“Val?” she said inadvertently, feeling so frustrated at her unanswered questions that she spoke with authority.
“Yes, love?” Val smiled and joined her in the room.
“You say that piece is a family heirloom? Which family member gave it to you?” she asked mildly, keeping it conversational.
“Oh, my mother gave it to me. Apparently it belonged to a very important family member of ours who lived lifetimes before me, so I thought it was a great honor, you know, for it to be passed on to me,” Val explained, sipping her whisky.
“If I may ask, Val, what do you do for a living?” Sam asked from the doorway, using his boyish charm to coax her.
“I do security consulting,” Val said, her words falling on Sam and Nina like anvils. They exchanged brief glances, their looks giving a resounding ‘Bingo!’ at her answer. That was it! That was the click in the combination lock of their prying. Nina fought a victorious smile.
A security consultant would be the perfect inside man, woman, person and Val was the link. She was the one making sure that the museum alarm system, CCTV streams and radio contact went ape-shit whenever the robbers came onto the premises. This is how she came to own the Lochar Moss Torc and the other lesser notable items she carelessly boasted on her person in town. Now it made sense.
Now, Nina knew, she and Sam could not only do something about the reckless endangerment of lives, but also stomp out the destruction and pillaging of world cultural treasures. As a historian, she was passionate about the protection of folk heritage and the preservation of ancient vestiges.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any lowlife asshole somewhere get away with destroying the last bit of rich civilization we have left in this plastic world!” Nina hissed when she closed the door, watching the brake lights of the bike fade into the distance of the night.
“I have a strange feeling about all of this, Nina” Sam said, still skeptical of the absolute blame Nina directed at Val.
“Oh God, please. Not again, Sam. For fucks sake, have you lost your edge? Can’t you put two and two together? It’s right there in front of us!” she shrieked. That furious temper flared again as it always did when she smelled injustice.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong!” Sam snapped back and took her by her upper arms to get her attention. “All I am saying is just go with it. Let’s go see what the day holds. She’ll be with us all the time and you can spend it all snooping about the details of her profession. Maybe she doesn’t even know that she is aiding a smarter party,” he argued.
“Sam, she is wearing the fucking relics! The loot is around her neck. Christ, how much more proof do you need? Have you lost your edge from all the… the fucking therapy and shit that you have been using to cower from what you used to be so good at…?” Nina screamed. Sam’s glimmering dark eyes fell hard into hers. She stopped immediately, mute with regret. Nina gasped and watched her friend’s mouth fall open in defeat. His dimples had faded, his lips no longer smiling and she could have sworn she saw the glisten of tears on the onyx of his stare.
“Oh my god, Sam, I’m so sorry,” she pleaded as he calmly walked away to where his jacket was lying on the couch. “Sam! Please, forgive me. I’m a bitch. I… Sam stop!” she followed closely, her hair lashing as she gestured in apology. “Sam, I just miss you the way you used to be. I’m also tired of being scared and having my ass in a sling, but this is what we do! This is who we are now. When we met I was a desperate academic who got no respect and you were a shit hot journalist who lost the love of his life! That is who we were, Sam! And… and look how far we have come. Now you go and fuck it all up by being all… all fuzzy and safe. Jesus, a few years back you would have leaned into Val right there and then about who she was. You would have tracked her to see where she went to expose what she is up to and bring this fucking problem to the ground with a crash!”
He ignored her and threw his tumbler into the hearth, shattering it, releasing the fumes of cask matured malt into the flames. She had never seen Sam angry, not like this. His wild black hair stood out from the frame of his handsome face, his wet mahogany eyes smoldering under his perfectly formed eyebrows.
“Well, you seem to be fueled enough for both of us, Nina!” he yelled at her for the first time. His deep voice was alien to her, but she dared not back down. “Good luck with your single-handed apprehension of the culprits! You certainly don’t need a cowering ex-shit hot journalist to have your back. We all know how swimmingly you survive without me…”
“Listen to me!” she shouted, her desperate tone to change his mind. “I hate to see you lose your spark. You have lost your passion, that recklessness you swing so easily. I have missed you, Sam! God, I have missed you so much and I want you back! I WANT YOU BACK!” Now she pleaded.
“You want me back. What a joke!” he laughed out loud, but his laughter was brutal and cold as he stared her down with a steely leer, drenched in disdain. He was fed-up feeling for her, aching for her, wondering when she is going to exile him again when she needed him gone and being only too grateful when she asked him back.
“You are too busy fucking Dave Purdue to even notice that I exist! Until you need me, of course. Then you call. I’m just your back-up, your sidekick when your boyfriend throws you into the fire for his own gain without giving a shit! That’s me!” he spat the words at her.
“That is not true! You are my best friend, Sam, and I miss you when we are apart for so long!” she still tried, but Sam would not hear it. He headed for the door. She screamed from the couch, her voice withering in defeat and tempestuous fury. “I’m only fucking Purdue to steal the Spear of Destiny! I don’t love him! I love…”
Sam turned at the door and faced her, but Nina had gone mute.
“You what?” he asked, astonished. Nina was not sure if he meant the cut off sentence or the objective of her relationship with Dave Purdue. She chose the safer secret.
“I am trying to find the Spear. He has it and he is going to use it for something despicable just to impress those pricks of the Black Sun. You know what that relic is capable of!” she rambled as he walked towards her, his dark stare burning into her, fixed on her agitated expression.
Nina’s chest heaved heavily in her upset, but she stood her ground. She never backed down, not for anyone, but she knew her hurtful words were uncalled for. Without a doubt, she was at fault for saying those things to him and she would do anything to keep him from leaving Wrichtishousis right then, from leaving her.
“Sam, I’m so sorry. I was a bitch who threw a tantrum, but I swear to God, I did not mean…” she said softly, but he interrupted her.
“You are a bitch, Nina. That is what I liked about you since the day we met. Now you want to steal the Spear from your boyfriend? You know that he will break up with you for that, right? Are you going to miss me then?” he lashed out and he loved it.
“Yes, I always miss you.”
It is all she said and she said it with such sincerity, her tone now low, sounding utterly vanquished. Her palms were on her thighs and her body quivering, but she never broke her gaze from his flaring stare. Without warning, Sam gathered Nina’s small body up into his powerful embrace and locked his lips deeply over hers in a passionate kiss that slowed the world they were in and stopped time entirely.