After spending a day reading, taking notes, and occasionally - well, okay, maybe frequently - taking breaks to cuddle, Malcolm and Audrey decided to brave the rain and go grab dinner and some groceries, especially after they realized David had given the key to his car to Audrey when she was over with him on Pyrroth.

  As they were walking down the produce aisle, Malcolm turned to Audrey: “Do you think you will be able to bring David and Sandra over tomorrow?”

  “I hope so, why?”

  “She seems to have a love of apples. Ate all the ones we had in the house and mentioned them a few times. We should get an assortment for her to try.”

  “That’s a strange thing to think of but sounds like a good idea,” Audrey replied.

  “Hey, I also remember your love for garlic shrimp, peanut butter cups, and licorice; heck, you may be the only person I know who likes bck licorice.”

  “Tastes can change over time. For example, I am more into coconut shrimp now, though I still love all forms of licorice.”

  “So maybe we should go to the Chinese buffet down the street for dinner? Guess we need to not get any frozen stuff,” Malcolm replied.

  They compromised, bought apples and some stuff that did not need refrigeration, loaded it into the car, and then went to a very pleasant dinner. They made it back to the store within half an hour of closing and picked up the rest of the stuff they needed then.

  Returning to Malcolm's apartment, they put most of the stuff away, made ice cream sundaes and sat down on the couch to watch movies. They fell asleep there, leaning on each other,

  Malcolm woke up about two hours ter to find Audrey fast asleep and carefully carried her small frame into the bedroom. She stirred slightly but did not awaken. He considered joining her, but decided they both could use some sleep so kissed her forehead and, after grabbing a bnket off of David’s bed, returned to the couch.

  A soft kiss on his lips woke him to find sunlight streaming into the room, and backlighting Audrey, making her look positively angelic.

  “Hmm. Hold that pose a second,” he murmured. “In this light you look even more perfect than usual, and I want to savor it.”

  She let out a slight giggle and smiled down at him. He smiled back for a moment and then the desire for her overwhelmed him and he reached out, pulling her in for a more proper kiss.

  When he let her up for air, she said: “I cannot tell you how much I want to do what that kiss promised, but I need to go into the station for a few minutes as early as possible. There is a fantastic breakfast pce about a block from there that also has an internet cafe. We can grab a quick breakfast and then I can leave you there to read or research while I take care of what I need to at the station and then we can go meet Carol, Liz and hopefully David and Sandra.”

  He sat up. “How te is it?”

  She answered just as his eyes found the clock in the room: “Almost ten, Sleeping Beauty.”

  “I take it you already showered since you changed your outfit?”

  She ughed. “Yep, walked into the bathroom, closed the door, popped over to my pce, grabbed my shampoo and some clean clothes, popped back, checked on you to see if you wanted to join me but you looked so cute sleeping there that I just admired the view for almost a full minute and then went in and showered. Checked the headlines on my phone, found out I needed to pop by the station, and, well, you know the rest.”

  “One of these days we will share that shower,” he said, his eyes running over her body and clearly imagining what it would look like with water covering it instead of clothes.

  “Bet on it, babe,” she ughed and kissed him again.

  He quickly returned the kiss, then promised he would get ready quickly.

  About fifteen minutes ter, he was cleaned and dressed, and they headed out.

  After a quick breakfast, Audrey walked over to the station, only to discover that one of her open cases had been closed by an FBI task force, who had captured the serial killer responsible for the death of a local jeweler and Michael Ungnaught. This puzzled her, as she knew the killer had been a monster from another world, but even more puzzling was that the incident report for her discharging her firearm was completed and filed as well.

  The FBI had sent over a file showing that the same killer had cimed five other victims in three states, but that the identity of the killer would be kept quiet until the trial date for “national security reasons.” She made a quick internet search to verify those details in the folder that she could check and found that there were two FBI agents who could have been responsible for the documents - all the forms were signed only “S. A. Prescher.” A public records search revealed a Behavioral Analysis agent named Andrew Prescher who frequently worked in this region, and another agent named Amanda who was attached to a local office.

  Audrey photographed some of the documents with her phone, then filed everything away to deal with tomorrow, thanked the desk sergeant, and returned to the cafe where she had left Malcolm. A waitress and a woman she believed to be a college student were both btantly flirting with him. She chuckled to herself, then took out her badge and announced: “So this is where you ran off to? Thank you for keeping him busy, dies but I can take it from here.”

  The college student immediately turned her full attention back to the ptop on her table with a slight flush in her cheeks. The waitress looked a little pale and moved closer to Audrey: quietly, she asked, “is he wanted for anything?”

  Audrey winked at Malcolm before answering: “he is wanted for a lot of things, so we thank you for your service.”

  The waitress hurried off at this and Audrey barely kept from ughing. “Come on, Wanted Man,” she said, “we have pces to be.”

  Outside Malcolm let out a ugh he had been holding in and said “I think I just saw the upsides and downsides to being a Trickster. A customer was being ft out rude to that waitress, and then he, ah, accidentally left a twenty-dolr tip for a five-dolr coffee. But then, almost the second he was gone, two women and one guy all started hitting on me, until the guy’s boyfriend walked in, and it was just the two dies.”

  “My day has been weird too,” Audrey replied after a brief ugh at his story. “The Feds closed the Ungnaught case by linking it to six murders in four states, and someone completed my incident report for me with no expnation.”

