WHO: Jack Duvall and Lien Fitzgerald WHAT: Party prep WHERE: Jack's office, NYC WHEN: Friday afternoon, December 22, 3:30 pm or so WHY: Because Jack owes her an explanation! RATING: PG-13 for discussion of shenanigans? STATUS: Complete
Lien closed the door of Jack's office behind her. Over her shoulder, she was carrying a garment bag and a separate tote that had her accessories and makeup. There was rather more than it appeared in the tote because of course it was enchanted with extra space. Fortunately, Lien's idea of fancy dress was pretty simple, so finding something appropriate had been easy. Now all she had to do was find out what she was supposed to be doing at one of the biggest parties of the year.
"So what's going on?" she asked Jack. "Because it has to be pretty bad if you're asking me to help out on the front lines."
“Thanks for coming,” Jack said standing from behind his desk as Lien came into the room. At least she would be there to help him out. “Well… as I texted you earlier, I have six aurors that have swapped bodies. I have one team going on a ergot bust and hopefully arresting a suspected crime boss and an alleged death eater. I have another team getting ready for the ball tonight where a Delegate’s life has been threatened… and none of my six aurors have swapped back yet. So, fun right?”
"So that's what we're calling it nowadays," Lien deadpanned. "I got the part about the body-swapping even though it sounds crazy. We have a big security problem we're going to have to address there--but after the ball. Tell me about the threat and what we need to do to protect the delegate. And if we need to deal with the ergot and the Death Eater. And does this mean Brigid Playfer is connected to the English imports?" Lien tossed her bags down on one of the spare chairs in the office and looked at Jack. "Because this makes what happened in Salem suddenly look like a targeted attack on the team, and then with McMullen being who he is, that has larger implications."
“It is crazy. We’ve figured out it’s related to these Christmas Crackers that somehow got dropped off in my office. Fairly random in terms of who were swapped,” Jack explained. If anything, it was an incredibly inconvenient distraction. “Delegate Mendoza-Rivera… who was around during the Salem Case, has received death threats at her home in New York, and there was even a dead rat sent in a package to her home. This all seems to be connected to some strange social media posts as well,” Jack explained and that also reminded him. “I’m waiting on what’s happening with the bust now. But for more connections to Salem… we found out this morning that Maya Stone, who was a person of interest in that case, is missing. If this is all tied back to Salem, and it was a targeted attack… we just need to stay on top of everything today and figure out who is behind this as soon as possible.”
This was the sort of thing that would have had her nainai saying that Jack and the Aurors in general had somehow offended one of a thousand little gods somehow. Lien didn't believe in that sort of thing; she figured that it was just another Dark wizard with an attitude problem. "Stone's missing too? That smells like three-day old fish. Do you have a brief on the Mendoza-Rivera threats for me?"
The answer was going to be yes because Jack was always at least that prepared. And because his luck with this case had been crap so far, there wasn't going to be anything obvious and actionable, and they were going into this gig tonight to guard Mendoza-Rivera without any idea of who was going to try to take her out.
“Yes,” Jack said turning back to his desk so he could pick up the file folder with all the copies of the notes, photos from the Mendoza-Rivera home, and now pictures of the social media posts. He handed it over to Lien for her to examine for herself. “I’ve got a mind healer coming to the ball again tonight… because Sal…” that paused was to indicate he was just not in the mood for her last name, “and Singleton have swapped and they have a plan to give Singleton a crash course in legilimency.”
"Greeeeeeeeaaaaaat," Lien said as she started to flip through the notes and photos. "How connected to the Salem case do we think this is? I know we can't prove anything, but what does your gut tell you?"
“If Maya Stone is missing… then my gut is telling me it might be at least parallel to what happened in Salem, if not directly connected,” Jack said for his own instinct. “Basically, I’m in a position where nothing would surprise me at this point.”
"Nothing would surprise me either." Lien wanted to add something more, something about her concern that there was a mole, voluntary or not, left in the New York office, but the security here had to be considered broken. She needed to get Jack out of the office to tell him about her concerns. Her increasingly strong concerns, and the need to lay a trap for the Aurors' enemy. "There's a piece of this puzzle we're not seeing yet. We're going to have to bring it out in the open to solve this case."
“Any ideas on how to do that?” Jack asked. At this point he would accept any advice or suggestions from Lien.
"Let me think about it," Lien replied. "I have some vague stirrings of an idea, but I don't know that they're ripe yet." If anyone was listening in, she'd either just put them off or made herself a target. And once they were out of the office, she could 'remember' what she'd been thinking of and tell Jack her worries without as much concern as she had in the office right now. There were too many people--some of whom were clearly hostile--who had access to Jack's office.
At that response, Jack gave Lien a look with an arched eyebrow. He was picking up on that she couldn’t say it here. “I think I’m going to need some coffee so we can finish getting through the day. And I don’t trust the stuff here right now. Let’s go pick something up,” Jack said gesturing to the door.
"That sounds like a great plan," Lien said, and picked up her handbag.