the politician

Deputy Mayor Morris, your humble public servant. Please forward any praise to this account as soon as possible! Thank you for your time and votes.

[owenscommaclaire]

Lovely Little Vanderbilt || Claire and Quentin

[owenscommaclaire]

“The people?” she echoed, a genuine smile appearing on her lips. Honestly, despite urging him not to give her a tourist answer, she’d still been expecting one. Something more along the lines of ‘my favorite part is our famous museum’ or ‘my favorite part is that we have the best corn this side of the county line’. And maybe saying that the people who lived in a town were the best part was more than a little bit cheesy, but it was somewhat adorable too. Especially coming from a mayor she’d written off as slightly skeevy, if totally cute.

“That’s completely sentimental,” Claire said, teasingly. “But I guess that’s one of the nice things about a small town, you really get to know everyone in it,” she said. Oh, she liked that line. Note to self: work in characters having a conversation about ‘the people’ and ‘small towns’. “Besides, sentimental is a good trait in a mayor,” she said, decisively nodding her head. “It means you really care and…all that,” she trailed off, lamely, unsure of where she’d even been going with that. Why on earth had she sounded like she was gearing up to give Quentin a pep talk? He was in politics, he knew sentimentality sold. 

Shaking off her suddenly awkward moment, Claire followed his gesturing, turning to look out the window at the older houses. Oh, this was something he should lead with, when giving future tours. These fifties houses were far cuter than some of the newer ones. Vintage. Quaint. Some of them literally had picket fences. Claire was torn between being disturbed by how stereotypically cute this street was, and just enjoying how stereotypically cute this street was. “How old are the oldest ones?” she asked, settling back in her seat to look at Quentin. 

[quentinmorris-blog]

"I'd say colonial, but I'd probably be wrong. Vanderbilt history was never very interesting to me in school, and I elected to take American and World histories as soon as it was available. Not the best idea for an aspiring mayor, I suppose, but I was young and hungry for knowledge." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her smile seemed real, but the calculating sharpness in her gaze gave him pause, even as she gently teased him. At first glance, the woman had not seemed terribly intelligent, but he amended his initial assessment now. No, he thought. Not brilliant, or even very smart. I've met better actresses than her, and the dumb, playful, flirty blonde is such a tired trope. But if I'm lucky, she might be clever enough to play the pawn.

Quentin glanced at Claire shrewdly. "After a while... Yes, I suppose you do. There's not a person in this town I don't know, except you and yours at the Manor." he turned his gaze back on the road and tried to keep his voice polite and impartial. Fortunately, he was a moderate politician, so this came naturally to him. "That old house fell into such disrepair after the Professor's wife left. It's nice to see little Darcy moving back in, but I'd still like to see the place back in its charming glory. Of course, the circumstances of her reentry into Vanderbilt society are... less than savory."

He drove north of town, watching the forest quietly overtake the country houses as they drifted farther and farther from town proper... and the Manor itself. "I don't believe you ever told me which member of your family disappeared."

[darcy-regan]

Thunder & Lightning | Darcy Regan & Quentin Morris

[darcy-regan]

Her back to Quentin Morris as she led the way, Darcy allowed a wry smile at the pause he dropped before referring to her “lovely visitors,” but kept silent on the matter. His disdain on the matter was wholly unsurprising.  And to her credit, her stride never faltered when he mentioned problems with them. Well… word certainly travels fast in small towns, doesn’t it?

“No, no problems with my guests so far, Mr. Morris, but thank you for being concerned for me. My father always considered you a great friend to our family.” She smiled over her shoulder; lips pressed firmly together, almost bruising. Law school had made her lies and false sweetness nearly irreproachable, but her smile sometimes still needed work, either too sunny or too cold or too stiff. “We did have a matter with a friend of the family — I’m sure you remember Mariah Thompson? It’s been handled, though, and nothing to worry about.” Hopefully the casual downplay of the “matter” would quench his curiosity enough to stop him asking questions, though she was sure if he really wanted details, the local PD would only be too happy to provide. Whatever he offered them in return would doubtless be more cloying than the donation and scones she had provided to keep them from spilling that evening’s events to the local papers.

“Oh, I don’t know, M. Morris,” she responded to his explanation of where he had been headed, “I’m interested in lots of things lately.” She turned and grinned, satisfied she’d gotten this one exactly right, and pushed open the door of a vacant guest room. “Here you are… please let me or Rita know if you need anything. I trust you know your way around from here?”

