Jackie inclined her head in a semblance of a salute, acknowledging the logic of the comment whether it was serious or not. “If everybody noticed everything immediately, well, there wouldn’t be much mystery left in life, would there? And questions would be irrelevant, too.” Clearly she’d been spending a lot of time with the brainy crew lately. It was evident in her speech. The woman wasn’t dumb, but generally her speech pattern reflected whoever she was talking to.
Kicking the lock that held the wheels of the filing cabinet in place, Jackie gave it a hearty shove in the direction of the pile of equipment near the door. Just because she had company didn’t mean she was going to put a stop to what she was doing. There were a lot of things to be done before morning. She went over to a wall of drawers and began opening each one, checking their contents and tossing the useful things into another crate.
Evan finally answered and Jackie shot him a glance over her shoulder. “Shame about that. Kids catching the mini-plague,” she replied, picking up the full crate and using her hip to shut the last drawer. “She’ll be better soon. Kids catch colds. It’s how childhood works.” Spoken confidently, not passively like so many people did with the ‘hope she feels better’ in place. Jackie had always hated that useless phrase. “Smartest thing you could do, keeping mama bear away from the first cub. Congrats, by the way. On the second.”
A tiny smirk came in response to the man’s admission that he didn’t know why he was there. Ah, so she and Team Science weren’t the only ones interested in seeing the lab reopened. Inclining her head in interest, Jackie hopped up on one of the empty tables, deciding for the moment to focus on finding out more about their leader’s interest in the lab. “Couldn’t say for sure what was taken before I got here, but,” she nodded her head in the direction of the things she had lined up near the door, “I got a lot of it right there.”
Smugness filled her expression as she leaned back, propping herself up with her hands. She crossed one leg over the other, using the distraction to give her a few brief seconds for dramatic effect. “Same as you, only I’m way ahead of the game.”