NOTE TO roban05: Good job! But I bet you didn't think it was as elaborate as this… :)
NOTE TO Guest: as I've said before, sorry, you're not going to find that here. Why don't you check out one of the other awesome stories?
TRIVIA: There's a nickname joke somewhere in this chapter…
?-?
"Lookie what I have here!" Bobby exclaimed, a barking black lab on a leash in tow.
"Can you possibly get it to shut up?" Myles complained, putting his hands over his ears.
"Why? I can't hear a thing." Sue said, smiling as she walked up to the little group. She received a glare from Myles.
"Where'd you find him? Jack asked.
"He was roaming around the front, this leash trailing behind. Not sure if he belongs to any of the neighbors, but I wanted to grab him before he got into mischief." Bobby explained over the barks.
Jack nodded, smiling as he knelt down next to the dog. "Well, I like him." He said, petting the dog's head, then turning to Sue. "He's like the dog I had growing up."
Sue smiled widely. "Maybe, if no one claims him, you can keep him!"
"And I have the perfect name for him." Myles added. "Barky."
Everyone laughed.
"I like it!" Sue exclaimed.
"Perfect!" Jack said, petting Barky's head.
"Did you get those pesky cats out?" Bobby asked Sue when they settled down form laughing.
Sue nodded. "And I think we may've broke the case too."
"What?" All three of them said in unison.
Sue silently smiled, then walked back to the shed.
?-?
"Has anyone seen my dog? He's black." An older woman asked as she walked down the sidewalk. The few people that she saw shook their heads. "He must've wandered off further." She said to herself as she continued walking.
?-?
"Here, look." Sue said, standing at the doorway of the shed, waving her hand inside. Jack and Myles went inside.
"What is this, a secret pathway?" Myles asked, seeing the hole that was revealed by pulling a few of the floorboards up.
"We think, maybe." Tara, who was still by the hole, said.
The two men looked at each other. "Ready to see what's down there?" Myles asked. Jack nodded.
"I want to see too!" Sue exclaimed, seeing what he said.
"Me too! Sue found it!" Tara added.
Jack sighed. It was getting harder to say no, but this was unknown territory. "Why don't we take you down once we clear it?" He compromised. "We have no idea who, or what we're going to find."
She pursed her lips. Knowing he was right, she nodded. He smiled at her in thanks, then the two agents went down the tiny stars, into the black hole.
"Ah, that's better." Myles said, turning on the flashlight he brought when they got to the bottom of the 10 foot hole. He shone it around. It was just a tunnel, of which the height became to be around 6 feet as the tunnel went forward. From that point, nothing else could be seen. "Ready to go forward?"
Jack nodded. "Let's see what we've gotten ourselves into."
The two carefully walked forwards, their guns going ahead of them. Finally, after what had seemed like miles of tunnel, a doorway appeared. They walked inside.
"Bingo." Jack happily said, seeing the contents of the room.
Just then, they saw a flash of movement in their peripheral vision. "FBI! Stop!" Myles yelled, aiming his gun at the movement, which was now gone.
"C'mon, I bet he continued down the tunnel." Jack said, running out of the room, and down the continuance of the tunnel. They ran and ran, quickly checking every room that they came across.
"I think someone could live down here for months! First a bedroom, now a pantry." Myles exclaimed as they came out of the third room.
"An art thief's gotta do what an art thief's gotta do!" Jack joked as they continued running down the path. Suddenly, the tunnel abruptly stopped, a ladder leading up a hole. The two agents looked at each other, then shrugged, going up the ladder.
"Where are we?" Myles asked as they came out of what looked like a sewerage drain, yet it really wasn't, into the middle of a street.
Jack looked around. "Well, it looks like the same neighborhood, but this is definitely not the street we started on."
"Clemens is surely gone." Myles said, putting away his gun. "He's nowhere in sight."
"Yes, but he knows we know about this tunnel. He can't hide in it anymore. He's vulnerable."
"We just have to figure out where a vulnerable art thief hides next." He replied.
Jack nodded, taking out his phone. "And when we do, he's dead meat."
"What are you doing?" Myles asked, seeing him intently looking at something on his phone.
"Trying to figure out where we are. Wow." He replied.
"What?"
"We ran 2 miles. We're 2 miles from where we started." Jack said in awe.
"2 miles? Really?"
Jack nodded as he put his phone to his ear. "I'm calling for someone to pick us up."
"Well, I definitely got in my cardio for the day." He replied.
Jack laughed.
