching.
"I suppose you haven't talked to Ruby." her sister asked.
"No. Why?"
"Because she left here last night with a four-foot-long marlin."
Emma looked at Mal and growled. "She's mine."
When Emma and Mal got back to the store, They saw Aladdin and Killian flanking the tall brunette. Berating her for something
"How am I weak, dude? I didn't say anything." Ruby said.
Just then Marco shouted her name. "Swan! You're up."
Emma jumped and turned to look at Mal. "I got the scraggly troll." the older woman said, and Emma nodded heading toward the Manager's office.
She entered the room and sat at the desk while the two men hovered intimidatingly over her. "I-I did not rob the store."
"Did I ask you that?" Marco asked Already he's talking about stolen goods... might as well come out and admit you did it."
"Please." Detective Conway interrupted. "Let me handle the investigation." He turned to her, arms akimbo. "Now, Ms. Swan, we believe this was an inside job."
"None of these other imbeciles could even tie their shoes without Swan's say-so," Marco insisted. "If there's a ringleader, you're looking at her. He leaned forward angrily. "Where's my fish, Swan?!"
Then Conway got a phone call and excused himself to take it. "I got this," Marco said and turned his attention to Emma. "Ah. You don't want to talk, Swan? We'll just have to turn the heat up on you," then he turned up the thermostat in the back and walked out leaving her alone. She looked out, lunch had been delivered again by the Pita girl from the video.
"You've had 29 deliveries, so I dropped in your free baba ganoush." She was saying. Emma looked at her and noticed something… she was the right size and shape for the dark figure the night before.
"29 deliveries. 29 bugs…" Emma said to herself. "Wait a second." she looked up to the ceiling and escaped through the duct system. She crawled and watched more closely. She dropped down in the break room and pulled out the phone she had seen Aladin and Killian stash away in the duct the day before. Then she climbed back into the duct and back into the room in which she had been locked to sweat it out. She looked down at her white polo and checked to see if she even wore a bra today. She sighed as she noticed it was one of the new sports bras she had gotten with Regina. They were the ones a lot of field agents wore so they were really comfortable as if they weren't there.
She proceeded to hack into the phone that she had retrieved. A cheap Android thing that they had as a burner. She broke into it and extracted a video of the same girl coming in and delivering food. "Good thing Killian and Aladin are pervs. She took them and sent the pictures to Regina. Just before Marco came to get her.
"I can see you're sweating it..." Marco said as Emma finished sending the message and put the phone in her pocket.
"So... you ready to tell us what happened here last night?" The detective asked. But he seemed detached from this question. It didn't matter what she said.
"I'm telling you guys, I have no idea," she answered.
"Fine." Marco conceded. "There are other ways to make you talk. Time to send you back to gen pop."
He strutted out of the office and spoke loudly. "She sang like a canary! Thanks for the info, Emma. Maleficent Blaize! You're next!"
"One sec," she said raising her index finger. Emma looked at her and figured she was on the phone with the feds.
Emma walked out of the office and watched the pita girl closely.
"What?" Marco reacted to Mal, "Can't fit the police into your social schedule? Get in here now, or you and I are taking a trip downtown!" Mal looked at him as if she would eat him up and spit him out.
Conway rolled his eyes and said. "If you have a second, Ms. Blaize, we'd appreciate it."
As Emma approached the Genious bar, she heard Aladdin say." I can't believe you told Blaize you put the marlin in Emma's room."
" What?" Ruby said looking at Killian."Don't worry. I moved it into the freezer at the Cheesecake Factory."
The pita girl then straightened up, "Bye."
Emma pulled out her phone and texted Regina again. "She's coming."