This is part of a double update so read the previous chapter first.
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Cece swept into the kitchen dramatically, her imaginary petticoat swishing around her legs. Since being able to write two days before, she had been living and breathing the southern life, much to the displeasure of her siblings. Everything she said was in a southern twang and she was overly formal in everything.

"Good morning!" she greeted the occupants of the kitchen, fanning her face with her hand as she pranced around the table to the fridge.

Tristan and Elliot shared sympathetic looks but it went unnoticed by Cece. She kept up a steady flow of cheery conversation as she made breakfast and ate but with how little Tristan and Elliot responded, it was mostly a monologue. But nothing her siblings did or said could knock her off her cloud of inspiration.

"Well, I'm off," she said, as she finished her dishes with an elegant curtsy. "Don't wish me luck for I don't need it. I already know it's going to be a splendid day. Wish mother a good day for me."

"Are you going to The Thinking Cup?" Elliot called after her.

"Why, of course," Cece said, resting her hand over her heart.

"Can you stop at the hardware store?" Elliot asked, working hard to contain her eye roll. "We need a new handle for the bathroom."

"It would be my pleasure," Cece said, dipping into another curtsy. She grabbed her backpack and floated to the front door, calling out, "toodles," as she opened the door.

The world that greeted Cece at the bottom of the stairs was filled with elegance, manners, and cheery friendliness. Although Cece's story was set in modern times, most of what she knew about the south had come from historical movies and the old-fashioned settings and lifestyles constantly seeped into her imagined world.

A bell rang over the door as she stepped into the hardware store and with a friendly smile, she greeted the man behind the counter like they were old friends. Millie Kate would be on a first-name basis with the man who ran the hardware store in Belmont. The man kindly directed Cece to the right aisle as he looked at her curiously, trying to figure out if he should know who she was when she was acting as she knew him.

Cece greeted everyone she came into contact with in her short search for the handle and even curtsied to the man who held the door open for her as she left the hardware store.

Back out on the street, there was a skip to her step as she headed for the coffee shop, her next scene already forming in her mind. Millie Kate was going to run into Cannon McHenry.

Cece's phone buzzed and she laughed to herself as she answered.

"I already got the handle," she said, assuming it was Elliot calling to remind her. But instead of Elliot, she heard a rush of unfamiliar voices and accordion music.

"Our dear writer!" someone shouted on the other line. Cece pulled the phone away to protect her ear from the burst of noise and checked the caller-ID. It was Malcolm.

It was nice to know that halfway through Malcolm's trip he had finally thought to call his girlfriend. But as she put the phone back to her ear, she discovered it wasn't even Malcolm who had called her. It was Franklin.

Cece listened trying to figure out what Franklin was talking about and caught a few brief details before he said, "listen."

The command was a mote point since Cece had been listening but she continued to do so. At first, all she heard were voices speaking in a different language. It sounded like French. She thought they must still be in Paris when one voice finally rose above the others. This voice was speaking English, or rather singing it.

"There's a girl that I know and she's stolen my heart..." Cece laughed in surprise. Malcolm was singing! "She is pretty and charming and special and beautiful..."

"Mon Cheri!" Franklin sang into the phone. "Our dear Romeo sings for you!"

Cece rolled her eyes. If anyone out of the trio was Romeo, it would be Franklin. Cece didn't want to know what it had taken to get Malcolm to sing and in public.

"Franklin!" Cece said loudly trying to get someone to respond to her. Malcolm's voice was cracking, his melody was wandering and he wasn't using any perfect rhymes. There was only so much Cece could listen to. "Franklin! Franklin!"

"Good graces writer, keep your voice down," Franklin said. "We're right here. No need to shout."

"Malcolm was singing with so much gusto it seemed shouting was the only way to get your attention," Cece explained.

"He does have a real talent, doesn't he?" Franklin said. "Who knew?"

"Yes. That is what I would call talent," Cece said flatly.

"Harcourt, I've got your girl here," Franklin shouted. There was a loud scuffle then Malcolm was singing into the phone.

"Cecilia McKenzie is a girl that I am talking to and her smile is like sunshine on the water and her hair is like the stones I'm walking on," Malcolm sang.

