"So Rube, what do you think is going to happen with this Covid stuff?" Clancy questions after meeting up with her at the Double Donut.

"Word is that it will be made a huge deal out of, the country will go into a complete lockdown, we won't finish school for the next two years, won't be allowed to leave our homes unless it's to go grocery shopping, and we can only do that once a month, and that when you do leave the house, you have to wear a PCP mask." Ruby replies, slightly smirking as she sees Clancy start to flap his arms, in both excitement and worry.

The thought of being able to not have to do French for the next two years sounded good, but having to be stuck with his sisters for 24/7 for two years straight did not. On the plus side, he wouldn't have to participate in the quickly approaching swim-a-thon again.

"Relax Clance, not all of it is true. At least I hope not. The girl scouts aren't really telling me all that much. Though, I wouldn't do any schoolwork this week if I were you." Ruby says with a smirk, watching Clancy smile and nod.

Ruby: On to far more interesting news-

Clancy: What can be more interesting than the whole world shutting down?

Ruby: It's rumored that the Hamilton movie is going to Disney plus July 3rd this year.

Clancy: What the heck?! I don't care how bad the mandates are; July 3rd 2020 at 8AM, I am coming over to your house, and we are watching Hamilton all day long, end of conversation. Hitch can join in if he must.

Ruby: You see, the bad thing is that Hitch was kinda the one who told me, and he's kinda watching it with the whole squad, so we're all going to be in the same room, watching Hamiton together.

Clancy: Who's us all?

Ruby: LB, Blacker, Froghorn, Hitch, SJ, Mrs. Digby, you, and myself.

Before Clancy could exclaim on how many people would be there, Ruby's watch started to ring, causing them both to glance at each other nervously.

"Speak of the devil and she'll appear." Ruby mutters before answering the watch, while paying for the food, grabbing Clancy, and dragging him somewhere more private, aka the tree.

"Redfort, I need you and Crew to come in immediately." LB drawls out, causing Ruby to try to fake innocence, to save Clancy from whatever LB was planning on doing to him.

"Clancy's not with me."

"Redfort, after people figured out that he was your main weak link, you honestly think that we wouldn't put a tracker on him? Why exactly do you think that Hitch gave him that pin and told him to keep it on him at all times? Now come in here now." LB states irritable before hanging up, not even conveying where the next way in is.

"So, how are we going to get there?" Clancy asks, seeming to read Ruby's mind.

"I'll figure something out quickly." Ruby promises before looking around quickly.

"Well I hope so. All the blinking of that...'' Clancy trails off as he's putting all the pieces together. It couldn't be, could it? "Ruby, didn't you say that the Spectrum logo is a fly?"

"Yeah, it is. Why?" She asks as she turns around and then sees what Clancy is seeing. The OPEN light up sign of Double Donut Diner was flickering, and it wasn't just normal flickering. It was morse code flickering, the flickering that spelled something out.

"Short, short, long, short means F. Short, long, short, short means L. And long, short, long, long means Y. FLY Spectrum's logo. Can't be a conscience can it?"

"I think that it's worth checking out." Ruby replies with the glint that Clancy hates to see in her eyes. It's that glint that she got when she was about to do something most likely illegal, frowned upon, and exciting. It was a look of adrenalin, excitement, and more than a bit of craziness.

They take off running towards trouble. That is sure. Going in through that internance always causes trouble for the people who go through it, and Ruby was about to get a world of trouble.

When they get around the side of Double Donut, they notice the chalked up fly, with a lock on it.

"You'd think that if they were going to put a lock on the door to the entrance, they would at least give us the combination." Ruby grumbles, extremely frustrated at everything that is going on. All she wanted was a peaceful day, to hang out with her friend and talk a bit. Not having to go into Spectrum, especially since she just solved a case, and was supposed to have the weekend off unless something very important happened.

It isn't until Clancy looks up that he laughs. "Looks like someones trying to test your code breaking skills today, Rube."

And indeed, people were testing her code breaking skills. She was going to need them extremely sharp for this case. Her friend being there... well that's for more her moral compass. That and to see just how attached she was to him.

"A pigeon code?! How stupid are these bozos? There are seagulls in Twinford, not pigeons." Ruby exclaims, as she climbs up the fire escape ladder to get a better view of the code etched in at a bird's eye view.

"So you figured it out yet?" Clancy inquires.

"If I had would I still be up here?" Ruby replied sarcastically.

"I don't know. You two seem to like trouble and for some reason you like being up in high spaces for no reason, kid." Comes a voice from the alley, causing Clancy to jump, and Ruby to nearly fall off her ledge from fright.

"Hitch?" Ruby hisses out, seething mad and embarrassed.

"You better believe it. Now, do you want to let me when you got so sloppy as to not see me here in the alley for this entire time? I hope that you do know that if I was the Count then you would be dead right now." Hitch replies, watching Ruby climb down the escape ladder, with narrowed eyes.

"You mean that Count isn't dead? How many lives does he have?" Ruby exclaims, slightly nervous.

"No, he's not. We just figured out that he has a hideout in Wolf's Paw mountain. Until then, LB wants both of you in headquarters, with people watching you at all times. She's not taking any chances with either of your lives this time."

"Come on. Let's get you two into headquarters right now. Clancy, you can hang out with Blacker, since Ruby has a small appointment with LB." Hitch says upon seeing their shock, and Ruby groans upon hearing about her 'meeting' with LB.

If they weren't in shock, then they would both see how he was different. They would see how his eyes are more bloodshot than usual, how tightly he was gripping his coffee cup, and how he kept glancing around. Yes, for the first time in his life, Hitch was slightly paranoid. Especially since they weren't just fighting against Count; they were fighting against what appeared to be Casey Morgan's ghost too.

Meanwhile, 20 yards away from the Double Donut...

There was a good reason for Hitch's paranoia, and someone who had indeed noticed it. For, Hitch had felt like he'd been watched that morning, and he had. Someone had been watching him for some time now, and knew all about him, and more importantly, and Ruby and LB.

"Really Zachary, you've gotten so very sloppy. You were much better than this 5 years ago. Much less accident prone, and much, much less likely to leave this nice trail for me to follow. Though, I do thank you for making my revenge so easy to obtain." A voice mumbles to themselves, before walking over to the tree on Cedarwood Drive.

'It's a miracle that they never discovered this.' The owner to the voice thinks as they push the carving on the tree, and watch it reveal a secret passageway in the lower corner of the tree.

Before anyone can see anything, the figure is gone, disappeared into a secret passageway. Yet, if anyone was around to hear it, they would have heard in a small, sad voice. "Why was the symbol of love? Why, since love doesn't exist, not for me. And someone, somewhere, decided that the both of us have to be reminded of that."

Indeed, the symbol was of love. If anyone had looked closely, and very few do, they would have seen a scratched up area of the tree. But, if they had looked, oh let's say, 13 years earlier on March 12, they would have seen a carved heart, with the name BB in the middle of an arrow, to be specific, Cupid's arrow, and the arrow was striking a name of LB. How weird, that the reality was about to imitate that picture.