  “Do you have any way to look into it?”

  “Not without bugging IT, which can require a lot of paperwork," the red head replied.

  “Hmm. Well, why not head over to Carol’s. Maybe we can think of some way to look into this ter?”

  She furrowed her brow, considered this for a moment, but then agreed and they drove over. She was surprised to find her car not only still there but seemingly undamaged. She also noticed that, though the burn marks at the back of Carol’s car remained, the scratch marks and cracked window that the were-weasel had left were gone as well. Malcolm had noticed the repairs to her car but had missed the ones to Carol’s car until she pointed them out. “Seems a good time to quote Alice,” he mused, “‘Curiouser and curiouser.’”

  Audrey nodded and they walked together to Carol’s door.

  It took Malcolm several seconds to recognize the woman who answered, as only her short stature and distinctive gsses allowed him to recognize: “Liz! Wow, you look fantastic!”

  Her raven hair was now cut to a chin length bob, the right side was cut to curl forward along her cheek and jawline, while the left was styled to leave her ear exposed as her hair curled back around it; her make-up had been done to work perfectly with her features, and she wore a low cut, bck trimmed red dress that Malcom did not think he had ever seen before.

  She flushed slightly. “Thank you, Mal. When I first saw it, I did not think I would like it but by this morning I was in love with this cut,” she confessed.

  “You really do look great,” Audrey began, then paused, as something nagged at her awareness… “something else is different too, but, wait, that ring…”

  Liz beamed as she held out her hand for examination. “Carol proposed st night!”

  “Wow! Congratutions!” Audrey excimed, excited for them.

  “Way to go Liz and … Carol!”

  Carol had just entered the living room from the kitchen. She also wore a new dress, sea-green with white ce trim, and her make-up was as she had been wearing it ever since David had changed her hair color, but now, instead of the longer styles she generally favored, it had been cut to the same slightly wavy pixie cut that her salon had given Sandra.

  “Wow! That looks almost as good on you as it does on Sandra!” He excimed. “You two really nailed it with your new look game, I think!”

  “Absolutely,” Audrey replied. “You both look fantastic!”

  “Yeah, we do,” Carol admitted, “but I do not look almost as good as Sandra. In her prime, Raquel Welch looked almost as good as Sandra, and I am nowhere near that!”

  Liz had crossed the room to her side. “Agree to disagree. In my eyes, you look much better than either of them. I look almost as good as Raquel thanks to you and your salon, and you are the sun to my moon, the glory that I barely can reflect back.”

  Carol ughed, kissed her and said: “Are you working on your vows already?”

  “I had not thought of it, but I think I will keep that sun and moon line, now that you mention it,” Liz admitted, beaming.

  “Well, I need to go upstairs for a minute, and then we can get this started I guess.”

  “Oh, I need to run out to the car,” Malcolm said. “We picked up a few snacks and, in case Sandra can make it, an assortment of apples. She seems to love the things.”

  Audrey went into the kitchen to grab a gss of water when David “knocked” on her mind. She mentally chatted with him for a moment while returning to the living room and taking a seat. Then she focused her concentration on the path connecting her mind to David's and suddenly, David and Sandra stepped into Carol’s living room.

  “That was impressive,” a voice said.

  David turned to the speaker; it took him almost a full second to recognize her: “Liz? Did you and Carol py haircut roulette?”

  She ughed, “Yeah! What do you think?” And she turned around slowly.

  “I think the third time's the charm. You look fantastic. Wait - that ring on your finger; is that new?”

  “Carol proposed yesterday, and I accepted,” Liz beamed, showing the ring off. “And it took you literally one third the time it did for the Detective to notice, Boy Wonder,” she added, teasingly.

  “Congratutions!” David replied, then added to Audrey: “I have a slight edge on this one, as I have known her for almost two years and the only time that I ever saw her wear jewelry of any sort, other than as part of a Halloween costume, was when her mother came from out of state to visit.”

  “I really like your hair, too,” Sandra chimed in. “Before mine grows long enough to braid again, I may have to try that cut. What do you think, Then…, er, David?”

  He smiled at her. “I think you will look amazing no matter what you do to your hair,” then he paused, gnced at each woman in turn, and added: "Though if Carol’s people had styled yours like that back on that first day, we might never have made it to the bedroom. Or even out of the salon…”

  Sandra looked wistful. “Then I wish they had!”

  “Not me,” David replied, smiling. “I absolutely love the way you look and the way things happened between us and would not change a thing.”

  She leaned in to kiss him when a knock on the door startled everyone. Carol had just come down the stairs and said, “I’ll get it.”

  A strange woman with long blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail and dressed in a business suit stood outside. As the door opened, she fshed a badge. “Carol Bishop? Amanda Prescher, FBI. May I come in?”

  Carol looked around the room, puzzled, but then shrugged and stepped aside. Malcolm followed this new arrival in, his hands full of bags. “She just drove up, smiled at me and walked up to the door,” he said quietly to Carol as he passed her, heading to the kitchen.

  Amanda was very tall, very pretty and exuded a feeling of authority that seemed to come from more than just her badge.

  Sandra looked at the newcomer and her brow furrowed. “You seem familiar, somehow,” she said, clearly puzzled.

  Amanda looked her over and then smiled. “I should. I’m your sister.”