Scenes from 514 - Red in Tooth in Claw

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Kenzie and Teresa walked inside the museum, looking at all of the displays surrounding her.

"There you are," said Patrick. She turned to see him walking up to them.

"You know, we should come by more when there's not a corpse here to meet us," said Kenzie, leaning toward Teresa.

"Are you playing poker again, Libson? It's getting the better of you. Losing money?"

"Losing skin's more like it," said Teresa as they walked up to one of the employees. "Bertram's been in a bad mood."

"Hi. I'm Mackenzie Patterson with the CBI. This is my partner, Teresa Lisbon, and Patrick Jane, our consultant."

"Christos Papadakis. I am dean of the university's Natural Science Department, so... the museum is my respobsibility," Papadakis explained. "Please follow me." The three of them began walking. "I believe your team is the one who investigated the death of Professor Montero."

"Yeah, we were."

"We have a bit of a walk. The museum labs are in the east wing of the museum."

"What can you tell us about the victim?" asked Teresa.

"We think it is Linda Parfrey."

The girls looked at each other. "You think it's her?" they said at the same time.

"Linda has been missing for some time, and... well, you'll see." I don't like the tone of that. They walked into a room where a young man stood with a slightly blank look. "Ah, this is the student who found Linda. Tell–tell them your name."

"Uh, Greg. Uh, Gregory Lewis. I found her around midnight," said Greg.

"Tell us what happened," said Kenzie.

Greg sighed. "Well, by sheer luck, I-I happened upon a very nice tree shrew. Um, I've never examined one before, and I-I brought it in to strip the flesh off. You know, to keep the skeleton."

Kenzie grimaced. "Skeleton?" she muttered.

"How do you do that?" Teresa asked.

"Oh, w-we put 'em in these tanks."

The three of them turned to the different tanks in front of them. "How does that strip them of their flesh?" asked Kenzie.

"Flesh-eating bugs."

"Flesh-eating what now?"

"That's when I found Linda."

Greg opened one of the tanks. Thousands of bugs crawled and squirmed around in the box. Kenzie yelped, grabbing Patrick's bicep and hiding into his shoulder. The two of them don't notice Teresa standing frozen.

Kenzie turned at the sound of Teresa gasping. She lets out of Patrick and catched Teresa as she fainted.

🙂

Kenzie happily walked into her office to find Patrick sitting in her office with a deck of cards in his hands.

"Morning," she said.

"Good morning," Patrick greeted.

"We're gonna be short-staffed for a while. Grace's off to LA. Thank you, by the way."

"Adult education's a beautiful thing. Uh, speaking of which, uh... I've upset the ecosystem of the poker game. Are Lisbon and Nicole here?"

The said couple walked past the office. Kenzie reached outside and pulled Teresa inside, causing Nicole to be dragged in as well.

"What are you doing?" asked Teresa.

"Apparently, Patrick has upset the ecosystem."

"Upset the ecosystem?" repeated Teresa.

"Bertram's now a better poker player because of me," Patrick explained. "The ecosystem has changed. You need to adapt or die."

"Who says I need the help?" asked an appalled Teresa.

"You kind of do need help sweetheart?" softly said Nicole.

"What?!" Patrick passed the deck of cards to Nicole. The two of them moved seats. Kenzie sat on the couch with Patrick on the couch. Nicole began to shuffle the cards. "Wow! Using my girlfriend against me."

"It's not like that," said Patrick. "Nicole is very well-versed in psychology. So, it could work."

"What do we use for stakes? You can't play poker without stakes."

"Oh, I have that covered." Patrick passed a bag of gummy dinosaurs to Nicole. Kenzie started giggling. "Herbivores and worth 1, carnivores are worth 5."

"Okay," said Teresa and Nicole.

The girls looked at their cards before Nicole looked up. "All in," she said.

"You're bluffing, Nicky. I call."

Nicole raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Teresa put down the cards. "Are you cheating?"

"No." Nicole put down her cards.

Kenzie leaned over to Patrick, asking how Nicole won. Patrick ignored how he could feel Kenzie's breath on his ear. He nervously cleared his throat and explained the rules of poker to her. 

"Oh, she's gonna smoke you," teased Patrick. 

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