When Grace arrived, the victim was finally revealed. She recognized him from some news coverage on tv—Prince Albert, crown prince to the throne of the British Monarchy—or was.

The sight to see Prince Albert dead in the phone box on Westminster Lane was an almost sickening sight but Grace had obtained a strong stomach for dead bodies.

After all, she had seen a girl hooked on a meat cleaver, a man killed by a race car and another man half eaten by a shark along with many other gruesome catastrophes.

But something about Prince Albert's body lying in the phone booth, eyes wide with terror and one hand still on the receiver had shaken her.

Jack had cleared the area disguised as a policeman so there would be no interference and Grace got to work looking at the body. The forecast called for rain so she grabbed a dark blue rain jacket with The Bureau's logo on it from a pile of uniforms Ingrid had instructed her to look through.

"His face is swollen, which is definitely a sign of suffocation." Grace remarks as she grimaces at the young man's face.
"Yeah. This is big though. I mean, it's Prince Albert—he's a member of the royal family. Who doesn't love the royal family?!" Jack comments, although Grace isn't laughing.
"There has to be someone out there or Prince Albert wouldn't be slumped over in a phone booth." Grace murmurs with a frown at the situation that has unfolded.
"I better call the chief and update her on this." Jack says and Grace nods in agreement before she goes around searching for more clues.

There wasn't much of interest, aside from a crushed up pendant on the ground.

Jack returned a few moments later as Grace finished searching.
"The chief wants to keep this quiet for now until you solve the case. If word got out, it could cause a big scandal." Jack explains and Grace nods.
"Makes sense to me. What's our next course of action?"
"We should get the body over to Angela. She's our genius corner. She'll be able to tell us something about the prince." Jack explains and then looks down at the object in Grace's hand in confusion.
"What are those broken metal pieces in your hand?" Grace looks down as well.
"I found it near the victim's body. I think it's a broken pendant of some kind."
"Mm...alright, let's put your skills to the test and  see how fast you can put it back together!" Jack says with an encouraging smile.

Unfortunately, before the two detectives can do anything, a man in his early 60s suddenly appears, shoving himself between the two. He had a curled mustache and was wearing a three piece suit complete with a black bowler, black rimmed glasses, a red poppy lapel pinned to his jacket and a walking stick by his side.

"Excuse me, out of my way! I've got a jolly important meeting with jolly important fellows at the bank." Jack and Grace share a slightly alarmed look before Grace physically blocks his path.
"Um...sir? This a crime scene!" Grace explains, extremely alarmed by the man's seeming lack of awareness.
"There's a dead body right over here if you haven't noticed." Jack adds, gesturing to the phone booth.

The man turns towards the phone booth and looks quite shocked.
"Goodness gracious! That's the prince! I...I thought I saw something near that telephone box but I never—"
"You saw something?!" Jack asked in alarm.
"Sir, you can't go anywhere at the moment. I'm going to have to ask you some questions." Grace says as calm as she can.
"Have you gone potty?! Don't you know who I am?!" The man snapped furiously and it took Grace a lot of strength to not be angry at the man.

"The Monopoly guy?" Jack guessed, relieving some of the tension and smiling at his own joke, "look, I don't care. We're on a murder case. Your meeting can wait—justice can't!"

The man, who was then identified Archibald Gilchirst, CEO of the European Bank, looks perturbed but agrees to help where he can.

"It's a crying shame about Prince Albert. My bank is responsible for managing the royal fortune, so I met the fellow often. Damned good chap."

Grace is a bit disturbed by his nonchalant behavior, but Jack beats her to the punch.
"You don't seem that upset?"

"That's my British stiff upper lip. No need to get all melodramatic and American about something as trivial as murder." Mr. Gilchrist doesn't roll his eyes, but he certainly looks like he was tempted to with how bothered he is by the inquires.

Grace lets out a sigh of frustration and continues her questioning,
"You mentioned seeing something strange near the phone box, right? What was it?"

Archibald thinks about that for a moment before answering her,
"I saw someone hiding in the bushes, watching the telephone box. I presumed it was some chap with a phone fetish. Couldn't make out a bloody thing about the shadowy fellow, but I did see them running off to the Globe Theater."