Cece wanted to be annoyed he called her by her full name but the ridiculousness of what he was singing made her laugh. He continued to sing her praise, likening every aspect about her to what she assumed was the setting around him. She imagined it would be more romantic if she could see the bookseller he compared her eyes to.

As she laughed and listened, she was surprised to find she missed him. He had been gone ten days and the only time she had thought about him was to curse his name, but hearing him slap-happy and knowing he was thousands of miles away, she could feel a pull in her heart for him. She wasn't naive enough to think the feeling was anything close to love, but it did surprise her there was any amount of affection for Malcolm Harcourt left in her.

After ten minutes, Malcolm ran out of aspects of Cece he could praise and started a rushed run-through of their trip but his words were so mumbled Cece only understood half of what he was saying. Then Franklin yelled 'crepes!' and Malcolm was gone faster than Cece could say bye.

Being a food lover herself, fifty percent of Cece understood Malcolm hanging up on her, but the other fifty percent was a girlfriend who respected herself enough to know she deserved a proper goodbye even if crepes were in play.

Cece pocketed her phone and let out a deep sigh. He had called. She wasn't exactly sure what she got out of the phone call, but as she continued on her way to the coffee shop, she was hoping for at least enough inspiration from her muse for an interaction between Millie Kate and Cannon McHenry.

When Cece reached the counter of The Thinking Cup she ordered her regular iced coffee and on a whim added a chocolate croissant in honor of the call from Malcolm.

The croissant turned out to be a terrible idea. The flaky pastry inspired Millie Kate to waltz down a street that was a lot more Parisian than southern. Bitty and Beau suddenly had French accents and Cannon McHenry had a thin Parisian mustache and walking cane. Did people in Paris hook walking canes over their arms? Cece didn't know, but that is what Cannon McHenry was doing.

Cece slammed her computer shut and glared at everything around her: the fake potted plants, the coffee bar, the sunshine streaming in through the open windows. The breeze had the audacity to come in through the window and flutter her hair and she glared at that.

This was Malcolm's fault. She had been ready to write when he had called and ruined everything. She needed to move and so she made her usual trip to the front counter.

There were a few people in line and she waited patiently, letting her mind wander over the menu she had memorized and the display case of treats. When it was finally her turn, a question had formed in her mind.

"What can I get for you?" the barista asked.

"If life is so short, why do we eat so many things we don't like?" she asked.

The pastry display case had inspired this one. She eyed the brownies, muffins, croissants, and cake pops, wondering about Millie Kate's thoughts on sweets. Did she sneak them after parties or was she brazen enough to enjoy them in a crowd? Did she pay attention to how much she ate? Or was she concerned with bigger things?

"Excuse me?" the barista asked.

The light voice pulled Cece out of her wandering thoughts and she focused on the blonde barista staring at her with a confused look. The girl looked sideways, searching for a co-worker that could help. This was not the person Cece wanted to talk to.

Cece frowned at her. "Never mind."

"Can I get you a drink?" the barista asked in a pacifying voice, clearly taking Cece's scowl personally.

Cece sighed deeply. "Fine. I'll get a caramel latte."

"Iced or hot?"

Why was this person asking her so many questions when Cece couldn't even answer her own? She took a silent breath, aware that this frustration had Malcolm's name on it and it wasn't fair to put it on anyone else.

"Cold, please." Out of guilt, she added a ten-dollar bill to the tips jar before returning to her table.

Cece slumped low in her chair. She knew she couldn't take out her frustration on the barista so she would let her frustration manifest itself in a downtrodden slump.

"Downtrodden was a good word," she thought. She also thought Millie Kate never felt downtrodden. Or if she did, she never let it show.

Cece's brain was heading towards a grumbling fest when the man sitting at the table across the coffee shop from her got up. Cece mindlessly watched him step out the door. She looked back at the table he had just vacated. All his stuff was still there.

She looked out the window and saw the man accept a manila envelope from someone passing him on the sidewalk. The exchange happened so quickly, Cece would have missed it if she hadn't looked at that precise moment.

The man came back into the coffee shop and set the envelope on the table next to his computer and casually returned to his work like he hadn't just taken part in a stealth handoff. Cece watched him, trying to decipher any emotions on his face. She was so absorbed in watching the man, the barista called out her drink three times before Cece remembered that was what she had ordered.

