Chapter Thirteen
lizzie-harrison- Of course I'll include the line about the finders fee! Ha, Riley harped about ti so much in the movie I couldn't possibly let it go. Of course, that won't come until the end, if they find the treasure.
Kestrel- It IS a conspiracy! The government is trying to cover it up! Rage against corporate America! Hah, sorry, had to get that out of my system.To answer your question, it has absolutely nothing to do with Ian, he's just wallowing in self-imposed brother guilt. He's thinking that someone might have found out about Claire's whole Blackbeard thing because they were keeping tabs on him. Hah, I knew you'd love the floral man! Sadly, now that he actually has a name I can't call him floral man anymore. I'm glad you approved of the whumpage! Since you've reviewed, like, every chapter amazingly I thought I owed you at least some Riley violence. Looking back, I was a little skeptical over Claire's being able to start a truck with a bobby pin. I mean, everyone can pick a lock, but start a car? O well. Ahh, I was SO distracted during the movie by Riley's eyelashes! They were, like, a foot long! Oh man, I wanted to rename the Chapter "Pepper Spray girl and Unconcious guy" but it wouldn't fit. :(
Elvenrarehunter-Hah, I love lines like "a few French fries short of a happy meal." I have, like a billion of them, like "A few logs short of a roaring fire" and "A few crayolas short of a 64 pack." hah, I could go on all day, but something tells me you would stop reading. Wait! You're not supposed to like Martin! (oops. I suck at writing bad guys) I get a cookie! Yay! (muches on cookie) Do I get a cookie every time I update?
Whisperwings- Yay! I'm glad you liked the non-cliffie chapter. Sorry I took so long to update-high school is a bitch, pardoning my French.
Classicreviewer-Yeah, I know Isabella! We're buddies from school! (waves) Man, if you ended up going to our school too that would be really weird. You probably just know her from her kickass stories though. Thank her for me for telling you about my story!
OriontheHunter-Wow, this is your first NT fanfic? I'm honored-even though there are a LOT of better ones out there, you read mine. J Thanks!
A/N- Err, I'm leaving a space where you can scream obscenities at me for taking forever to update. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, now that you've got that out of your system, I'm sorry! I'll try to be quicker! But isn't screaming obscenities at a computer screen fun? Do it again, just for effect.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing, please forgive me for the slight Ben bashing in this chapter. I heart Ben, but this was needed for those pesky plot things. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and please Review! When I don't get a lot of reviews I go into a funk and can't write.
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Chapter Thirteen
Despite growing up with five rowdy brothers, Riley never drank much. Never having been described as a tactful person, alcohol further loosened his already loose tongue, and usually resulted in awkward situations he later regretted. So after a few mortifying scenes in college, he swore off getting drunk.
But based on his painfully throbbing head, he had gotten completely and thoroughly smashed last night. The only thing that was missing was the annoying light making his eyes hurt. He opened them and realized that it was dark out, and he was in an unfamiliar bed.
"Riley? Are you awake?"
He froze at the feminine voice. There was a girl in the room. Crap, he must have gotten really plastered.
"Riley?" a man questioned this time.
This was a voice he knew well. But what was Ben doing here? Rolling over slowly and wincing as his head gave another throb, he saw Ben and a pretty blonde girl standing over his bed. Everything came rushing back to him. The treasure hunt, Claire, the floral man, his head. He didn't have a hangover then, just a bleeding head wound. Somehow his situation had worsened.
"Ow" he muttered, running his hand over the back of his head until it came in contact with the blood-encrusted ridge. "Do you guys have any Advil?"
Claire quickly ran into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water and two red pills. Riley sat up, grimacing, and swallowed them dry. Claire rolled her eyes halfheartedly and drank the water herself, looking a little shaky as she resumed her seat next to his bed.
"Are you feeling nauseous or delirious?" Ben asked him while peering at his eyes with a flashlight.
"Nauseous? No. But the bright light in my eyes is kind of making me dizzy." he quipped weakly. "Do you mind?"
Claire snorted. "He's fine Ben. If he had a concussion he'd be puking all over us and fainting."
"I'm just checking. You really gave us a scare, Riley," Ben replied gruffly, clicking off the flashlight.
As the Advil began to dull his pain, Riley felt his embarrassment return. Ben and Claire were hanging around his bed like he had died or something.
And there was the fact that he was always the one who got injured. Which obviously meant that by now he was designated as the "guy everyone had to take care of."
"I'm fine." he protested, further propping himself up. "It was just a bump, you and Abbie didn't have to come back to the hotel."