"The Globe Theater? The one in the center of town? That's worth checking out." Jack says and Grace nods in agreement.
"Right well, if that's all you need of me, I best be on my way!" Mr. Gilchrist says impatiently, clearly very willing to push Grace out of the way if necessary.

Reluctantly, she agrees and steps aside. She doesn't entirely trust that man's intentions, something about him doesn't add up. But she pushes aside her feelings for now and turns back to her partner.

"Right so, I'm going to fix this pendant. Can you call in the body?" Jack nods.
"Great, so what's that's all done we can head down to The Globe." Grace finalizes the plans and they are off to work once again.

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To put it frankly, Gretta was bored. After watching what felt like hours of videos on TrendVid and a few more staring at the ceiling, she wished there was something more interesting to do.

Her mom seemed like she was having a good time though—as fun as it could be with a count breathing down their neck and now she only had until Sunset to solve the case or be beheaded.

At least, that's what Gretta heard in the hallway when she went to get a Mountain Drizzle from the vending machine.

Gretta let out a sigh again as she thought about what to do and looked around.

No real reason to stay here much longer, feeling like a spectacle at the zoo.

Look, let's watch this 17 year old look bored out of her mind and extremely annoyed at everything in her line of sight!

Gretta got up from table, picking up her black backpack which carried her wallet, a book or two, some lipgloss and a hoodie with the tag line "Grimsborough University" which she was currently wearing (no had told her it was going to be so cold in the building!). Underneath she wore a black shirt with the logo of her old tech job on it, blue jean shorts and black Reverse shoes.

Once she had grabbed her stuff and clutched her phone in her other hand, she headed out the glass doors.

The building was certainly overwhelming. Not for the amount of floors, of course. Ingrid had mentioned before that there were only 3.

But because of the amount of hallways that all looked the damn same!

Seriously, they may be a law enforcement agency but it didn't mean every single one had to look so bland?!

Gretta was looking at a sign which directed with big, bold arrows to different areas of the first floor when she suddenly bumped into a door to the Tech Room, although she didn't see the plaque.

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Gretta turned to find herself in a place that resembled a bunker, possibly could've been a cave at some point because of the janky black wall surrounding the area. Computer servers align the walls, with a blue, worn out couch way off in the corner and couple of bright, colorful beanbags along with a coffee table near it.

The most obvious, in your face, piece of equipment was a giant computer attached to the wall, surrounded by the computer servers on either side. Various tabs were open on the desktop for music, TrendVid, miscellaneous tabs that couldn't be read and an analysis on whatever was loading up, attached to the usb stick on the desk.

She was so distracted by it that hearing another voice spooked her.

"Look, Archer I told you that I'd alert you when it's finished. So if you and Agent Grace could leave me alone for five seconds and—oh. You're not Jack."

A boy Gretta's age sat in a chair near the computer, looking shocked by her appearance. He was wearing a black jacket, graphic tee, blue jeans and a pair of sneakers. Gretta noticed some some piercings on his face that could faintly be seen from the blue screen of the computer, one in his ear and another on his chin. A spiked choker and three necklaces around his neck, a black glove on his right hand, a pair of headphones and a purple streak in his black hair completed the look.

"Yeah...no. Um...sorry, I just sort've stumbled in here and—"
"You're Agent Grace's daughter, right?" Elliot interrupts. Gretta is caught off guard by the reply and then nods slowly.
"Uh...yep. That's me. I'm Gretta Kemble. How'd you know?"
"She mentioned you earlier." He states matter-o-factly and Gretta blushes.
"Oh...um...right! Of course she did." It came out as a murmur as she looked down at the ground.

Why the hell am I so nervous?! She screams internally, attempting to not embarrass herself as she hides her hands in her hoodie's pocket.

"I'm Elliot Clayton by the way." He says, like introducing himself was an afterthought.
"Oh, well nice to meet you, Elliot." Gretta replies and it goes quiet for a moment.

"Uh...I'm really sorry about barging in," Gretta stuttered out while stepping a bit closer, "the door just pushed itself open and...um....yeah." Gretta feels nervous butterflies in her stomach but refuses to acknowledge them. She would rather die before admit that she knew exactly why the butterflies were there.

Elliot is nice enough to ignore her stumbling and shrugs.
"No worries, love. It happens. But uh...unless you actually have something for me I'd like to get back to my work." He explains, turning his chair back to the task at hand. Gretta observes that he looks frustrated with it and it distracts her nerves for just a moment.

