Well, sorry for not updating over the summer. I brought the story with me on my vacation, but never got the time to write in it (plus the confounded CD didn't work right.
Well, Anyway, enjoy.
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Abigail fell into the car. Immediately then she started raving about lunatics, yelling about documents and screaming about every thing in-between.
"They don't have it," Ben calmly explained. He pulled out a red leather poster case and took a white insulated container out of it. Then he screwed the cap off and showed her. "See? Ok? Now can you please stop shouting?"
"Give me that!" She shouted. Ben rolled his eyes. He screwed the cap on, and then pointed at her.
"You're still shouting, and it's really starting to annoy. And you would do well, Dr. Chase to be a bit more civilized in this instance."
"If this is the real one," she countered, "What did they get?"
"A souvenir," Ben simply replied, "I thought it'd be a good idea to have a duplicate, turns out I was right. I actually had to pay for the souvenir and the real one, so you owe me thirty five dollars, plus tax." Abigail was struggling to comprehend.
"Genius." Riley put in.
"Who were those men?" She asked, suddenly talking loudly again.
"Just the guys we warned you were going to steal the Declaration"
Riley took on the 'I told you so' attitude, "And you didn't believe us!"
Ben continued, "We did the only thing we could do to keep it safe." Abigail wouldn't have it. She slammed her fists on something, shouting something in German, and then demanded to have it in the same tone.
"You know something?" Ben asked, "You're shouting again."
"I'm pretty sure she was swearing too." Riley commented.
"Well," Ben admitted, "We probably deserve that." A little silence followed.
Then Abigail put her hands up to her face and said, "There is not a map on the back of the Declaration of Independence"
"And nobody could steal this," he shook the case provokingly, causing it to rattle, "Either! I leveled with you one hundred percent, everything I told you was the truth"
"I want that document, Mr. Brown!" She said, trying to sound as official as possible under the circumstances.
"Ok, my name's not Brown. It's Gates. I leveled with you ninety eight percent."
"Wait a minute; did you just say "Gates"?" She started. "Gates? You're that family with the conspiracy theory about the founding fathers!"
"It's not a conspiracy theory."
"Per se." Riley said. Abigail was suddenly relatively calm. Relatively.
"You know what? I take it back. You're not liars. You're insane." Then she asked about what they were going to do with the Declaration of Independence. He told them they were going to test it to try and find the map. Then she exploded over that.
"You can't seriously intend to run chemical test on the Declaration of Independence, in the back of a moving van!"
Riley contributed again. "We have a clean room environment all set up. EDS suits, Particulate air filtration system, the whole shebang."
Abigail looked from Ben to Riley, "Really?"
Ben shook his head. "We can't go back there."
"What?" Riley protested, "Why not?"
Ben then proceeded to account his tale of his sojourns in the gift shop. When he told them about the part at the check-out stand, Riley exploded. No one noticed but Kassidy moved her head a little bit.
"A credit-card slip? Dude, we're on the grid. They're gonna have your records from forever. They're gonna have my records from forever!"
Ben agreed, somewhat impatiently, as if to want to get the lecture over with. "I know, I know. It's only a matter of minutes before the FBI shows up at my front door."
"What do we do?" Riley asked in a rather urgent tone. "We need those letters." Ben told him.
Abigail was instantly curious. "What letters?"
The car drove down the street. "You know, get off the road. Take a right."
"What letters!" Abigail wanted to know. They drove on down the street.
Suddenly, Kassidy groaned from behind them and turned over, muttering about a carrot and cod liver oil.
Abigail looked at her and back at Ben, "Pray tell, Mr. Gates, who is that? Another employee? Drunk out of her mind, like the one in front?"
"Hey!" Riley interjected. Ok, so he wasn't the best driver, but who actually drove through the pot holes in the street?
"That's Kassidy Fisher. Kassidy doesn't drink. We have a hunch that the guys who wanted to steal the Declaration did that to her."
"Why, Gates? Because she might do her civic duty and turn them in?"
"Exactly."
Kassidy groaned again, and her coat fell back. She was too thin. Sure, she was nicely slim under normal circumstances, but her appetite filled her up too well to make her that thin. "Riley did you find her like this?"
"Like what?"
"Well, Riley, she seems to have been starved for several days."
Riley wasn't sure, "Maybe she just decided to go on a health program. You know the ones where you don't eat for a week and lose fifty bazillion pounds?" Ben shook his head.
"Kass was strange in that way. She never really liked diets except for one, and that was hers. She said no caffeine; no alcohol, no tobacco, healthy sleeping hours, exercise and a dose of the basic food pyramid would keep her healthy. And it did. Looks like she was laying off the food pyramid part." They soon arrived at the park. Ben checked Kassidy over to make sure that besides her thinness, she wasn't in danger of dying any time soon. She wasn't. And then he answered Abigail's question. Again, she protested. "You have the original Silence Dogood letters? Did you steal those, too?"