[quentinmorris-blog]

Quentin was self trained in the arts of deception and forgery. They were tools forged not through necessity but in forward thinking; Vanderbilt citizens were terrible liars, but Quentin was wise enough to know that the skill would help him in the wider world, assuming he ever got to see it. But he could only learn so much from spy movies and neon lettered websites with mostly false information on body language, and it was obvious to him that Darcy had been trained by experiences with people much smarter and more skilled than him. To him, at least, her smile was cold and impenetrable; there was a hint of something fake there, of something worrying, but he had no idea what it could be and lacked the inclination to ask. He was still terribly wet and the storm seemed to have worsened while he had been inside. If that was even possible.

Instead, he smiled with equal falseness. She would never call him out on it, not while she was attempting to hide something. "And I the same." 

She mentioned something about a problem with Mariah Thompson. The quick, casual way she said it, almost like an afterthought, drove a wrinkle between his brows. He had never liked Mariah; she had stomped into his courthouse enough times, yelling about this or that issue, demanding to talk to the Mayor about his negligence in correcting what she saw as irresponsible Federal laws. She hadn't been in his office for a few weeks, but he'd hardly noticed the absence; the last time she came, screaming some crap about Dara's disappearance and hooligans in the mansion and what are my tax dollars paying for and can't you evict them? Eventually, he had called security. 

Still, he made a note of the trouble and promised himself he'd look into it. The woman was a lunatic, and he wouldn't want her terrorizing Darcy in an attempt to honor Dara's memory. "I'm sorry to hear that." he replied carefully. "Terrible business, her fixation on your father... Please let me know if the problem persists."

He smiled a little at her comment. It was a strange thing to say... But perhaps she was just being polite. "Is that so?" he said quietly. The door to one of the many guest rooms in Regan Manor swung open. It was positively decrepit, with furniture older than his grandparents and a few stray cobwebs hanging sporadically from the ceiling. Once the town had bought the house, perhaps they could clean it up and turn it into a guest room. The old wood and spooky air gave it an authentically Victorian feeling, complete with a black and white photo of some old Regan ancestor sitting on the dresser. It would fetch a steep price amongst the murder mystery crowd... He inclined his head. "Thank you. And I do, very well."

[quentinmorris-blog]

You’re too kind. I couldn’t demand your hospitality when your house is so full of these… lovely visitors.

Quen Morris

[owenscommaclaire]

Lovely Little Vanderbilt || Claire and Quentin

[quentinmorris-blog]

Claire looked a little distracted, staring out the window at the desolate lot with an empty expression on her face. “Yes,” he replied, happy that someone at that mansion had taken an interest in Vanderbilt. Despite all of its problems, Quentin was very proud of his hometown. Perhaps it wasn’t the most economic place to live, or the prettiest, or the cleanest… there was those lung cancer cases by the factory on the edge of town… but it was a home, ramshackle and unloved as it was. And Regan Manor, the shining jewel of hope at the center of it all. If he could just get his hands on that mansion, he knew that he could turn the entire town around. He could be a good leader given the right funds and the chance to shine. He knew it.

Quentin nodded at the field. “Maybe someday we’ll get it working.” he flashed her a quick smile to counter the melancholy in his tone, and turned the corner away from it. A small, homespun street rose up in front of them, dotted with brightly colored storefronts that could have been from 1905 or 1995. It was charming—painted signs where neon would usually hang, meticulously created Back to School window displays, and brightly curtained apartments above the stores. But if you looked just a little closer, you would notice that the paint was pealing and the displays were created by desperate owners with little else to do. For Sale signs or Going Out of Business banners permeated the street, covering everything with a dreary sense of inevitability.

Quen sighed. “It’s a small town. It has its ups and downs.” he offered in way of explanation. “Business will pick up soon enough.” he kept his expression blank as they slowly, painfully traced their way up Main Street. Aside from a huddle of teenagers in the local diner, the place was deserted.