"Well, would you like some help? You look like you're stuck." Elliot seems to hesitate as he opens his mouth and nothing comes out.
"I...appreciate that, but I prefer to work alone." It was a not so subtle way of saying please go away but Gretta never backed down from a challenge.

She shrugs casually.
"That's fine. But uh...it might go a little bit faster if you had some help," he glances in her direction which is a sign that he is at least listening, "after all, two heads are better than one and my mother's life is literally on the line." She concludes as matter-o-fact as he was with her earlier with just a hint of desperation.

He turns slightly to face her as she stands next to his desk. He seems to weigh his options and with an eye roll and smirk on his face, he concedes.
"Fine." Gretta attempts to hide her victorious smile and grabs a wheeling chair, sliding over to sit near him and drops her bag on the ground.

"You don't seem like the type of person who would be into computers." Elliot comments, observing her as she gets comfortable in her seat. She glares at him with crossed arms in return.
"What's that supposed to me?" Gretta asked, fully offended (and secretly hoping he wasn't one of those sexist assholes who thought women shouldn't work in tech, which probably wasn't the case since he hadn't kicked her out of the room yet or stopped her from helping).
"Nothing. You just surprised me, that's all." He says, shrugging. Gretta looks skeptical but puts her anger aside, observing the computer scan.

"Well we can't all be morose recluses dressed in black." She retorts and Elliot rolls his eyes.
"Ha ha." He says dryly which makes Gretta smile smugly.
"But really I'm curious, what got you into this?"
"I worked in an IT department for almost four years part time during high school. It's where I gained a love for tech." She explains.
"That's...impressive."
"Why, thank you." Gretta replies, obviously playing up the dramatics. It goes quiet and then Gretta curiously asks,
"What got you into...well this. Computers, hacking?"
"I don't know. I guess I just fell into it. I knew I enjoyed coding from school and then when I got bored with that, switched to hacking."
"So what made you join The Bureau?" Gretta asks as she leans over to see what Elliot is fiddling with.
"Well I got pretty good at hacking and didn't have any desire to go to college so when the Bureau contacted me to be their tech expert. After all, the Bureau is the best law enforcement agency in the world. Much better on a resume than saying I worked as a hacker for several years."
"What did your parents think about you leaving?" Gretta asks curiously and Elliot seems hesitant to answer.
"I'd rather...not talk about that." He says, bringing his guard down for just a moment.

Gretta decides not to press.
"What made your mum decide to join?" Elliot asks soon after.
"Good work benefits, nice pay, traveling around the globe. That sort of thing I guess. Here, can I see that?" She asks and he reluctantly hands her the device he was fiddling with.

"You mean you don't know?"
"She doesn't like to talk about work with me," Gretta explains and for a moment her tone grows a bit serious, "she just said that she got a new job offer—again—and wanted me to come along with. It's just the two of us right, I graduated high school early last year. Why not? Not like I have anything else exciting going on. Besides who wouldn't want to travel with me? I'm awesome!" Gretta explains, clearly being sarcastic about that last part.
"I'll believe it when I see it." Elliot replies.
"I'm sure you will." She retorts.
"I can't tell if you're really conceited or just messing with me." Elliot admits and Gretta smiles as she fiddles with the device that's supposed to decode the numbers.
"You'll just have to wait and see then, huh?"

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After what felt like hours, they had officially decoded the numbers and Jack and Grace were told to come down.

"I figured I'd find you here." Grace comments as she enters the tech room, a look of amusement and fondness clearly for her daughter.
"It appears I'm fated to encounter computers wherever I go." Gretta jokes and it makes her mother laugh before she gets back to business.
"So, Elliot, aside from encountering my daughter, did you figure out what the code was for?" He nods.
"It took a while, but once I figured out it was a simple substitution code. A child could've cracked it! It spells out Klaus Weissmen."
"That's got to be Brother Klaus! So he was the one who wrote the message celebrating Prince Albert's death?" Jack asked, looking at Grace.
"We should go back to The Globe and ask him about it." Grace finalizes and Jack agrees.

They say their goodbyes and leave.

