Chapter 4

Claudia awoke from the best sleep she had in years. After spending years searching for her brother, she felt the entire world was where it should be. Worse, if it weren't for the fact she and Myka were on assignment, she'd have no reason to leave the warm silky sheets caressing skin. A strong feeling arousal permeates her soul, and she has to fight from acting on it. It's with that thought that Claudia began to review her previous night. Meticulously, she walked backwards in her preparations for bed, and none of them involved stripping out of all her clothes and folding them neatly on the chair. Perplexed, she even remembers falling asleep partially clothed on top of the sheets, and never once did she remember getting into bed. To top off her predicament, she found it incredibly difficult to get motivated to go search for their missing artifact, and just lay around in bed. Frustrated both mentally and sexually, she slides out of bed and showers.

Just a little past ten in the morning, Claudia meanders to Myka's cottage. Helena meets her at the door and lets her in. Claudia is immediately struck with tension filling the room. Mykka, sitting curled up on the couch in one corner of the room, barely acknowledges her arrival. Helena rather than taking a position on the same couch, takes the opposite love seat across the room. Taking a minute to watch the pair avoid eye contact, Claudia finally realizes what might have occurred.

"Did you two…"

She doesn't have to finish her sentence to get her answer. Myka stammers out her confusion.

"We went to sleep in separate rooms, we didn't say anything unusual before we went to sleep. I was fully clothed…"

Helena immediately interjects.

"I never once remember taking off my gown either, to say the least anything else. I thought it was just some peculiar dream…"

Angrily Myka yells at Claudia.

"Nothing happened! You hear me? Nothing happened at all! So let's find this stupid artifact and get out of here."

She takes out Helena's compass and it immediately zeroes in onto Helena. She angrily shakes the compass until it returns to pointing towards Ms. Garrett's cottage. With a fire burning inside of her, she stands and points towards Helena.

"Finish getting ready! We're going to see this old lady about…about…about everything!"

Helena cringes and jumps up immediately, while Claudia keeps out of their way.

Half an hour later the trio find themselves on the door step of the owner's cottage, confused and inviting. Its only then does Myka produce her credentials, and the nervous jittering of Ms. Garrett become heir apparent.

"I have never done anything wrong Agent Bering. We pride ourselves on making that loving feeling happen here at our cottages…it's what we do."

After several rounds of denial, Myka drops the sex question, and aggressively pursues the missing artifact, which makes her even more nervous. Leading the way, Myka lets the compass take her into the kitchen and into the rear pantry. Concealed behind a shelf of spices and baking ingredients, a large gun safe sits monolithically overbearing. Myka looks it over and motions to open it. Complying, she unlocks the safe and discovers another smaller safe built inside.

"It's a fancy two-lock safe. My sister just put a package in there yesterday before you got here. I have one key, but she has her own. She's in Portland for a Bed and Breakfast conference, and won't be back until tomorrow morning."

Claudia does a quick internet search and confirms it can't be opened without both. Unable to hide her frustration, she nods, and demands the key from their house keeper.

"You tell your sister to get her…"

Claudia clears her throat loudly stopping Myka from saying adding anything more colorful.

"…get back right away."

Myka storms out of the pantry leaving Helena and Claudia to pick up the rear. The entire afternoon buzzed by with Myka and Helena speaking little. Helena offers to buy them dinner, but Myka can't accept it. Eventually, Claudia convinces her otherwise and they find a quaint seafood restaurant not too far from the cottages. Myka spends half the night taking out the compass and verifying the artifact hasn't moved, stifling the atmosphere. By evening's end, they returned to the cottages and Myka refused to go inside with either Helena or Claudia, choosing to sleep in the car. Too tired to fight, the three part ways and the settle down in their respective locations for the night. Sitting in the front seat Myka hugs the pillow and nestles tightly against it.

Myka's dreams are fraught with erotica and visions of passion. When she wakes she squeezes the pillow and inhales deeply, surprised on how comfortable she feels despite having slept in the car all night. Laying on her right side, she uses her left hand to slide up the pillow to scratch at her face, but it suddenly plunges between to smaller warm pillows. It's then when her eyes shoot open and her face is buried against Helena's bare back, and their legs are intertwined. As she jumps up to scream, shock paralyzes her as she sees a familiar mop of short red hair lying in Helena's arms. Myka's eyes shoot towards the chair at the foot of the bed and she counts three sets of folded clothes. Instead of embarrassment, anger fills her eyes.

Myka exits the shower to find Helena and Claudia sitting on opposite sides of the living room, too bewildered to speak. With a smirk, Myka chides her young protégé.

"Not so funny when it happens to you huh?"