On her way to retrieve her drink, she made a loop of the coffee shop and tried to get a look at the papers laying about on the man's table. All she saw were graphs and tables.

She grabbed her drink, her mind starting to create a story around the man. She took a thoughtful sip of her coffee and almost spat it out. She grimaced at the sweetness. Why had she ordered a caramel latte?

But the undrinkable coffee was quickly forgotten when Cece saw the man answer a phone call. She walked back to her table in a circuitous route, trying to listen to as much of the man's conversation as she could as she passed his table.

Cece sat and opened her computer, but she ignored her Millie Kate files and started a new one. She looked back at the man, taking in his short, messy blonde hair, his casual attire, and sneakers. After a minute, Cece settled on the code name Hendrix and labeled her new document. And so began her dossier.

Over the next few hours, Cece began to form a narrative. Hendrix was a computer programmer selling his skills to the highest bidder, even if that bid included working outside the law. In order to stay anonymous, he piggybacked off the Starbucks network and received his jobs via a carrier. It was all so sinister. Cece was convinced he had just received a new job and felt it was her mission, for the sake of national security, to find out what it was.

So she recorded everything about Hendrix: when he drank his coffee, when he had a phone call, when he ordered more coffee when he stretched, when he went to the bathroom. When Hendrix went to the bathroom, Cece used the opportunity to get another look at his papers and the mysterious envelope he had received.

Her iced latte had been collecting water droplets on the outside and she grabbed it to use as cover. She made her way towards the coffee bar, moving slowly so she had a chance to 'casually' glance at the papers strewn across Hendrix's table.

She made quick work at the coffee bar, dumping a few bags of something in her drink before she hurried to make a second pass of the table before Hendrix returned. Her trip was a success as she caught sight of a name on the manila envelope.

She was just returning to her spot when Hendrix, or as she now knew him to be Sam Thompson, returned to his table. Cece tried to hide her glee at discovering such an important piece of information and she opened a search engine on her computer and typed in Sam's name.

Cece found eighty-five Sam Thompsons that lived in the New England area and started going through the list. An hour later her brain was swimming with details from lawyers to felons and everything in between, but so far she hadn't found any description or picture that matched the Sam Thompson sitting across from her.

She stretched for a moment bracing to continue her search when she noticed Hendrix (Sam) was packing up his things. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he hurriedly collected his things. He shoved his computer into his bag, grabbed the pile of papers, and rushed out of the coffee shop. Cece followed him as he crossed the street, wondering what had sent him into such a rush.

Only when he was out of sight did she look back at his now empty table and saw the manila envelope on the floor. Her heartbeat quickened. Had he dropped the envelope by accident? Or had he purposefully left it? Was this the next part of the drop?

Cece looked around the coffee shop to see if anyone else had noticed the manila envelope on the ground but all the other patrons were focused on their computers. Cece looked back at the folder, debating her next move when a barista walked by and picked the envelope up.

Cece watch as the barista carried it back behind the counter as if there was nothing curious about a manila envelope being left on the ground and that was when Cece knew the barista was in on the plot.

Cece watched the front counter like a hawk, trying to create a profile of the girl and why she was helping an insane man take down the US government, but Cece only got as far as guessing at a traumatic past when a woman approached the front counter and the barista's face lit up with recognition. They shared a quick exchange before the barista handed over the manila envelope.

Cece's brain exploded as she watched the transaction and the plot thickened. Another agent! Cece tried her best to contain any of her excitement as she tracked the woman's movements towards the exit and took in as many details as she could.

The woman was in an expensive suit, she had short, dark hair, and she hadn't taken off her sunglasses. This woman was a professional, that much was clear to Cece. It was also clear that Hendrix leaving the envelope behind hadn't been an accident.

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Hey there my delightful puffin!

Man, I miss Milo, he would have had a good response. Readers please tell me you agree with me?

You understand you're talking to yourself right now.

And who's fault is that! You're going out to dinner with Joel and didn't have time to help me with this author's note!

Still talking to yourself.

Yeah, well with how crazy you've written Cece it seems like I'm in good company, we are both bonkers!

Do people even use that word anymore?

I get that reference!

That's cause you wrote it, weirdo.

I should just stop, shouldn't I?

That might be best.

Woot, Wombat, Wallow