Illya looked over to the door of the interrogation room where Napoleon was being questioned, tapping his foot. Seeing that the door was not going to open anytime soon, he turned and moved to the window, looking out onto the street. Suddenly, he saw a face he knew, but couldn't place.

---/-/---

Napoleon straightened his lapels as the deputy led him from the interrogation room, and joined Illya at the window.

"What is it?"

"A woman..."

"Should I be jealous?" He teased.

"Don't be ridiculous. No... I'm sure I'd seen her somewhere, but she went by too quickly, I-- I couldn't put a name to the face. I can't be sure where it was I saw her, not without seeing her again."

"Well, let's get back to the B&B, see what we can dig up on the guests."

Illya shrugged. "We have things on the guests. Nothing useful, and we won't get anything useful. They're a bloody Agatha Christie novel with no killer, Napasha. Half of them know each other somehow, and everything's vague and-- This is not what we came here to do!"

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot. We may not be detectives, but it's not like we're strangers to mysterious happenings."

---/-/---

Back at the Shangri-La, he saw her again, with a man he'd never met. "Napoleon, there!" He hissed. "The preacher's wife!"

Napoleon looked, and paused, his jaw dropping. He recognized her, all right. The last time he'd seen her, she was torturing his partner.

"Illya, distract the priest. Something theological."

"What?"

"Quick, before we lose them!"

"Lose them? Napoleon, they--"

"It's them. They did this."

"They weren't even here!"

"It was them. Look, you remember where you saw her yet?"

He gasped. "THRUSH."

"Distract the priest." Napoleon repeated.

"All right, but-- don't do anything rash."

Napoleon shrugged. "Would I do something rash?"

"If she had been torturing you, I would snap her neck in an instant. Don't do anything rash."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He grinned, patting Illya on the back. "Come on."

Illya walked over to the preacher-- a man whose qualifications he was beginning to doubt-- and began a discussion on the nature of God. While the two faux-holy men talked, Napoleon grabbed the woman's elbow, dragging her off behind a group of nearby trees.

"All right, spill. Who are you, what are you doing here, and how did you do it?"

"What?" She sputtered indignantly. "My name is Paula Sigerson, and this is my old hometown! We were here to visit my--"

"Drop the act. I recognize you, you were the one who tortured my partner, back when THRUSH kidnapped Waverly's grand-niece-and-nephew."

Her shoulders slumped. When she continued, it was in an English accent. "Violet Marsters. The preacher's name is Jason Morrows, he's a low-level THRUSH assassin. We're just the latest in a string, different agents stationed at Mr. Sagamoto's various hotels, injecting the chocolate mints on his pillow with arsenic. Only it looks like the wrong man's been eating the mints."

"Arsenic in-- mints? Lady, I've seen some bizarre assassination attempts, but this one..." He shook his head.

"This really is my hometown." She offered. "My parents moved us from England when I was eight, we lived here for ten years before moving back. My high school was across the street from the police station."

"I didn't ask for your life story." He shushed her. "Now... THRUSH's only reason for being in the Sierra Nevadas can't be to assassinate this one Japanese businessman..."

"No. I won't tell you anymore. Not unless--"

"Not unless what?" He twisted her arm slightly. "Well? You'll have to forgive me, but I've got a short fuse with people who torture my partner."

"Please... I'll give you whatever you want, I--"

"Not good enough." He said coldly.

"You don't understand! I've been trying to get out!"

"Out? Of THRUSH?"

She nodded, eyes tearing up. "Yes. Since coming back here. I hated this town, and I *hated* that high school, but-- one thing made it bearable for me. One person, rather... His name was David Dunne, he-- He still lives here, and-- I saw him again, after all these years... he wanted to get together again. We're in love, Mr. Solo. Please, if anything can redeem a woman, it's love, is it not?"

He shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't know. I've rarely seen it work."

"Please, Mr. Solo! If I give you THRUSH in Yosemite... will you give me a life here? Just a quiet life, as a woman who lives with the man she loves, makes his tea, tends his roses?"

"I'll see what I can do." He relented. He wanted to put her away, he most certainly didn't think she deserved to settle down and be in love and happy, not after what she'd done to Illya, but... if she could give them THRUSH in Yosemite. "What are they doing?"

"There's a Black and White Ball, at the Awhanee. Sunday night. A bomb is being planted, to go off at midnight. I wasn't a part of that mission, so that's all I know, but--"

"That's it?" He hissed, his grip on her arm tightening. "You led me to believe you'd be a bit more useful."

"I can give you names. People. Important ones, but-- Not yet. Not until I know you'll meet your end. Please, Mr. Solo, I-- I know what I've done in the past was wrong, but I want David to be happy. If only I'd been with him then, if only I'd listened to him when we were together... I might never have done those things. You see, he-- He was the only man to ever call me beautiful."

---

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