[owenscommaclaire]

She was torn between looking at the town, and examining the mayor sitting beside her in the driver’s seat, so Claire decided to spend most of her time looking out the window, with a few glances over at Quentin as he spoke. He seemed…well, he seemed a bit sad. If there was one thing she’d learned in high school it was how to read people. Actually, it pretty much was the only thing she’d learned in high school. Writers shouldn’t have to worry about stupid things like math, or science, or hell, even English. e.e. cummings didn’t have to follow the rules of grammar! Anyway, that wasn’t the point. The point was, Quentin didn’t seem as happy as he should be, for a mayor giving a tour of his town. Then again…she cast her stare out the window again, taking in Vanderbilt in all its glory. Well. All its something.

“Well, it’s got that nice…quaint little town vibe!” she said, brightly. That wasn’t a total lie. She supposed if you were the kind of person who liked small towns, then Vanderbilt wouldn’t be half bad. Claire, however, was most emphatically not that kind of person. It was big cities or bust with her.

When she wrote about Vanderbilt in her novel she’d have to decide whether she wanted to go for the small town cuteness, or full on terrifying ghost town. The streets before her were a little bit of both, actually. So, really, it could go either way. It would all depend on what felt more organic at the time. Hm. She wished she could pull out per pencil and notepad now, but that felt a bit suspicious, even for her. “So, right off the top of your head- what’s the best part about Vanderbilt?” she asked. “And don’t just give me some tourist-y answer. The truth.”

[quentinmorris-blog]

"Yeah. I think that's what happens when you live in a town with a population under a thousand." he laughed a bit. "It gets stuck in it's ways." He gave the melancholic street one more glance before turning the corner on a row of identical homes with actual picket fences. They weren't as old as the rest of the town--a few of the original Levitowns leftover from the fifties, placed strategically back when Vanderbilt was bustling and growing every minute. He hadn't been alive then, but he longed for the days.

He though about her question for a moment before replying with a cheery sort of weariness. "The people." His mother had been raised in Vanderbilt, going to the then two hundred child High School and living in one of these houses. She had never liked talking about her life before having him, but from what he had gathered after her death, she had been the smartest girl in her admittedly small school. And she had broken out of the town, earning a scholarship before she even turned eighteen--but her parents had fallen ill, and she had been forced to come back to the tiny, constricting town before her first semester was over. She had watched as her friends left for better places or married off, and finally given in herself. It was sad, in some ways--but he remembered that she had always seemed happy and at home and in her classroom, and wondered if it was really so tragic. Vanderbilt seemed to have its own magic, sucking people into its depths and not giving them the chance to leave until they were too attached to even think of it.

"These are mostly leftover from the fifties, but there's a couple that are older. Mostly the ones with big porches and chimneys." he pointed a few out, leaning over Claire so he could get a good view of her breasts as she looked out.

[darcy-regan]

Thunder & Lightning | Darcy Regan & Quentin Morris

[darcy-regan]

Darcy’s mood turned on a dime when the wet thing collided with her, disrupting her train of thought. Eyebrows drawn together and lips pursed in annoyance and disgust, she nearly shoved the damp shape away as she turned before she realized what was happening. A convincingly genuine smile blossomed on her face, as if it had been there.

“Mr. Morris!” she chirped. “You look awful!” She fussed over him, brushing at his shoulders like a doting mother, knowing full well it was useless. “You walked a mile to get here? You poor—why don’t you stay the night? We’ll call you a mechanic in the morning.”

He really did look awful, wet and pale and covered in mu—oh dear. He… wasn’t kidding about the rain and mud he’d tracked inside. She was well aware that she was staring at the trail of it, which was completely terrible of her as a hostess, but… her carpets! What would her other guests think come morning? With a little shake of her head, she forced her attention from the mess and back to the deputy mayor. In truth, she’d never liked much. Something about the way he looked at people.

“This way, I’ll show you to your room and you can get cleaned up. If you wouldn’t mind… removing your shoes, though.” Again she smiled at him, genuinely enjoying being a good hostess, even if she didn’t always enjoy those she hosted. Her father had never been good at it, and so the task had always fallen to her.  “And don’t worry about the carpet,” she reassured with a wave of her hand as she led him farther up the stairs, “it’s easy enough to take care of. “

On her first day at Forrester & Lowry, more than one person mistook her for the Receptionist. She gathered quickly that people were not generally kind and helpful here. Very few people smiled. Her plucky idealism and ready smiles had actually gotten her noticed early on by a senior partner… which had only made things worse for her with her peers. Eventually she’d learned how important a weapon those smiles could be in a courtroom. And most other places. Most people still considered her exceptionally naïve… she preferred to think she saw the best in things until convinced otherwise.

