After lunch at Big Belly Burger, Oliver and Amber went over to SCPD for Amber's book and for something that's been sitting on Oliver's to-do list for far too long now.
"You didn't have to come in. It's a police precinct. I can't do any computer stuff in here even if I wanted to." Amber told her father as they both entered the bullpen.
"Actually, there's someone I need to speak with," Oliver said, his eyes scanning over the bullpen.
Amber cocked her head. "Are you in trouble again?"
Oliver rolled his eyes. "No. Just go find your book."
Amber sighed. "Fine." She gave in with a roll of her eyes. Just like her dad.
With Amber heading in the other direction, Oliver focused on McKenna, who stood behind her desk flipping through flies. He walked over to her, knocking on the partial wall divider to gain her attention.
Mckenna glanced up, smiling at Oliver. "I thought you gave up crime fighting." She joked.
"What?" Oliver frowned, panic taking over for a second.
"Well. The business with your sister, I figured... you'd stay out of police precincts." McKenna explained.
Oliver chuckled. "Yeah. Amber left a book at Jess's desk. And I saw you on the news and I realized that I never thanked you for everything that you did, so thank you." He glanced down at McKenna's desk. "So, you got promoted."
"Major Crimes." McKenna nodded.
"Wow!"
"And they assigned me to the Dodger case. He extorts people into stealing for him."
"How's that going?" Oliver asked, trying to appear genuinely interested in her work.
"Slow," McKenna answered before stepping away for a moment.
Seizing this opportunity, Oliver grabbed McKenna's phone and slipped the bug Felicity made into its case. Then he returned the phone to the desk just as McKenna came back.
"It was nice seeing you the last time that I saw you," Oliver said.
McKenna smiled in agreement. "Yeah. It's good seeing you too. It was like old times except the PG version."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, you and I always knew how to have a fun time. Something that's been missing from my life lately."
"So how about a drink? Not now. Would you maybe, out, I-I'll take you for a... Would you like to have dinner with me, McKenna?" Oliver finally forced the question out. "I don't know if you heard, I was on a deserted island for five years and I'm totally out of practice..."
"Hm. Well, dinner would be nice. Uh, in fact, I can make myself free tonight." McKenna suggested.
Oliver thought for a moment, trying to make sure he didn't have any vigilante plans. "Yeah."
"Great."
"So, I'll grab you at eight?"
"That's perfect."
"Okay."
"Alright."
"I'm lingering. I'm gonna go." Oliver turned around, finding Amber waiting for him over by where they came in.
"That was embarrassing," Amber told him.
Oliver sighed. The last thing he needed was date advice from his ten-year-old daughter. "Did you find your book?"
"Yeah." Amber held up a stained book. "Someone spilled coffee on it."
"We can get you a new one." Oliver shrugged.
"That's not gonna bring my notes back."
"Your notes?"
Amber nodded. "I write notes in the margins." She said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Right." Oliver nodded as his phone went off. He pulled it out of his coat pocket, seeing a text from Felicity informing him that the bug was live.
* * *
After the precinct, Oliver dropped Amber off at the mansion, claiming that he had business to take care of at the club. Whatever it was, it had to be important because he left Amber home alone. It was actually nice to have the whole mansion to herself. Even if it only lasted an hour.
Amber lounged on the parlor sofa, reading one of the books she brought from Jessica's apartment when Thea got home.
"What are you doing here?" Thea asked, confused by Amber's presence.
"Reading?" Amber's answer came out more as a question.
"I meant, why are you here?" Thea clarified. "I thought you weren't allowed to be home alone."
"Me too, but here we are."
Thea shook her head, not really caring about the reasoning behind Amber being at home by herself. "Whatever. I'm actually glad you're here."
"Why?"
"I need your help." Thea sat down on the other side of the sofa. "Some jerk grabbed my purse while Laurel and I were out for lunch today and I need your help trying to find him."
"I'm not allowed to hack anymore." Amber reminded her aunt. "And I'm still grounded from computers."
"We're not doing anything illegal." Thea pulled a leather strap and chain out of her pocket. "He dropped this. I wanna find all the stores in the city that sell things like this so I can find whoever bought this and get my purse back. I just need an extra set of hands to help me google stores."
Amber thought for a moment. "Fine."
"Great." Thea grinned. "Let's go find this dirtbag."
The enthusiasm Thea had slowly dwindled as she called store after store and hit nothing but dead ends. She and Amber found out very early on that no one was willing to give the latter any information because she sounded so young. So they came up with a system where Amber found the stores and printed out their information so that it was readily available when Thea needed it.
"Anyway, I saw online that you sell a chain wallet with an eight ball on the chain. I was wondering if you could give me a name of one of your customers if I gave you a description?" Thea asked the worker she currently had on the phone. "Yeah, sure, you can call me back. You and every other used clothing and leather good store I've called today." She hung up angrily.
