Witnesses

The Crimson Syndicate

"Agatha Woodley, get this little devil out of my sight," Sophie hissed, batting Reaper away.

"He's going to sleep in my room. You'll be fine, Soph. I think you have bigger claws than him," Agatha retorted, tapping one of Sophie's long acrylic nails.

"He's staying?" Sophie asked, voice going up another octave. "We're not even allowed pets here. That's why you made me return Boobeshwar!"

"Yeah, because you were using the poor thing as your own personal servant! I'm also pretty sure that mongooses don't know the difference between satin, lace, and chiffon, so I had to return it before you whacked it with your high heel again."

Sophie crossed her arms and turned her face away. "The man who sold Boobeshwar to me said that his previous owner owned a boutique so what was I supposed to think?" she sniffed.

"I'm not doing this again. Reaper is staying, and that's final. You'll barely see him anyways, seeing as you're always skipping class or going to parties," Agatha said as she pushed past Sophie and into her room.

"You're still not over me dropping you off before Beatrix's party? We were too far away from here for me to drive ba-"

Agatha slammed her door, drowning out the rest of Sophie's sentence.

"Welcome home, I guess. I was hoping that Sophie would be a little more sympathetic, but I should've known better. That girl yells at children and kicks old people's wheelchairs when no one's looking," Agatha said to Reaper as he jumped out of her arms and onto her bed, where he immediately started chewing on the corner of her duvet cover.

Agatha sighed and plopped down onto her bed beside him. After lying there for a few minutes, she snatched the remote from her bedside table and turned on the little television on the wall.

Her eyes widened when she saw the words running along the bottom of the screen.

"Culprit who commited local gas station robbery and murder caught and identified as T.C.S. member who previously escaped from Camaldon prison."

Agatha recalled how shocked Millicent and Hort had been when looking at her drawing, and what the sketch artist had said- that the case had gotten a whole lot bigger.

Now Agatha knew why. The man they had described was part of The Crimson Syndicate- T.C.S. for short. T.C.S. was Camaldon's most feared crime ring, known for their years of carefully targeted offenses.

If T.C.S. was behind this, it had to be more than a freak drunk accident. Agatha kept the news channel on as she turned on her phone and hunted for further details on the case.

After about ten minutes of searching the web, this is what she came up with: A T.C.S. member who had previously managed to escape from Camaldon's prison had entered a local gas station and proceeded to rob it of all on-site earnings, as well as shoot and kill a store worker who was assumed to have past ties with The Crimson Syndicate. This part of the case was still under investigation. The entire gas station escapade had been disguised as a terrible accident committed by an every day civilian under the influence.

"Maybe Kiko wasn't innocent after all," Agatha thought out loud. She sighed, finally turning off the television. When she looked back down at her phone, she saw a new text from Tedros.

"Hey Woodley, did you see the news? They caught the culprit! The court date has been set for a few weeks from now, and then he should be in jail for good."

"Yeah, it's great that they caught him. I can't believe T.C.S. was behind it. To think we were so close to one of their members?"

"I know! It's crazy."