“What brought you out this way tonight, if you don’t mind me asking?”

[quentinmorris-blog]

Quentin shivered in the chilly room. "You're too kind. I couldn't demand your hospitality when your house is so full of these... lovely visitors." He thought that Darcy's house was extended a bit too willingly to what was largely a group of unseemly, foreign hooligans, but it was not his place to judge what she did with her house. While it was still her house, of course. He just hoped they didn't steal or destroy anything terribly valuable or of any historical importance. "And how is that going, by the way? No problems with their... behavior?"

Upon her insistance, he removed his sopping shoes and socks, dropped them neatly on the far edge of the carpet, and ran to catch up with Darcy, who walked quickly, with a distinguished purpose. Perhaps she had gained drive at Law school, or perhaps he had simply never noticed it before. Regardless, it reminded him that she was more than Professor Regan's daughter, and he should approach the situation with tact, no matter how desperate things became. And with the wily old men that ran the town aware of their new financial troubles, that could be very soon indeed.

"Oh, some frumpy budgeting meeting South of here." The incompetent, decaying officials in Vanderbilt had begun to realize that their salaries were slowly being trimmed, and called an immediate meeting to discuss the issue. What a surprise it must have been for them to find that they were on the bow of a sinking ship and the problem was much larger than their new need to buy day old bread and dented cans of soup. And now he would have a legion of bored bureaucrats on the mayors' and his tales, in addition to every committee or department ever devised in the history of small towns. "Too many people moaning nonsense about money simultaneously. I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in it." he deflected, shooting her a remarkably charming smile for someone who was tracking muddy water through her spotless home.

[owenscommaclaire]

Lovely Little Vanderbilt || Claire and Quentin

[owenscommaclaire]

Quentin’s car was small, and looked slightly outdated. Nothing too amazing, but it wasn’t a total piece of shit car. Admittedly, Claire knew little to nothing about cars, but she’d been trained in the art of identifying what was a good car and what was a cheap car back in college, due to the fact that one of her best friends had been in the habit of choosing men to date based on their cars.

On one memorable occasion, they’d gone out clubbing, and Vanessa had been asked to dance by a very cute man. Instead of answering yes immediately, the way Claire would’ve, Vanessa had asked him a few questions, excused herself to the ‘bathroom’, and ducked outside to check his car. By this point, the valet of the club had become so used to her doing it that he had no qualms pointing out cars to her. Deciding his car was too cheap, Vanessa had walked back into the club and declined his offer to dance.

Claire had always admired Vanessa’s determination to become a trophy wife. Sure enough, at their last reunion, Vanessa had been dragging along an extremely awkward but wildly rich husband. But Claire was an artist. She didn’t mind going without material comforts for her art. Quentin was probably the same way with his passion of choice- politics.

She followed his instructions, and looked over at the empty lot, grinning at Quentin’s joke. Perfect, she’d been hoping he’d show her what the town was really like, and not just the tourist spots. Did a place like Vanderbilt even have tourist spots? Really, how much tourism could they get? She was getting distracted. “Well, as far as empty lots go, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen,” she assured him. “You should just build the homeless shelter there, considering they already live in the lot,” she joked. “Kill two birds with one stone and all.”

[quentinmorris-blog]

Claire looked a little distracted, staring out the window at the desolate lot with an empty expression on her face. “Yes,” he replied, happy that someone at that mansion had taken an interest in Vanderbilt. Despite all of its problems, Quentin was very proud of his hometown. Perhaps it wasn’t the most economic place to live, or the prettiest, or the cleanest… there was those lung cancer cases by the factory on the edge of town… but it was a home, ramshackle and unloved as it was. And Regan Manor, the shining jewel of hope at the center of it all. If he could just get his hands on that mansion, he knew that he could turn the entire town around. He could be a good leader given the right funds and the chance to shine. He knew it.

Quentin nodded at the field. “Maybe someday we’ll get it working.” he flashed her a quick smile to counter the melancholy in his tone, and turned the corner away from it. A small, homespun street rose up in front of them, dotted with brightly colored storefronts that could have been from 1905 or 1995. It was charming—painted signs where neon would usually hang, meticulously created Back to School window displays, and brightly curtained apartments above the stores. But if you looked just a little closer, you would notice that the paint was pealing and the displays were created by desperate owners with little else to do. For Sale signs or Going Out of Business banners permeated the street, covering everything with a dreary sense of inevitability.