Ben simply replied, "We have scans of the originals. Quiet please."
"How did you get scans?"
"I know the person who has the originals. Now shush!"
"Why do you need them?" Abigail asked. They heard Kassidy turn over in the back of the van, knocking something over.
"She really can't shut her mouth, can she?" Ben said exasperatedly. Then he compromised, "I'll tell you what, look. I will let you hold onto this, if you promise to be quiet! Please! Thank you." Then He and Riley went back to brain storming the problem. Riley, however, already had an answer.
"Ben you know what you have to do." He started.
"I know what to do," Agreed Ben, "I'm just trying to think of anything else we could do."
Riley ran his fingers on the side of his car, "Well, not be a, uh, nudge, but you do realize how many people we have after us. We probably have our own satellite by now." Ben was agonizing. Riley continued, and Abigail was concentrating on getting her shoes off. "It took you all of two seconds to decide to steal the Declaration of Independence!"
"Yeah, but I didn't think I was gonna personally have to tell my dad about it!" Ben replied. Then Abigail ran for it.
"Hey," Ben's voice rose at an alarming rate, "Not cool, not cool!"
"LEMME GO!" Abigail protested. Ben wrested away the Declaration and then waved her off.
"Ok, you're let go now shoo!"
"I'm not going. Not without the Declaration!"
"Well, you're not going with the Declaration!"
"Yes, I am. I'm not letting it out of my sight, so I'm going." Abigail grabbed the strap of the Carrying case and held on tight.
"Wait. You're not going with us, with the Declaration." He started to turn away. She pulled him back forcefully, strengthened by her determination.
"Yes I am."
"No, you're not!"
"Look, if you had wanted to leave me behind, you shouldn't have told me where you were going." Riley groaned and leaned his head back against the van. Then Kassidy groaned as well. Riley jumped in the back.
"Hey Kass, you ok?" Her eyes flickered open halfway, but they weren't focused. Then she groaned again, and turned on her side to face the back of the van. As Abigail and Ben came back to the car, Riley commented to them, "Can someone keep an eye on Kassidy? She's coming to, and from all her moving around, she might knock something over again."
Ben couldn't resist teasing him, "You sound like her boyfriend. What, does Riley have a crush on a certain someone we all know?"
Riley, being Riley (well, he couldn't exactly be anyone else) immediately denied it, and started the car. Ben moved Kassidy just a little bit and then held her hand in his, to make sure she couldn't really do anything. They drove for about two and a half hours and got there about midnight. Kassidy's medicine had partially worn off, but she was sleeping off the rest of it. The drove up to the house and Riley put on the break. "Looks ok," he announced.
"Park a couple blocks away." Ben ordered.
"Well, how long do you think we got?" Riley asked.
"I'm gonna give them a couple of hours, at least." He said, and then amended his words. "I hope."
"What do we do about her?" Riley asked, "I've got some duct tape in the back. And what about Kassidy? I don't feel good about leaving her here."
"No, that won't be necessary; Dr. Chase won't be any trouble. Promise you won't be any trouble?"
Abigail rolled her eyes. "I promise."
"See, she's curious. As about Kassidy, um, Riley do you think you could carry her all the way to dad's house?"
"Um, I think so. In her condition, she'd just have to not wake up, or move suddenly." Riley said. He wasn't looking forward to it. He hated carrying things, even if it was a shopping bag.
And so, the three (ahem, four) comrades parked the car and then walked to Ben's father's house. Ben rung the doorbell and Riley gently woke Kassidy up. She woke up softly, and Riley let her slowly to the ground, and supported her. Kassidy was too tired and too drugged to think about anything, so she just put her head on Riley shoulder and dozed.
Then the door opened. Patrick Gates, in all his glory (and bathrobe) stood in the door.
"Dad." Ben greeted his father. "Where's the party?" His dad asked.
"Uh, well, uh, I'm in a little trouble." Patrick looked over at Abigail and Kassidy, on either side of Riley. "Are either of them pregnant? And why is your friend Kassidy drunk, Ben? When you wrote me about her, you said that she wasn't that kind of person."
"Kassidy isn't drunk. She had a stomach ache and she took too much medicine. But, if either of them are pregnant, are you going to leave the woman carrying your grandchild standing out in the cold?" Ben asked, rather innocently.
Patrick thought about it for a minute, and then let them inside, inviting them to make themselves comfortable. "There's some pizza, still warm I think." Riley had to carry Kassidy quite bodily over to the couch, because her limbs were still relatively unresponsive. Riley let her down gently, and then stood over by Abigail.
