Author's note: I don't own any of the Shirley characters, or Carson and Blake (thanks again, Courtney and HA, for lending them to me). I also make references to Courtney's fanfics "The Case of the Kidnapper", "Halloween Terror", and "Redington Beauty". HA, T.R.A.C.E is not meant to be a second ENIGMA; I set up the plot for this quite a while ago, before I read the fanfics.
"Letter?" Bo Sawchuck asked.
"E-mail," Shirley Holmes replied, nose buried in the single page, eyes darting over the fine black print, "Gran printed it off for me this morning. It's from my cousin, Maya. She lives in England."
"I didn't know you had a cousin." Bo was surprised. He really shouldn't have been- there was a lot about his best friend he didn't know, and he knew that. He also knew there was a lot he would never find out, and he had long ago learned to accept that, but a cousin? Surely she could have told him about a cousin.
"Her mum is my Aunt Lucy- she's Dad's sister." Shirley elaborated, lowering the printout. "Maya's our age, and she's even smarter than me."
"You know, Shirley, there is such a thing as modesty," Bo said half-jokingly.
"Hmm?" Shirley looked up at him, blue eyes puzzled.
"Never mind," he shrugged. "So, what's- uh -Maya got to say?"
Shirley's eyes flew back down to the sheet.
"She said to expect her call tonight, around eleven-thirty our time."
"Is she a lot like you?" Bo wondered aloud. "Besides being smart, I mean."
"I'm not sure- I haven't seen her since we were eight years old, when we were having a good-bye party for Mum. But she e-mails me almost every day- we like a lot of the same things."
"Mysteries, danger, science projects, and making a perfectly ordinary thing into the crime of the century?" Bo ticked off on his fingers.
"Yeah, pretty much," Shirley decided, as the two friends reached her house. "Now, do you have time for a Coke, or did your parents want you to come straight home?"
"Yeah, we've got a lot of work to do," Bo said, scuffing the gravel with the toe of his sneaker.
Shirley smiled sympathetically at him, and said "Bye, then. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," he nodded, and then turned away.
Shirley watched until he was out of sight before turning and heading into the house, Maya's e-mail in her hand.
* * *
Bo had just turned out the lights and was settling into bed when the phone shrilled in his ear. He almost fell out of bed, grabbing at the receiver and putting it to his ear.
"H-hello?"
"Bo! Bo, she's coming!" Shirley shrieked at him.
"Who's coming where?" And- and why do you sound so weird?"
"Weird?" Shirley faltered, puzzled.
"Sort of far away."
There was a pause, then;
"Bo," Shirley said slowly and carefully, "turn the receiver around."
Checking it, Bo found he had his ear to the mouthpiece. Glad she wasn't there to see him blush, he obeyed, and then repeated his question.
"Who's coming?"
"Maya! My cousin Maya, from England! She just called, and said her mum's putting her on the first flight out from London! It's alright with Dad, Mum and Gran- she'll be getting here around eight o'clock tomorrow morning!"
"That's- that's great!" Bo said, feeling an inward qualm at the thought of two nosy, aggravatingly intelligent (if pretty) descendents of Sherlock Holmes poking around Redington, digging up every semi-criminal activity perpetrated in the past decade or so.
"This is going to- oh . . ." her voice grew fainter. "But Dad! I had to tell . . . Come on, just one . . . I- oh, fine." she came back on the line, and said hastily, "Sorry, Dad says I gotta go to bed. We'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Fine, bye."
"Bye."
Shirley wasn't in school the next morning, and Bo wondered if there hadn't been a complication in picking up her cousin.
But at twelve o'clock he was rewarded. Looking up from his tuna sandwich, Alicia on his right, babbling about a new pair of shoes she had gotten, Stink on his left, making a mashed potato sculpture of Ms Stratman (and it was a pretty good likeness), he spotted Shirley. And Shirley.
Really, for a second he thought he was seeing double. Two girls with long brown hair, curious, searching expressions and the same pretty features and flashing eyes- he blinked once, twice, three times.
"Bo!" one called, leading the other over to him, "This is my cousin, Maya Norton. Maya, this is Bo Sawchuck."
"Hello, Bo," grinned the second girl. "Shirley's been telling me heaps of things about you. Don't worry- most of it was good."
Now that they were standing directly in front of him, he could see that Maya was a good two inches shorter than her cousin, with brown eyes instead of blue. She wore her thick brown hair long, like Shirley, but with a light fringe of bangs across her forehead. He also noticed, thanks to Shirley's careful schooling, a glasses case protruding from her pants pocket.
"Hi," he shook the hand she offered. "So, uh, you're from England?"