Quen sighed. “It’s a small town. It has its ups and downs.” he offered in way of explanation. “Business will pick up soon enough.” he kept his expression blank as they slowly, painfully traced their way up Main Street. Aside from a huddle of teenagers in the local diner, the place was deserted.

[suputoniku]

So, it begins. The greatest relationship ever known.

[annperkins]

[owenscommaclaire]

Lovely Little Vanderbilt || Claire and Quentin

[owenscommaclaire]

The manor seemed disappointingly empty of the mayor, and Claire sighed. She supposed she could always wait and talk to him later, but God, she was just so bored and she needed to learn more about Vanderbilt if she was going to make any more progress on the Ashes series. She pouted, almost ready to give up, when she heard someone called her name. Claire turned. When she saw who had shouted her name, she broke into a grin, hurrying over to greet Quentin. “Hello!” she said, accepting the coffee with a quick. “Thank you.” She took a sip, happy for the caffeine. 

Looking for someone? Hm, how should she answer that? No need to sound desperate, and tell him she’d been looking for him. Unless…maybe he was the type of man who liked the idea of people chasing him? Probably. He was the mayor, obviously he enjoyed being in a position of power. “I was looking for someone, actually. Just found him though,” she said, with a flirtatious grin. “I was hoping to ask you a bit about the area around this place. Stuff that only someone who really knows Vanderbilt would know.” There, slightly professional, slightly desperate, slightly flirty. That should do it.

He offered her the tour, and her smile broadened even more. “It’s nice to see you too, and yes, please, I’d love a tour,” she said, nodding. “I’ve heard so many good things about Vanderbilt, and I’m curious to see the sights for myself.” Well, she hadn’t really heard nice things about Vanderbilt, but what was the harm in a little lie? Especially a flattering one. Everyone loved flattering lies. 

[quentinmorris-blog]

Soon, they had piled into Quentin’s car, a feat in and of itself because of it’s small size. It was an impractical European thing that he had specially ordered instead of going on an actual trip to Europe. It was horrible on the muddy backgrounds of Pennsylvania, and getting on in the years besides, but he didn’t have the money to buy a better model. Not with the town’s current financial disposition, and the ever changing popularity polls that always seemed to swing too far in somebody else’s direction. 

But he put his peddle to the miniature metal and, soon enough, they were hurdling toward town. “And if you look over there, you’ll see an empty lot that we should probably turn into a park or something.” he laughed self-deprecatingly. He hadn’t known he could be self deprecating before. It was frightening. “Instead, it’s full of opossums and homeless people. We haven’t got a shelter, either.”

[darcy-regan]

Thunder & Lightning | Darcy Regan & OPEN

Rainy days at Regan Manor were decidedly supernatural, or so Darcy had decided as a girl. At 5 she would put on her frilly peach party dress with white stockings and run about the house pretending to be Alice Liddel gone through the looking glass, befriending talking animals (played faithfully by her stuffed friends), eating little cakes and drinking draughts from ornate, glass bottles (this was strictly forbidden after the time she ate all the petit fours meant for the postponed afternoon garden party, but Darcy made it a point to cultivate a selective memory for just such occasions and so forgot almost immediately), and running in giggly terror from the Jabberwocky (a role for which Professor Regan’s commitment was  woefully under-appreciated). By 9 she had graduated to the dress of a medieval princess, last year’s Halloween costume, and an overdramatic (and, as remarked upon by the Professor, sorely lacking in the realm of the factual) portrayal of Guinevere, complete with encore after encore of “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” At 12 she fancied herself rather too grown up for frilly dresses, but somehow always seemed to choose one empire-waist dress or another for her rainy day readings of Northanger Abbey, curled up in the downstairs sitting room with a hot pot of tea and the scones with clotted cream which always seemed to be waiting for her in the kitchen.

