What's stolen

A perfect act

As Carmen reaches the door, all she could do is hope that Player managed to get a hold of Julia and warn her, because she had not been able to shake the gum shoe tail. With a heavy sigh, she stops right in front of the door and turns around quickly, eyes narrowed as she looks at the three ACME agent that had the nerve to smile slight.

"Shouldn't you be out there trying to find your missing partner?"

She asks them, her eyes narrowed as she spoke.

"Well, we thought..."

Ivy starts to say, only to grow silent as Carmen looks directly towards her.

"What sis is trying to say Carm..."

Turning her head to look Zack directly in the eyes, he goes silent too. Turning her head towards Chase, she sees how he holds up his hands in a sign of surrendering before he even starts to say something. To be fair, he had not said much during all of this, he had mostly been following Ivy and Zack.

"Well, you can blame us for at least wanting to meet your mother. We promise we will leave the moment we have meet her."

Ivy speaks up once more, this however put Carmen of guard. She hadn't expected her friends to want to meet her mother, thinking about it however, she should have known. Glancing towards the door, Carmen tries to figure out if she should let them in or not.

"It's alright Red, Julia is already hiding."

Hearing that from Player, Carmen relaxes slightly. With a deep breath, she nods her head and opens the door. Hearing the children, Carmen let the fake anger disappear, even if it weren't real anger it wouldn't be good for the children to see it. With a nod of her head to the team behind her, Carmen steps through the door and into building.

"Carmen, is that you?"

Hearing her mother call out, Carmen stops in the hallway, Ivy, Zack and Chase right behind her.

"Yes!"

Carmen calls back, only to have her mother walk into the room. Seeing Carmen, she starts to smile big, her eyes traveling behind her and landing on her friends.

"I guess these are the people you had planned to meet with today?"

She asks and Carmen nods her head.

"This is Ivy, Zack and Chase."

Carmen introduces them, nodding towards each one of them as she says their names. The three ACME agent's nods their head in a greeting when their names are being said. Seeing how her mother starts to look around herself, Carmen realises what she's looking for and she let her smile drop.

"Isn't Julia with you? I thought you told me Julia works with this group too?"

At the mentioning of Julia's name, a heavy silence falls over them, all eyes on the floor.

"Julia has been taken; we believe it to be VILE. Zack and I thought we would come and tell Carm in person."

Ivy explains, her eyes turning towards Carmen, her own eyes being narrowed once more. Feeling how her mother takes a step forwards, Carmen soon finds herself being pulled into a tight hug.

"I'm so sorry sweetheart."

Carlotta speaks in a low voice, acting perfectly as a worried mother would. There was no trace of her knowing that Julia is in fact very safe and is in this moment hiding somewhere in this building, if Carmen had to guess, she was hiding in the office.

"We should go, we have to find her. Try and contact us if you managed to hear anything on your end and we will call you if we find anything on our end."

Chase finally speaks up, moving her head to side, Carmen looks at him. She could see that he was worried himself, but there was also pity in his eyes. He had been with her when they had to rescue Julia from VILE the first time around, it had been their first time properly working together and he had finally given up on his constant obsession with trying to bring her down. He had finally started to see things from Julia's point of view and Carmen had been quite happy to have his help.

Nodding her head as an answer, Chase put his hands-on Ivy and Zack, turning and pushing them towards the front door once more. Looking at the twins, Carmen could see that neither of them wanted to go, but they knew they had too, they had promised after all.

"Bye Carm! We'll do our best to find her as soon as possible!"

"See ya soon Boss!"

They said the moment Chase pushes them through the door opening, as the door closes behind them, Carmen takes a step away from her mother and takes a deep breath. Keeping her eye on the door, she waited to see if they were to turn around and come back, wondering if they would have realised what is really going on. But when nothing happens for five minutes, another set of footsteps walks towards them.

"I can't believe they haven't managed to figure it out yet."

Julia comments as she enters the room, there was a hint of sadness in her eyes at this and Carmen could understand that. Moving from her mothers' side, she place herself beside Julia, taking one of her hands in her own.

"Well, from the act I saw Carmen pull here, I can just guess how flawless one she had pulled when meeting with them. If neither of them won't realise soon, you will have to drop another clue for them."

Carlotta says her eyes on Julia and Carmen. Julia nods her head at this, and Carmen smiles slightly.

"Well, you did help with creating a good act."

Carmen points out and Carlotta waves her hand and Julia smiles.

"Well, from what I could hear from the office, you both did a very good job."

Carmen's smile grows at this, she had been right after all, Julia had been hiding in the office.

"Do you two need to leave right away, or are you staying the night?"

Carlotta then asks, turning her head to look at Julia, Carmen let her decide on their next action. For the moment, VILE is keeping a low profile. It must have hurt badly to have their first caper go so badly that Paper Star didn't even managed to get into the museum before being taken down.

"I guess a good night's rest would be good before heading for our next stop."

Julia says and Carmen nods her head and Carlotta's smiles grow. It was clear that her mother had taken a liking to Julia and having her around and Carmen started to wounder what the two of them had been talking about when she had not been here. A sudden spike of worry shoots through her body, but feeling how Julia squeezed her hand, she calms down. The short woman beside her was right, she didn't have anything to worry about. At least not this early in at least.

And Julia had been right, they needed some good rest, it would be along flight to Japan and she was going to need all the extra energy when meeting with Shadowsan again.