Pretty stupid thing to say, he realized seconds later. She had the same cool, precise accents as Shirley's father, Robert, and grandmother, Peggy. Also, her clothes were pressed and cleaned almost to a point of obsession.
But she only nodded, and smiled warmly at him. It was then that Bo decided he was going to like Maya Norton just fine.
Maya stayed at Sussex with Shirley for the afternoon, and Bo saw almost at once that Shirley was right- Maya was brilliant. Three times she bested Shirley, and each time, Shirley seemed thrilled by the experience.
Molly Hardy was eyeing Maya speculatively by the end of the day, and as Shirley, Maya and Bo approached the main door, coats on, Bo and Shirley with their backpacks slung over their backs, Molly stepped into their path.
"Maya Juliet Lucy Norton, hmm?" she addressed Maya, a slightly smug note to her voice. Maya nodded in confirmation of the fact, and then returned mildly:
"Mary Kathleen Hardy, I presume?"
"Mmm-hmm," Molly looked suitably impressed. "You do your homework, I see."
"I make it a principle to be . . . well-informed of my cousin's adversaries."
"Highly commendable," Molly decided. "Now, I presume, of course, that you are the Mycroft to your cousin's Sherlock?"
Bo was completely lost, but Shirley looked like the cat who had swallowed the canary, and Maya nodded briefly to Molly.
Later, Bo would learn that Mycroft Holmes had been Maya and Shirley's great-grandfather; Sherlock Holmes's (smarter) older brother.
Maya got rid of Molly in a couple more words, and the three of them all headed unanimously towards the Holmes house.
"I haven't seen Aunt Joanna and Uncle Robert in ages," Maya said, a bit nervously. "Grams hasn't changed a bit- but have they?"
Shirley didn't have time to answer. A green car came speeding up, and Bo barely had tome to register the fact that there was a gun barrel protruding from the open window when Shirley and Maya crashed into him from behind. They knocked him flat on his face as a rattling burst of gunfire erupted in the air above their heads.
The car sped away, leaving three trembling teenagers lying on the sidewalk.
"Is everybody alright?" Maya asked presently, voice quivering. Then, she burst into tears.
"Maya!" Shirley exclaimed, impulsively flinging her arms around her cousin, hugging her.
"They found me!" Maya sobbed hysterically. "They found me, Shirley! You said they wouldn't find me- you said!"
"Ssh, ssh," Shirley murmured a bit awkwardly, sitting half under, half on her weeping cousin, rocking her back and forth. "We'll fix it. I didn't know, Maya. But now we'll fix it, I promise you."
Gradually Maya calmed, leaving tearstains on her cheeks, and all-but visible question marks on Bo's face.
"Look, maybe I'm missing something here," he said, nervous, "but did someone just shoot at us?"
"Yes," Shirley confirmed, glancing in the direction the car had gone. "Now, we'd better get back inside. You never know- they might come back, just to make sure they got us all."
So they ran for the Holmes mansion, and, bursting through the door, were confronted by three smiling adults and a large cake.
""Aunt Joanna!" Maya exclaimed, displaying the acting skills that ran in her family as she ran to hug her aunt. "It's smashing to see you!" Then she turned to her uncle, embraced him too, and hugged her grandmother for the second time that day.
If Maya's eyes were a little red around the edges, the adults put it down to jet lag and the emotion of seeing then again.
"Great-looking cake, Gran," Shirley smiled at Peggy Holmes, who accepted the praise with the grace of a queen, and said:
"It's fish cake."
"F-fish?" Maya's smile faltered.
"Bo's parents are having a sale," Gran explained. "Naturally, I had to support them. We're having sole for dinner."
"Sounds great," Shirley said quickly. "Now, I told Maya I'd show her the room, so . . . Can the party wait?"
"Of course," Joanna Holmes was at once concerned. "We weren't thinking of you, Maya. You must be exhausted- Shirley, Bo, don't keep her up talking too long, do you hear?"
They said they heard, and began to shepherd Maya into the living room, showing her the bookcase that slid back, revealing the flight of stairs that led to Shirley's attic bedroom and laboratory.
The bookcase swung shut behind them, and they let Maya change into pajamas in the bedroom, while Shirley changed out of her uniform in the bathroom into jeans and a blue-and-white striped T-shirt.
Maya and Shirley emerged at the same time, and joined Bo in the lab. While they had been changing, he had noticed a pile of blankets and pillows on the arm of the foldout couch, and had made it up into a bed.
Maya sank into it gratefully, and said, "God bless the man who invented the bed."
Shirley, turning on her computer and logging on to the Net, grinned. "Don't fall asleep on us, Maya. We're going to need your help soon."