Oliver, who had just entered Thea's room, walked up to her desk dressed in a nice suit. "What was that about?"
Instead of answering her brother's question, Thea asked her own. "What's up with the fancy fancy?"
"What?" Oliver glanced down at his own attire. "Oh, um..."
"He has a date," Amber spoke up.
Thea gasped dramatically. "You have a date?"
"Contrary to popular opinion, I do have a life," Oliver said.
"Then why do you seem so nervous?" Thea inquired.
"Is it obvious?"
"Just be your charming and brooding self. I mean, girls seem to dig that. Isn't that how we got her?" Thea gestured to Amber.
"Thea." Oliver's eyes widened.
A notification popped up on Thea's computer. "Thank God. The printer is out of paper." Amber practically sighed in relief when she read the notification. "Please finish talking without me." She begged before leaving the room.
"Seriously?" Oliver glared at Thea.
"Am I wrong?" Thea rhetorically asked. "Brooding charm got you a kid. I'm pretty sure it can get you through a date."
Oliver sighed. "This girl is different. She knew me before the island, before I was--"
Thea's phone started ringing, interrupting Oliver. She eagerly grabbed it, getting hopeful when she saw that it was one of the stores calling her back. "That's CNRI. I've got to take this. Amber and I are working on a very important purse-snatching case."
"You're letting her use the computer?" Oliver raised an eyebrow.
"She's just printing out some stuff. I'm watching her," Thea promised.
"Okay." Oliver decided to trust his sister as he left her to work on her case.
"Hello?" Thea answered her phone. "Yeah, he-he might have been wearing a red hoodie." She looked up at Amber who had returned with a stack of printer paper, smiling at her. "Kind of Abercrombie-looking. His face, not the hoodie." She described the thief to the store employee.
Amber's eyes widened in surprise. "You found him?"
Thea shushed her niece, trying to listen to the person on the other end. "Really? You wouldn't happen to have his name...?" She grabbed a pen, scribbling down a name on a random sheet of paper. "Thank you so much."
"You found him?" Amber questioned again now that Thea was off the phone.
"Oh, yeah." Thea nodded. "Call Jess."
Amber's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Why?"
"So she can arrest this guy."
"She's in Gotham."
Realization dawned on Thea. "I forgot about that."
"Clearly."
"I'll just call Laurel." Thea picked up her phone again and dialed Laurel's number. "Hey, Laurel, uh, does your dad still, like, arrest people? I found the dirtbag. His name is Roy Harper."
* * *
The next day, Thea brought Amber with her and Laurel down to SCPD after she got a call from Detective Lance. The three girls stood in the viewing room, watching Roy Harper through the one-way window.
"Roy William Harper Jr." Detective Lance entered the interrogation room with the purse snatcher's file in hand. "Where's senior?"
"Norris Cemetery."
Detective Lance sat down across from Roy. "Sorry to hear that."
"You and an army of bookies." Roy sniped. "Can I go?"
"No. You've been ID'd as a suspect in a purse snatching." Lance informed. He glanced down at the open file in front of him. "It's quite a resume you've compiled here. Petty theft, B and E, petty theft. Stolen car. Well, it's nice to change things up once in a while. And petty theft. You got something against banks?"
Roy shrugged. "Well, it is hard to run with one under your arm."
"Well, maybe you'll learn a few new skills in prison."
"Look, I don't want to steal. Okay? I don't have any other choice. My mother, she... she has a problem."
Lance scoffed. "Yeah, her son's a moron."
Roy shook his head, fake tears starting to well up in his eyes. "No. Vertigo. She got hooked on vertigo last year. She kicked it, but I guess she'd done enough that... it messed her up. She hasn't been the same and her medical bills..." He took in a shaky breath. "Look, I'm-- I'm just trying to help her get out from under. Look, we're not privileged enough to have as much as other people. Okay?"
Thea stared straight at Roy through the viewing room window. "Fine. Let him go. It's just a damn purse, right?"
Despite the apathy Thea spoke with at the police station, she was still determined to get her purse back.
"Hypothetically, how would I find out where someone lives?" Thea asked Amber as soon as they were back home.
"Social media. Why?" Amber's tone turned suspicious.
"Do you really need to ask?"
"Nope." Amber shook her head. "Here." She pulled a small taser out of her jacket and handed it to her aunt.
Thea took it, a confused expression on her face. "I'm gonna need an explanation for this."
"It's my taser," Amber said. "Roy probably lives in the Glades and you've already been robbed there once."
"Thank you." Thea gave Amber a quick hug, touched by her niece's gesture.
A/N: I probably won't have an update next week because the upcoming chapters won't follow any episodes so they'll take a little longer to write.