The Blue Diamond

An incredibly smooth second encounter

The room was soon back to normal once the woman in the red dress stopped singing and left the stage. Of course there were still people talking about her performance but from afar it didn't sound any different than the ripple of conversation from before.

She was surrounded by admirers the second she left the backstage.

Simon decided to wait for the fuss to die down before he goes to talk to her. If he goes to talk to her.
He hadn't made that decision yet, since he wasn't sure if that would benefit the investigation or just make things worse.
She could read minds right? What if he accidentally blows his cover just by thinking about this operation.
He eventually made the decision to not go talk to her. But he had been so lost in thought just for those few seconds that only now did he notice, that through the crowd of fans she was looking at him. They made eye contact just for a few seconds before she turned to look at another man talking to her.

Simon still found himself looking at her just for a moment before he quickly turned to look at the jazz band like it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. He tried telling himself that she was (at least most likely) a criminal who he was here to arrest. But what if he had the wrong person... Simon glanced in her direction again. She did look like the woman in the photo, who else could she be? She was Valerie.
She had to be.
Even if she wasn't the right person, he hardly knew her.

"Hey good news, Simon" Shabina's voice said from the earpiece.
Simon almost fliched, but managed to stay still. He put his hand on his ear and pressed the small button to speak.
"Jesus, you scared me" he said.
"Sorry, but I got us a distraction and just wanted to let you know" she said "any updates?"
"Not really" Simon answered.
"Okay well let me know if anything happens" she said.
"Right, I will"

                         ♤♡◇♧

"I don't know about this you plan, I don't want to attract too much attention" Marshall said while looking at the large guard standing a bit further away.
"You can of course try to help me get to that previous window but that's probably going to take a while" Shabina said "not to mention the fact that it's most likely locked"
"Alright, alright, but you owe me" Marshall reminded.
"I know, just do your thing. You were born for this role" Shabina said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Marshall snarled as an annoyend expression formed on his face.
"Well... for starters have you considered shaving?" She said refering to his short, messy stubble of a beard.
"What's wrong with my beard?" He said and put his hand on his chin.
"We can talk about that later" Shabina said. She reached out to loosen his tie and ruffle up his air a bit so he'd really look the part.
"How do I look?" He asked.
"Drunk" Shabina responded.

"You'll do fine" She said and patted him on the back.
Mashall Sighed:
"Well that better be a hell of a favor" he said right before he started walking towards the guard looking extremely drunk.
He put his hand on his shoulder. Marshall was a pretty tall man but even he had to strech out his hand to reach him.
"Hey... Hey this party is awesome" he muttered like a drunk person.
The guard looked at him like he was already so done with this shit.
"You know what would be fun?" He said and let go of his shoulder. He wabbled backwards and looked like he was about to say something before he fell to the ground.
The guard looked slightly surprised. He got out of his position to walk closer to check on him. It seemed like everyone in the lobby turned their attention to him.
That exact moment was perfect. Shabina quietly walked behind the guard and before anyone noticed she stepped over the chain to get upstairs.

                      ♤♡◇♧

There was a sudden thud in the lobby, which quickly turned to a gabble. Simon heard people saying stuff like "is he okay?" And "what happenned?"
He pressed the button on his earpiece again.
"Was that your distraction?" he asked.
"Yep" Shabina answered clearly trying to stay quiet "I'm upstairs now"
"Nice job" Simon said and pressed the button again to mute the microphone on it.

"Hey you're that guy who knocked over someones drink" a voice from behind him suddenly said.
Jesus Christ since when have people started sneaking up on him like this? First Shabina (technically three times, if speaking to the earpiece counts) and now who ever this person is.
Simon turned around to see the woman from before, but she looked at something behind him before she quickly reached out her hand to catch it.
Simon ducked, even thought her hand wasn't even about to hit him and turned around again to look at what she had grapped.
"Don't do it again" she chuckled as she was holding someone elses shot glass that was dangerously close to both his hand and the edge of the table.
"Sorry, I- I didn't notice that was there" Simon said and moved his hand away.
"Clearly" she said as she slided the glass in a safer place not too far away. After that she sat next to him on one of the bar stools.
"Nice reflexes" Simon said the other part of him hoping that she would go away and the other hoping that she would stay.
"I know, it's part of the job" she told him.
Simon turned to look at the stage.
"Singing?" He asked trying to play dumb. Oh god now he thought about it, what if she reads his mind and finds out that he's playing dumb and knows about her powers? Simon turned to look at her. Even if she did hear his thoughts she had a pretty good pocker face.
"Yeah that too" She said "what's your name?"
"Perrington" Simon answered.
She gave him a smile "don't you trust me enough to give me your first name?" She asked.
She took one look at Simon and before he could say anything she took back what she had just said:
"It's fine you don't need to tell me"

"What about you?" Simon asked "I mean... what's your name"
She looked around and seemed to be thinking about something. Then she turned back to Simon.
"It's Valerie" she said looking at him straight in the eyes as if she was waiting to see his reaction.
"That's a pretty name" Simon said trying not to show any other visible responses to her name, I mean he had already expected this to happen so this wasn't exactly a surprise.
Valerie looked at him for a second.
"You know what, I like you" she said right before she lifted her leg a bit to grap her dresses hem. Now Simon could see that she had changed her shoes from high heels to sneakers. She continued on to raise the hem of her dress showing off her soft and smooth looking legs.
Simon immediaetly felt his face turning red and he made himself look away.
"What- w-why are you doing that?" He stuttered.
"Relax" Valerie said clearly amused by his reaction. She raised the hem just a bit more to show a piece of cloth tied around her thigh that had pockets sewed into it. Pockets that seemed just about the size of an average wallet. And by that I mean the pockets had wallets in them.
Simon immediaetly regonized his own leather wallet amongst the others.
"You can have this back now, Simon" she said and put his wallet on the bar.
Simon looked at the wallet and then looked at her.
"Did you take it during your performance?" He asked as he took the wallet and put it back into his pocket.
"Yep" Valerie said.

She turned to look at something behind Simon, he turned to see what she was looking at and saw a man walking towards them.
He was wearing a suit without a tie and his red shirt had the three first buttons open. He was carrying a red handbag with him.
Simon regonized him to be the host of the party.

He walked up to Valerie and completely ignoring Simon he said:
"I got your purse, now can we get to business?" he laughed in a way that gave Simon the idea that "business" wasn't exactly about work. The man smelled like the mens perfume section in a supermarket if someone had thrown all of the perfume bottles to the floor.
Valerie turned back to look at Simon.
"It was nice talking to you" she said. She got up and put her hand on Simons shoulder which made him freeze, then she leaned closer to his ear. Simon didn't even dare to breath in case his breath smells.
"I know you're with SOD" she whispered.
After that she smiled at him and walked away with the host.