"A thank you would've been nice. I did help you crack it." Gretta points out once they are out of earshot.
"It was implied." Elliot replies stubbornly and Gretta smirks.
"You're just too afraid to admit that you appreciated me helping." Elliot rolls his eyes.
"Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. Not like you barged in the room or anything."
"But you still let me help." Gretta pointed out. It appeared they were both too stubborn to back down from their argument.
"Whatever." Elliot murmurs, turning back to the computer.

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It took a while but Grace and Jack solved the case before sunset, with heads fully in tact. As it turned out, after many interviews, the killer was unexpectedly Enid Grimshaw, a maid of the palace who was Prince Albert's secret lover. She said Westminster Lane was their meeting spot and a few days or hours prior to the murder was blackmailed by an anonymous party to kill Prince Albert.

Who blackmailed her, she didn't know and also had no idea the line had poisonous gas. She was sentenced to ten years in prison.

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After the trial, Grace sat in a conference room looking over the evidence she and Jack had gathered.

Just then, Gretta knocked on the door.
"Hey mom...you ready to go?" She asked hesitantly as she watched her mother look intently at the cork board connecting various pieces of evidence with string.
"Mom?" Gretta repeats.
"Hm?"
"Oh, good, you're listening. Um...are you ready to go?" Grace stares at it for a moment longer before nodding.
"Sorry, it's just...something about this is bothering me. Who could've contacted Enid to kill the prince?"
"I don't know. What I do know is you can think about it tomorrow. Some of us are tired." Gretta replies, tugging a little at her mother's coat that rested on her right arm.
"Fine, fine! I'll worry about it tomorrow." Grace replies with a sarcastic eye roll.

Gretta beams at that and waits for her by the entrance.

Grace looks at it one final time and shakes her head. She'll worry about it tomorrow, like Gretta said.

Grace turns off the lights, closes the door to the office and goes outside with her daughter to get a cab to their hotel.

Author's Notes

Please excuse Archibald's stereotypical dialogue. It's the game's, not mine lol

Shoutout to MysticalCatlord ! Your comments on this fic make my day and I really appreciate the support because I didn't think anyone would read this fic and seeing those comments get me motivated to write the next chapter ASAP <3

This chapter was longer than I anticipated. The ending was pretty abrupt because I was very worried about making this chapter too long as it was already over 3000 words😅

I'll tell you, writing dialogue for a normally silent protagonist is definitely an interesting experience!

Victims I referenced at the beginning for examples of Grace's previous cases:

A girl hooked on a meat cleaver (Jessica Carter in Grimsborough)

A man half eaten by a shark (Jimmy "Ice P" Lewis in Pacific Bay)

A man killed by a race car (Carlos Antonio in Pacific Bay)

I only referenced a few of the early ones because I'm not far into either game😅

Product Replacement:

Mountain Drizzle = Mountain Dew
TrendVid = YouTube (which is already known since it's the name Pretty Simple gave themselves)
Reverse = Converse (look I'm not the most creative with names, I'm trying my best)

Anyway, more importantly: GRETTA AND ELLIOT FINALLY MEET!

I've had their meet-cute saved in my notes for at least a week just to get to this moment!!

I tried to make it that so that the two had something in common because I felt like not having that would make their romance seem unrealistic. Also that's just way more fun and easier to write.

Originally, I had said here that I had come up with a backstory for Elliot/excuse as to why he's in the Bureau but uh,, turns out the game already did that for me (sort of). Found on tv tropes he has neglectful (and maybe rich?) parents so that's fun. And by fun I mean awful, because clearly they are jerks <3

So remember, kids, always check your sources (or don't, I don't know what you're like). Maybe I'll rewrite this one day to include his backstory but I probably won't. He doesn't really seem the type of person to be a complete open book, you have to get to know him a little first (and honestly, same)

Anyways,,

I used playthroughs of this game as a way to remember certain details of the case and some character dialogue (I didn't for items that were analyzed though because I can look at those myself). It was really helpful because I could keep in specific dialogue I wanted and then insert my own stuff when I wanted. Saves me a lot of stress lol

Next chapter is going to be a filler before we move into the Europe in Crisis additional investigations.

BatgirlGeek❤️

P.S. This book reached #1 on the Elliot Clayton tag...somehow (well, I probably know how since they're aren't that many to begin with). Either way, thanks!