"Dad, I need the Silence Dogood letters. Yes, it's about the treasure."
Patrick Gates turned angrily to Abigail and Riley. "And he dragged you two into this?"
"Literally," Abigail informed him, hugging herself self defensibly. Kassidy groaned incomprehensibly and turned onto her side. She felt sick, and didn't want anyone to talk to her until she felt better.
"I volunteered." Riley supplied.
"Well, un-volunteer, before you waste your life."
"Knock it off, Dad." Ben started.
"Sure, Sure, I know," Patrick started angrily, "I'm the family kook. I've got a house, a job, health insurance. At least I had your mother, for however brief a time. At least I had you." Riley crossed over to the cold pizza, sitting near Kassidy's feet.
"Who do you have?" Patrick asked, "Him?" He pointed his question toward Riley. Riley half gnawed half choked on a piece of pizza, unsure how to respond.
"Look," Ben said, "If you just give us the letters, we're gone."
Patrick crossed the room angrily, "You disappoint me, Ben." Kassidy's awareness was growing, even if she wasn't happy about losing a chance to sleep. She had been aware, however, that there was an argument going on above her. She didn't know the particulars until her hearing and mind cleared just a little bit more. She also heard Riley chewing loudly. With his mouth open. If she ever had a worse pet peeve, she didn't know it. Kassidy kicked him in the side of his ribs. Well, it was more of a nudge. She still didn't have much strength in her limbs. Yet. But even that small exertion was enough to make her exhausted. When her mother was alive, she would comment after Kassidy had taken a Tylenol, or some other pain killer,
"Even though you feel just fine, your body isn't, so don't overdo it." Needless to say, Kass would nearly always overdo it, usually resulting in a relapse, or something akin to that.
"I found the Charlotte." Ben said quietly. Kassidy's interest was perked. But, of course she knew the details. Well, some of them at least.
"The Charlotte? You mean she was a ship?"
"Yeah, and she was beautiful. It was amazing Dad."
"And the treasure?" Ooh, sticky business.
"Uh, no," Bad move, bad move. "But we found another clue that led us here..."
"Yeah, and that'll lead you to another clue. And that's all you'll ever find is another clue. Don't you get it, Ben? I finally figured it out. The legend says that the treasure was buried to keep it from the British." Patrick's voice was getting louder and louder, but then softened as he continued to talk, "But what really happened was the legend was invented, to keep the British occupied searching for buried treasure. The treasure is a myth."
Ben scoffed softly and then said, "I refuse to believe that."
Patrick made a move to perhaps dissuade Ben, but then he stopped. "Well, you can believe what you want, you're a grown person. What am I doing? Do what you want, Ben. Do what you want."
"He's probably right." Abigail put in, "You don't even know if there is another clue"
Ben had a hard expression on. "Well, I can think of a way where we could find out. And we can find out right now." The three people immediately started preparing for the tests. Kassidy had giving in and was zonked out on the couch, sleeping off the ill effects of the drug. Finally Ben pulled out the Declaration of Independence. Abigail watched warily as he spread it out gently on the living room table, biting her lip anxiously. She glanced over to Kassidy for a moment, eyeing her up and down, and then turned to the two men again. Ben was busy slipping on a pair of plastic gloves, and then he turned to her and held out a pair.You want to help?" He asked. She gave him a scowl and strode over to him, grabbing the gloves and pulling them on.
"Looks like animal skin." Patrick said, glancing in from the kitchen and he stood in the doorway. Ben glanced up at him but quickly looked back down, nodding, Patrick asked, "How old is it?"
"About, two hundred years."
"Really? You sure?"
"Pretty darn." The older man nodded once, looking at the curiously, and continued to watch the group huddle over the parchment. Abigail glared at Ben who merely returned his attention to the Declaration, "Now, if this thing's in invisible ink, how do we look at it?" Patrick's eyes lit up.
"Throw it in the oven!" He replied, chuckling softly.
"NO!" Abigail and Ben both exclaimed.
The older man shrugged. "You need heat." He said, carrying his cold pizza and drink back to the kitchen. Kassidy snorted softly in her sleep and mumbled.
Riley crossed the room, thinking that it would be something important. "What?"
Kassidy looked up at Riley, "No more toothpaste, mom. It's making me sick. Oh, mom! I didn't know you cut your hair?"
Riley put on his best motherly voice. Kassidy was going to hate him for it later, but he just couldn't resist, "I had it done this morning. Oh, and Kassidy, there will be no more toothpaste."
Kassidy smiled sweetly and tiredly then said, "I'm going to kill you, Riley. Just as soon as I'm done sleeping…" She dropped her head back into her arms and drifted off back to sleep.
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Admittably, an odd place to leave off, but please forgive me anyway. Well, I hope you enjoyed this, and please review!
Bejo