"Yeah," Bo frowned. "Like, when you explain to me who found you, why they were shooting at us, and just what, exactly, is this all about."
"Fair enough," Maya decided. "After all, you and Shirley are what, only best friends?" There was a note of humour in her voice, and she smiled slightly before starting to talk.
"They're members of a group of freedom fighters who call themselves T.R.A.C.E.; Those Righteously Against Criminal Exploitation. They're absolutely wacko.
"My father is with British Intelligence, and it was he who first discovered T.R.A.C.E.'s existence. Now, the head of T.R.A.C.E. (whoever he is) is rather revenge-minded."
"And they're trying to get to your father through you," Bo guessed. Maya nodded wearily, looking suddenly as if she hadn't slept in days.
"Daddy's hunting them down- so far, they've freed four hundred, seventy-two criminals from prisons all around the world. Most of them were re-captured, but there are still over a hundred fifty members out there. And one of them is the head of T.R.A.C.E."
"Maya came here because her parents were worried about her safety," Shirley explained. "They figured a city, whose population is one or two shy of turning it into a town, would be the last place T.R.A.C.E would look for her. But-" she frowned slightly, glancing over at Maya, who looked pale but determined, "I guess they were wrong."
"Shouldn't we call the cops?" Bo asked, using his old standby.
"And tell them what?" Maya exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "That a criminal organization, whose existence is known only to its members and the most elite officials of my government, is trying to kill me? Oh, yes, I'm sure they would swallow that one quite- willingly!"
Bo had the grace to blush as Maya sagged back against the pillows, watching Shirley search through a special database Bart had set up for her.
"Redington area men/women, green car, gun permit," she typed, and sat back. A look of increasing horror appeared on her face as the results ran down -and down -and down the screen.
"A total of-" Shirley leaned forward to read the number, which caused her to quiver slightly, "1,024 matches found."
"Oh, no," Maya groaned.
"Is there anything else you can tell me about T.R.A.C.E. Maya?" Shirley asked hopefully.
"Daddy's rather secretive about his work- he's worried I'll pick up on something, and get kidnapped because of it." Maya explained. "All I do know is that the head of T.R.A.C.E. is thought to be an Englishman, and that rumor has it he's undertaken to do me in personally, so he's likely here in Redington- I'll bet he was even in the car that shot at us."
"Okay," Shirley murmured, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she revised her search, and sent it in.
The results were considerably less, numbering fourteen. And when she narrowed it down to recent arrivals in Canada, there were only three.
"Maya, any of these sound familiar?" Shirley asked, and then read off the names to her as she listened intently. In the end, however, she simply shook her head.
"No, I'm sorry, Shirley. But of course, those are the names on their passports and such, and our man wouldn't be using his real name, would he?"
Then Maya's lips curved upwards, into a smile.
"Although Uncle Paul did tell me about a criminal who went through life with his real name, and was only caught at the age of eighty-seven; sixty-four years after his so-called "career" began."
"Paul?" Shirley asked, clicking on one label to read the information. "Who's he? I thought your dad didn't have any siblings."
"He doesn't- Uncle Paul's Daddy's absolute best friend in the world. He's in the government service too, but he's just an ordinary agent- Daddy's the C.I.S.F.A."
"The what?" Bo stammered. Shirley answered as she read a page of personal data to herself.
"Chief Inspector of Suspicious Foreign Activities- here, what about this fellow? His name's Angelo Corelli, and he's the Italian ambassador. He arrived in Redington a week ago."
"Anybody else?" Bo asked.
"Uh, yeah. A diplomat named Michael Grey, from England, and a Polish immigrant named Karl Dussel with a wife and twelve kids."
"That's it?"
"That's it for people in Redington- only these three. Oh, and I'm eliminating the Pole."
Maya agreed.
"With all of those children, he'd attract far too much attention to be the one we're looking for. Perhaps we should head over to the Embassy tomorrow? Or- is tomorrow a Friday? I'm all turned around."
"Tomorrow's Saturday," Shirley said, printing out the information regarding Angelo Corelli and Michael Grey. "We'll hitch a ride with Dad- wear something prissy-looking. It goes over better than jeans and tees."
"I'll keep it in mind," Maya sounded amused, if exhausted. "I think, however, that if you don't mind, I'd like to catch some sleep before we do."
Choosing not to tell her it was only four o'clock in the afternoon, Shirley and Bo collected the printouts, turned off the computer, and tiptoed away.
Bo stayed for supper, which was sole, as Gram had said, and haddock and flounder, which she hadn't.
Shirley went up to bed early, before ten, and lay under the covers with Watson on her lap, music playing in the background, and the information concerning Angelo Corelli and Michael Grey in her hand.