Even as an adult it was hard to ignore the dramatic way lightning in the floor-to-ceiling arch windows on the grand staircase landing lit the house in bright and erratic flashes and the shadows of demon’s gnarled hands reaching out from the curved woodwork around the hallway ceiling. The booming baritone of thunder filled the manor only a few seconds later and Darcy thought of how close the storm must be as she sipped her tea. Had it been a night like this when her father disappeared? Surely on days like this, anything was possible. She tried to remember what she’d been doing on that same night only about an hour or so away in her apartment, but just like the other times she’d tried, she came up empty handed. How odd.

Curiouser and curiouser, thought to herself with an indulgent roll of her eyes.

No doubt it had been filled with reference books and contracts and other papers of some kind or another. A fair guess, given she probably spent 90% of her time that way. The parts of her that missed the romantic mystery of the manor that she’d embraced as a child always came out at those times and usually ended with her frowning disapprovingly at a cold, hard scone from Starbucks. Her nostalgia hadn’t lived up to its own hype until this night, the first night of storms since she’d been back.

[quentinmorris-blog]

"Unbelievable." Quentin cursed, pinching the area between his brow. Smelly black smoke wafted out of his dashboard, and it only took a moment before he was out of the car and in the pouring rain. The pavement was old, cracked, and covered in a thin layer of dust that had turned to slippery mud at some point during the storm, creating a slick surface ripe for falling and splitting your head open. He was wearing his customary outfit--a cheap suit and expensive shoes. Hardly the sort of thing you'd want to be wearing during the thunderstorm of the year, let alone while hiking home. The rain fell like sleet, hitting every inch of exposed skin with icy daggars that never seemed to stop. After a failed attempt to find his jacket in the backseat, he set out for a weak light burning about a half mile up the road.

It was a horrible trek, long and cold, and he cursed God and a few less kind things many times along the way. But in the end, his misfortune had turned to gold, because Heaven lay at the end of his journey. What a coincidence, he thought. Lying up a horribly long, muddy path was Regan Manor, a shining beacon in the evening rain. "Well." he smiled a little to himself. "This turned out better than expected."

He let himself into the house without knocking (he'd been doing that for weeks), and headed upstairs to the restroom, thinking that he might run into Claire along the way. He hardly looked attractive, but maybe she was into the whole Nightingale thing.... Under normal circumstances, he would have paid more attention to the fact that he was tracking water across the Regan's beautiful marble floors, but he was soaked to the skin and he didn't much care for anything.

That was, of course, until he ran into the lady of the house. Literally. "Sorry! Oh, sorry." he muttered, barely sparing a glance until he realized it was Darcy who he had knocked over. The very lady he had been meaning to see! So much to talk about. The disappearances, her new houseguests... and, of course, what was to happen to the Manor after this sad business was sorted out and over with. "Darcy, it's so lovely to see you. My car broke down about a mile South. I'm sorry about the drippings--I'll clean it up after I've changed. Could you show me to the restroom, please?"

[quentinmorris-blog]

Stalking l Quentin and Jace

[thinksecond-archive]

Jace was surprised when Quentin blocked her in, she had nowhere to go and she hated feeling like she had her figurative back against the wall and now that it was literally happening, she hated that as well. She clenched her teeth as the infuriating man kept talking. This wasn’t the type of anger that Greg could stir in her, this was something else. Every word that came from his mouth.. Jace felt like she was being drenched in oil. Black. Putrid. Slick. Oil.

Before he could release her from his body blocking hold, Jace fanned her fingers out, pressing her fingertips into Quentin’s chest before she shoved… hard.. till his back would hit the opposite wall. She kept the pressure on his chest with her hand as she gave him a look filled with utter disdain, “Mister Morris, when you’re in my presence, at least keep a foot away from me at all times.” she had eased up her hand on his chest but not removed it and if his back eased up off the wall a millimeter even, she simply shoved with the pads of her fingertips again till his back hit the wall again. She gave him a smile but it was more menacing than friendly, “If you need a ruler, let me know.”

She stepped back and flicked a glance at the tax records file. Nice try, deputy dumbass. She held up one of the folder’s she was carrying, one of a few, and a bit of a newspaper article’s edge slipped out of it, clearly showing the headline was of an article about… him. “Oh I think I found exactly what I need. You know the best part about juicy secrets, Mister Morris?” she asked innocently with a gleam in her eye, “Finding them out.” she tucked the folder back on top of the other ones and headed for the door.