Claire stared at him disbelievingly. "Riley, you had a severely bleeding head wound. You should probably be at a hospital right now."
He waved his hand at her and winced as he realized that it was the same hand presently streaked in blood. Claire's eyes widened as she saw it and Ben started.
"Riley, what the hell happed to your hand?" he groaned. "Did you punch a wall or something? There are glass shards in it!"
Claire bristled slightly as Ben's tone suggested that Riley had done something obscenely stupid. Which, of course, he had, but it was an obscenely stupid move that had saved her life.
"He punched a truck window in so we could escape." she informed him defensively. "If he hadn't, we probably would've been shot."
Ben raised his eyebrows at Claire's tone, and she blushed. Riley tried to look nonchalant, but he was a bit ecstatic at having someone stick up for him.
"Well, I put some Bacatracin on it, so as long as it doesn't open up again, you should be fine." Ben instructed. "Don't pick at it." he added firmly as Riley's hand reached for his wound once again. "I'm going to go back to my room. Try not to get into any more trouble until tomorrow morning, okay?"
Riley grinned at him, trying not to be offended. Ben didn't mean to sound belittling, but sometimes he felt like a troublesome kid that Ben felt obligated to drag around.
Claire yawned and rose from her chair, stretching. Riley expected her to leave for her room too, but instead she plopped down on the couch a few feet away.
"What are you doing?" he demanded as she snatched a pillow from a nearby armchair and rested her head on it.
"I'm trying to get to sleep. This couch is damned uncomfortable though."
Riley sat up. "You don't have to stay here. I'm fine, I'm not going to slip into a coma overnight!" he said angrily.
"Yeah, but your cut thing could open up and bleed everywhere, so Ben told me I should stay here."
Riley's mild irritation turned to outright resentment. "I'm twenty six, not twelve! I don't need a babysitter! And you don't have to obey him!"
Claire also sat up, looking annoyed. "Riley, you almost died today, Ben is just concerned. And I'd be here even if he hadn't told me to. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to sleep."
Dropping back down on the couch, she seemed to fall asleep immediately, leaving Riley to try to decipher what she just meant. As the minutes passed by, his eyes drooped and he slid down, relaxing. He was just about to succumb to sleep when Claire spoke again.
"Riley?"
"What?" he mumbled.
"Thanks."
Riley's eyes opened, puzzled. "For what?"
"You know, the whole punching the truck in to save our lives thing." she whispered. "I really did not want to be shot by that guy, but I probably wouldn't have the guts to punch in a window."
Riley grinned, glad she couldn't see his face. "No problem." he said nonchalantly. "It barely even hurt."
"Don't lie, Riley." Claire said, snorting.
"Alright, maybe it hurt a little."
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Claire had been fourteen when she found out her brother was a criminal. Ian could remember the day as if it was last week; it had been October 22nd, and she simply walked up to him and asked him if he was really a businessman. He had figured she was old enough and gently laid out the entire story. He was a criminal, but of course he never hurt any good people if he could help it. Above all, he pressed that she would never be in danger because of his job.
He remembered her, sitting across from him at the kitchen table and grinning.
"I always knew you would suck as a businessman."
The rest of her high school years had passed on without any trouble, until a particular fraud incident where he was almost caught and would have been given life in prison. Luckily, his men had been trained well and they managed to extract themselves from the situation in time. Claire read about the plot in the newspaper and connected the dots. She had cornered him in the study the next day and made him swear that he would leave behind his criminal practices.
"What if you had gotten caught?" she had demanded, her eyes brimming with angry tears. "Ian, if you keep on doing this you're eventually going to be put in jail! Then where will you be? Where will I be? Did you ever stop to think that I would go to foster care if you were put in prison?"
The last statement had struck a chord of guilt, and he agreed to stop all illegal activity and be the businessman he had pretended to be for years.
Of course, this promise had lasted all of a week. Ian Howe needed the rush that breaking the law gave him, like druggies needed their rush of heroin. He had retuned to his men, and said nothing to Claire. She would be going to college in a year or so, and would be blissfully happy.
Two years later, after he had lost all connection with his sister, Ian Howe regretted not telling her more than anything.
"Howe!"
Ian jerked his head up to see Dawes staring at him.
"Are you alright? You were in a trance or something."
He grunted and ran a hand through his hair tiredly. "Just revisiting old memories." Dawes nodded and resumed looking at the stack of papers she was holding.
