Lock and Key

Disclaimer: I don't own National Treasure.

A/N: Revisiting the idea of Ian's sister and what stemmed from it, but hopefully better. Most likely different. And I finally found the name of the girl in the scene I was basing this off of.
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Chapter One

"You're him. Riley Poole. I recognize you from your book. Can you sign it?" a voice asked. Riley dropped his bag of stuff and smiled at the dirty-blonde-haired girl in the tan jacket. As happy as he was that she knew his name, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what she was doing talking to him.

"Uh, yeah," he replied. "Sure. Wanna walk? I don't have a pen, so I have to..."

"Sure, it's fine." She pulled a pen out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him so he could sign her copy of the book. Then they walked side by side amid the crowd of faces. His elation was soaring through the roof.

"So, what're you doing here?"

"Can't I have fun, coming here, seeing a place that's been in the news?" she said with a shrug.

"No, it's just, I have no idea who you are, and people appearing out of nowhere make me sort of antsy."

"You wanna know my name, don't you?"

"It'd be nice."

"Jackie Jones."

"Nice to meet you, Jackie." He squinted, studying her eyes for a moment, and then asked. "Are you wearing contacts?"

"No."

"Just looks like you are a little bit."

"You'd be surprised how much I get that."

Riley chuckled and looked over several shoulders at Ben and Abigail. Jackie followed his gaze and narrowed her eyes. "They're back together again," he said.

"She looks like a Fury," she whispered.

"What do you have against blondes?"

"Nothing. I can just tell when a person is hell to be around, let alone live with."

"Oookay. Guess you don't like Abby, then."

"She's not making the best first impression."

"Don't tell Ben that."

"I won't hurt his precious girlfriend's feelings. Don't worry." Riley nodded and swallowed, and Jackie returned her attention to him.

"Where're you from?" Riley asked.

"Boston."

"Don't tell Ben about that, either, because he'd going to give you some really long speech about how people there did something in history and had fun."

Jackie smirked. "My brother would probably do the same thing."

"You have a brother?"

"Yeah, but I'm used to him."

"What's his name?"

"Ian."

"Huh?"

"There are a lot of Ians, Riley. What were you expecting?"

Riley shrugged. "I dunno. Dakota or something."

"Things are not always as they seem." Jackie glanced down at her purse as her phone vibrated. "Excuse me, I have to take this," she said and walked off to the very fringes of the throngs of peope. She threw a look over her shoulder at Riley, making sure he was out of earshot, and answered her phone. "What?" she snapped.

"Who is this?" the voice on the other end replied. "Why do you-"

"Shh. They can't know, and neither can anyone listening in. You know as well as I that I needed to disappear. Tell me why you're calling me in the middle of something so I can get back to talking to a cute guy."

"Don't think you can."

"What happened?" She lowered her voice, certain she'd lose control unless she took the utmost caution.

"It's your brother. He called from prison. A couple guys keep roughing him up, he said, and they got to him this time, too. They kept talking about...you know, ole Billy." William, she thought.

"Why do they want him so much?"

"I dunno. Apparently he couldn't ask. The guards had to take him to the prison hospital, with broken bones."

"Roughing him up? Sounds like downright targeting him for assault."

"That's what Sadusky thinks, too."

"What?"

"After your brother called, Sadusky phoned, said he wanted to ask you a couple questions to see if he could figure out if these thugs are working for somebody like their theory goes."

"When does he want me there?"

"ASAP."

"Okay, I'm on my way." Jackie hung up and walked back toward Riley. "I really need to go, but I'm in the phone book."

"You mean I can call you?" Riley asked.

"Absolutely. In fact, it's encouraged, but not past midnight, since odds are I'll be passed out asleep."

"Okay."

Jackie smiled, nodded, and walked toward the parking lot, realizing her phone was in her hand and returning it to her purse. Once in her car, she took a deep breath, adjusted her mirror, and said, "Cheerio."