[quentinmorris-blog]

"I'll try, Miss. I'll try." he said smarmily, smirking slightly. The trick was to make your opponent uncomfortable, to surprise them, and then give them a little ground. Make them think they had won, that they were smarter, when it was anything but. Implant an idea--in this case, that he had actually been stupid enough to leave a paper trail during his many misdeeds--and let your opposition do the dirty work for you. He was the best Deputy Mayor east of the Mississippi River according to these files, but their might be a bit of information about Regan Manor that he'd missed. Jace didn't like him. But she didn't have to, in order to find what he needed her to. 

He didn't bat an eyelash as she walked to the door, keeping his eyes firmly planted on the meaningless information in front of him. "I'm glad you found our systems adequate, then." he replied innocently. "Good luck with your secrets. But if I could offer a last word of advice, I would only ask you to be careful. If my memory serves, and mine always does... they can be quite dangerous." He shut the file with a flick of his wrist and bypassed her on the way to the door, blatantly ignoring her previous rule. He held the door open for her. "I'll be in touch."

[owenscommaclaire]

Lovely Little Vanderbilt || Claire and Quentin

While the dinner party had been terribly exciting, it hadn’t been nearly enough material to write an entire book. She needed to know more, about the manor, about the town, and about the people. The first and last ones on the list were easy enough- she was finding things out about Regan Manor and its inhabitant every minute, just by living there. She knew where most of the guests’ rooms were already, and she’d either spoken to or eavesdropped on all of them at least once. But Vanderbilt? Who the hell cared about Vanderbilt? She’d probably place her novel in New York. All good novels were set in a gritty city of some sort. But, in order for it to seem truly organic, she needed to see what Vanderbilt was like. The only person in the entire manor who seemed to care about the area around them was the mayor though, so he seemed like the obvious choice. With that in mind, she decided to ambush him the next morning and force him to take her out on the town.

After a good night’s rest, she went about writing up her notes on the manor  -she definitely wanted to create a character similar to that gardener, he seemed very…interesting-, and trying out a few good potential plots. Nothing was set in stone, of course, but it was nice to just sit down and write. It had been days since she really just lost herself in her writing. After a decent amount of time had passed, she sighed, stretched, and stashed her writing notebook under her mattress for safekeeping. You couldn’t be too careful, especially in a place like this.

Claire changed into an outfit carefully selected to make her look good, and exited her room to find the mayor. From what she’d gathered through listening in on other people’s conversations before the dinner, he didn’t live at the manor like the rest of them, but he visited often enough that he might as well live in the manor. Humming softly under her breath, she set about hunting through the manor for the mayor. She was a guest in his supposedly lovely city, wasn’t he supposed to cater to her desires and give her a tour? Where was he when she wanted him?

[quentinmorris-blog]

Quentin sipped his coffee, looking out at the lawn in satisfaction. It was a beautiful day--the Autumn sunlight cast a lazy glow over the gardens, beckoning thoughts of siestas and afternoon tea. Whoever had built Regan Manor had chosen their location wisely--it was the prettiest stretch of land in miles, even though the patio was covered in stray bits of wet dirt and slivers of shattered adobe planters. If Darcy chose to sell the place, it would fetch a high price--and if she gave it to the fledgling Vanderbilt Historical Society, it would be a money maker for decades, in addition to giving the middle schoolers somewhere to visit on Field Trips that wasn't the Post Office.

A flash of blond reflected in the mirror to his left shocked him out of his reverie. It was that Claire girl, wearing some, er, very nice jeans.... very nice. Yes. He should talk to her. About the Manor. Of course. The woman turned, and he got a nice view of her equally nice... shirt. Her lovely, form fitting shirt. Nice. Yes.

After taking a moment to compose himself, he turned and shouted, "Claire!" he smiled at her, making an effort to look personally warm. "It's nice to see you... Are you looking for something?" She looked a little out of breath. He offered her some coffee. "Here. Ah, would you like me to give you that tour? It's a wonderful day for it."

[quentinmorris-blog]

Stalking l Quentin and Jace

[thinksecond-archive]

Jace realized somewhere between being poisoned and seeing Rebecca’s breasts that she was going to be mostly on her own for this ‘case’. She took a cab into town so she could focus on what she was writing in her notebook and that way she didn’t get lost. She had a horrible sense of direction and if she tried to drive into town, with her luck, she’d end up in Mexico.

