"Future Rewoven" Book 3 of "Secrets Unraveled" Trilogy |COMPLETED|

Chpt 19: Irregulars' Report.

Marinette's phone started ringing just as she was finishing cleaning up the bakery. After she'd said goodbye to Adrien (following that really great kiss!), she'd helped her dad out by ringing up customers and then moved on to the less pleasant chores. She was feeling tired and couldn't wait to be done, making her tempted to ignore the call so she wouldn't lose her motivation. But, she also didn't want to miss something important, so she wiped her hands on a towel and took out her phone.

"Hello?" she said, belatedly realizing that she hadn't recognized the number.

"Marinette?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, good!  I entered your number correctly.  Sometimes I've been known to kind of mess up the num—"

"Odette, what is it?" interrupted Marinette once she recognized the voice.  "Is something wrong?"

"Oh.  No.  It's just . . . you know.  The report?  I thought Adrien wanted to hear it and well, for probably very good reasons related to my friends and me, you didn't give us his number." Odette giggled, knowing very well that she and her friends couldn't have kept themselves from calling Adrien's number to listen to his voicemail recording or hanging up if he answered. "So, I'm reporting to you.  Is now okay?" she asked.

"Yes, now's good." Marinette sat down on a nearby stool to listen.  "What have you noticed?"

"Well," said Odette, and Marinette could hear rustling paper, "Marguerite made a number of notes about some routine stuff- garbage and recycling people.  She saw the bodyguard guy multiple times, but none of that's really noteworthy.  Two other men were seen at different times coming and going.  According to Celie, the first guy went in with 'a spring in his step' and 'out in a really bad mood- kicking stuff and yelling, but only after the bodyguard guy escorted him out and closed the gate'. Her words.  I mean, what person would be stupid enough to yell at that huge man without a gate between them?  Those last ones were my words, by the way.  The second guy Celie wrote about 'looked suspicious, maybe had a camera bag, and came out looking happy, which is not normal for that house.'  Then there was a young woman who went in and came out pretty quickly yesterday."

Marinette perked up at that.  "What did she look like?" she asked, wondering if it might be Lila's dark-haired, so-called cousin.  She would love to finally have a connection between the villain and Gabriel!

"Celie wrote . . . um . . . not too tall, reddish-brown hair, with two weird pigtails and a ponytail that looked like the hair bands were going to fall out of it at any moment.  I think that's what she wrote anyways- she has kind of messy handwriting.  She couldn't see too much else as the sidewalk was busy and someone had misplaced the binoculars.  I think that Jessa last had them when we all looked at the dog walker who is now walking six of the most adorable tiny dogs! The dog walker boy was pretty cute, too. Jessa thinks he goes to . . ."

Marinette was disappointed.  While the description sounded like Lila, especially the hairstyle which she thought described Lila's pretty accurately, there just wasn't enough to really go on yet to convince anyone but herself that it was Lila. In her own mind, however, this was another piece that could indicate that Lila and her villain relative were up to something and this something now also looked like it may involve Gabriel, which wasn't good. Who knew what would come of all three of them working together?!

"Anything else, Odette?" she asked, once Odette's update on where the dog walker may or may not go to school was done. "No photos?" she said, hoping for more conclusive evidence.

"No. Celie's not too good at taking photos. Sorry there's not much to report!"

"That's okay.  We really appreciate it, though!  See you tomorrow!"  Marinette hung up the phone and thought about whether to bring this up with Adrien.  Maybe on patrol?  She finished the final cleaning, shut the lights off, and headed upstairs.