"What do you think, Watson?" she asked the basset. He gave a massive yawn, such as only bassets can give, and went to sleep.
"Some faithful friend you are," Shirley commented mildly, and returned to carefully studying the papers she held.
It was some time later that she put out her light- her clock read ten thirty-five -and turned on her side. She was just drifting off to sleep when she heard the scream.
It wasn't the sort of scream that sends shivers up your spine, or makes you jump violently. It was the sort of scream that splits the air like a dagger and rips at your head, echoing inside long after the scream itself has stopped, until you feel sure you will go mad from it all. It was a scream of pure terror, wholly undiluted - the kind that makes it seem as though the world were ending, and actually has you believing that it is.
It woke the entire household in one-and-a half seconds.
"Maya!" Joanna Holmes, incongruously dressed in white, two-piece silk pajamas, was pounding on the attic laboratory door. "Maya, what's wrong?! Are you hurt?!"
"Hurt?!" Gran exclaimed, mounting the steps, resplendent in blue velvet and white satin, "It sounds as if the entire Russian Mafia is subjecting her to the most sadistic torture ever conceived by man! For the love of all that's good and holy, break the bloody door in!"
"I think I'm inclined to agree," Robert Holmes, wearing green and white-striped pj's and a green bathrobe, admitted. "Shirley, unless you have a key . . ."
"I do, Dad." she reassured him, producing one from the ledge above the doorframe.
Standing in her green and gold nightshirt, she fiddled with the lock until it gave way beneath the old brass key, and the door swung open.
During this time, Maya had not stopped screaming. But now she did, and the entire Holmes household (including Watson) found her huddled in an armchair, brown eyes swollen with fright, uttering strange, pathetic little whimpers.
"Maya?" Shirley placed a tentative hand on her cousin's arm. Maya jumped violently before she realized who it was.
"Oh, Shirley; LOOK!"
She pointed at an object lying on the floor. It was hard, rough-textured, and a dirty brown in colour- a brick. It had come crashing through the window, sending glass everywhere, and causing Maya, whose nerves were already worn paper-thin, to simply lose it.
Gingerly, Joanna approached the brick, and picked it up.
"There's a note wrapped around it," she said, and proceeded to read it aloud, eyes widening and brow furrowing in puzzlement.
"Should the bird not sing then the mouse will grow wings, and serve in place of the daughter of the king." she stopped.
"Well, I must say he (whoever he is) is a regular Lewis Carroll. This makes no sense to me whatsoever."
Shirley, however, could see with one glance at Maya's face that it made perfect sense to her, and that it was scaring her half to death.
"Maybe Maya would like to sleep with Watson and I," she suggested. "It's probably just some joker, but it might make her feel safer."
Maya managed to nod, so Joanna took the girls to Shirley's room, Watson tagging along behind, while Robert went to call first the Embassy, to request extra Security, and then a window-making place, asking them to come at their earliest convenience.
Gran first swept up the glass and tacked a piece of plastic over the gaping frame, and then, behaving like a true Englishwoman in time of crisis, made a pot of tea.
So it came to pass that Maya and Shirley were propped up in the spacious antique bed, sipping tea, and examining the note.
"Written by a left handed person, possibly a man." Shirley decided.
"Definitely a man," Maya corrected. "Very well-educated- see those T's? Could definitely use a new pair of reading glasses, too. And, I can also tell you what it means."
"I thought you would be able to," Shirley said quietly.
"Well the first part- about the bird -refers to me. Daddy always calls me Little Bird. By my not singing, they mean me not telling Daddy to lay off T.R.A.C.E.- or, rather, dying to get the point across.
"The second part, about the mouse growing wings, and filling in for the king's daughter, means that-"
"-I'll be expected to fill your spot. They'll use me to get to you- or, rather, Uncle Geoff." Shirley finished. "I get it now- my dad calls me 'Mouse'."
Then she stopped, puzzled, and looked at her cousin.
"But who would know that, besides Dad, Mum, Gran and me?"
"You mentioned it to me once," Maya recalled. "You know, it's likely that he has somebody tapping our phone lines, and if he does, he could have a splicer on the computer, which would give him access to my mail. He could easily have found out that way."
Shirley shivered. Suddenly, she felt extremely vulnerable. It seemed as if T.R.A.C.E. could reach them anywhere- and would, in order to gain their objective.
"Maybe- maybe we should try and go to sleep." Maya suggested, seeing her cousin quivering.
Shirley gratefully accepted the idea, and the two girls snuggled down in bed. Yet, even with the many blankets Joanna had added, Watson, and the warmth of each other's body, they were still chilled.