She figured it wouldn’t hurt to learn more about the manor itself. The place was creepy and old but somethings didn’t make sense. People didn’t just disappear like that. They didn’t turn invisible, they went someplace. Unless it was ghosts or ghouls eating them, which would be kinda cool but not really plausible. Then again, she’d seen stranger things.

She stopped and put in a request for blueprints of the house at the appropriate office before she headed towards the hall of records. Quentin Morris, deputy Mayor wasn’t as skilled in stealth as he liked to believe because when he looked away for a second at the Hall of Records, Jace wasn’t there anymore. But when he’d start to look for her, he’d see her standing right behind him, papers in hand, arms crossed over her chest, giving him a glaring look, “Why are you following me.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand for an answer. She didn’t like Quentin, he wasn’t just a slippery politician, he was a gossipy teenage valley girl in a weasel man’s body who was hiding something.

And for the record, she wasn’t a cop type, she was a cop type’s girlfriend. Illusions, illusions, we show the world, delusions delusions we tell ourselves..

[quentinmorris-blog]

His first instinct was to back up an inch... or ten. When Quentin Morris had to make the decision between fight or flight, the latter almost always won. But he knew that wasn't the way to approach this woman, with her angry glare and suspicious disposition. So he stood his ground, matching her scowl with a blank expression. "Not following, Ms. Pritchard. Simply seeking to help." he smiled innocently. "I know these files like the back of my hand. I'm sure I could help you find... whatever it is you're looking for."

He pulled a softly yellowing folder from the cabinet behind her, effectively pinning her to the wall. "I do apologize that it isn't computerized. Vanderbilt is such a small town, and our funding is simply to meager to waste on that kind of vanity project." he said, acting as though he was oblivious to their new closeness. His voice was calm and measured, but held an undercurrent of cruel humor. The subtext was only half directed at her. "But if you can get over our paleolithic system, these files hold some of the juiciest secrets in town." he smiled coldly. "I believe you'll find everything you need in here. But feel free to look around.... after all, the more you know."

It was the perfect time to leave, but he simply released her from his hold and leaned against the wall opposite to her. He flipped through a binder labelled "TAX RECORDS: 1978-79" contentedly. "Happy reading," he said, not bothering to look up from the apparently fascinating file.

[quentinmorris-blog]

Stalking l Quentin and Jace

Though he had been the Deputy Mayor for over a year, Quentin had preferred to keep the downstairs office he had inhabited since his first promotion--from the begrudged, coffee running assistant to the male anchor at Vanderbilt's local news station. Some would call his methods catty, and maybe reporting the interoffice relationship to the Mayor was underhanded, but it got him the job. And Quentin's main objective was getting the job done... by any means necessary. Plus, it kept up that overeager, photogenic humble man boy appearance that had gotten him elected in the first place.

It didn't hurt that the spacious room was the old security room, and one wall was almost entirely windows looking out on the lawn. Once a gossip, always a gossip, and a suspicious amount of important events seemed to happen in full view of Quentin's ever watchful gaze.

On a cold day in September, he was hiding some old novel he'd found lying around at Regan Manor behind a larger book with "Law" printed on the cover. It was quite naughty, in its own way, and he wondered which of the house's intrepid guests had chosen this raunchy number for their already morbid vacation. But that was no matter, because that bit--unsavory woman was walking toward his City Hall. 

He scrambled to hide the smut in a drawer and pose innocently before realizing that she hadn't spotted him. Yet. Quentin smiled. Oh, this could work for him, if he played it correctly.

Perched behind his desk, he watched as Jace walked briskly into his building. She didn't seem to notice him, but he waited a few minutes to give her a lead before jogging on after her. The strange woman seemed to be headed toward the Mayor's office--no, that was toward... the Hall of Records. Oh, joy. Maybe she'd even brought a tape recorder.

These cop types, he laughed, idiots, the lot of them. 

[jackthegardener]

I know, sir. I’m sorry if I came off badly.

[quentinmorris-blog]

It's alright. I know you didn't mean it badly.

[quentinmorris-blog]

How are all of our guests doing? Is there anything I can do to make you more... comfortable?

[thinksecond-archive]

Well then, good thing we don’t have anything to hide.

[quentinmorris-blog]

It is.

Well, I must be going. I hope that you're successful in your endeavor to bring your friends home.