"Hey do you know if Robinson was Claire's thesis adviser her sophomore year in college?" she asked. "Isn't that usually when they appoint those things?"
"What does that have to do with the case?" Ian snapped. Dawes looked surprised at his sudden moodiness.
"I was wondering how long they had known each other. Was he?"
"I don't know!" Ian barked. "We weren't speaking then."
Dawes dropped her papers on her desk, clearly expecting a story. "May I ask why?"
"……….. I told her I was done with illegal activities and she walked in on some…..negotiations when she came to surprise me over spring break." Ian muttered. "We didn't speak for a year. Can we please get back to the case now?"
Dawes raised her eyebrows and picked up her files again. That explained a lot about Ian Howe and his bordering-scary protectiveness of his sister. They must, she thought, have been some pretty scary negotiations.
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"So you still haven't told us the clue that lead you to Blackbeard's headquarters." Abigail interjected as their small hot car sped down the street to their destination.
"I haven't?" Claire asked, surprised. "Oh. This one was relatively simple. In the eighteenth century they sealed letters with wax with an emblem imprinted on it."
She pulled out a yellowing letter from her "historical bag of tricks", as Riley had come to call it. She showed Abbie the crumbling red circle on the back flap.
"Usually this wax seal had the family crest or whatever. However, Blackbeard imprinted a heart with an arrow flying toward it, as depicted on the flag of the Queen Anne's' Revenge. However, inside the heart are two numbers:4 and 13. This, using the numerical decipher, is HQ, or headquarters. So, obviously we need to look for someplace in the Headquarters that has the arrow and heart engraved into it."
Riley made a face. The back of his head was itching terribly and making him fidgety. "But won't most of the Headquarters be closed off to tourists?"
Claire shrugged. "Usually they let me in places when I tell them I'm doing a research paper from Harvard. They like the publicity. If not….."
Abbie grinned. "Then we'll have to do it you way honey." she teased Ben. "Just jump over the "No Entrance" rope and tallyho up the stairs!"
As they entered the building, four pairs of eyes started to roam the walls and ceiling of the expansive building. Claire immediately started for the study, and noticing her departure, Riley gestured to Abbie and Ben and followed.
"Why do you think it's in the study?" he asked, catching up to Claire.
"Secret hiding places are always in studies." she informed him. "Haven't you ever read a Sherlock Holmes book?"
Ben was studying Blackbeard's bookshelves; they were arranged curiously, and there seemed too many for the number of books he had accumulated.
"Excuse me," he asked, tapping a tour guide on her shoulder. "Have the bookshelves been moved in any way?"
"No sir." the guide replied. "They've been that way since Teach's time. We tried to take them out to renovate them, but they were built into the wall."
He thanked her and began counting the bookshelves. There were exactly thirteen. He waved over the others.
"Look," he said quietly, pointing. "There are thirteen bookshelves. We should look on the fourth row of the thirteenth."
Claire nonchalantly strolled over and examined the thirteenth bookshelf, pretending to have an interest in the books. Pushing a few of them aside gently, she spotted a carving in the corner. Peering down for a closer look, she could se that it was burned into the wood. A small heart and a miniscule arrow. The arrow, she noted, was pointing downward at the floor instead of at the heart. Walking briskly back to Ben, Abbie and Riley, she grinned and nodded.
"I found it. There's and arrow pointing downward and a heart. I think I know what we have to do, but we're going to have to come here tonight, when no one is here." She smiled nervously. "I guess we're going to have to do things your way, Ben."
The four were so busy quietly celebrating that they failed to notice the man pretending to study an antique lamp with his back turned to them. He wasn't wearing a floral shirt anymore, but Martin Lander was still hard to miss, unless you were really distracted. Which, they were.
As soon as Claire, Riley, Ben and Abbie left, he whipped out his cell phone.
"Deachat? I have them. They're going to come here to tonight, they found their clue on some bookshelf."
Deachat sounded happy, an emotion that sounded eerie with his voice. "Excellent. We'll be waiting, of course. We should arrive as soon as the museum closes and find somewhere were we can observe them without being seen,"
"I'll bring the stun guns and rope. Do we need anything else?"
Deachat's voice became sinister in a way that made Lander's hair stand up on the back of his neck.
"Bring your gun too, Lander. We certainly don't need all of them."
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Ahh! I added a cliffie this time because their so much fun! Please Review! I promise I'll update faster! I broke 40 today and it made me so happy I wrote the entire chapter! I swear I'll make the next one full of action and all that jazz if you guys review!