“I'm sorry,” Joanne apologized, burying her hand in her hair. “I'm just so tired of dead ends.”
“Ha! You think relic hunting is all car chases and booby traps under the temple floors? Hell no, Jo! This stuff is 90 % research, running into dead ends a thousand times until you get that one, just that one open door. And we are nine-hundred and ninety-eight tries away from breaking this goddamn code, so please humor me and think of the destination of our journey so that you can help me swim through this swamp of shit we have to drown in before we get an arrow to Alex's gold.”
“Whoa,” Joanne groaned, “you are passionate about history. Not to hammer on Sam, but, wouldn't he have the investigative skills we need to find out who Leslie Michaud was hanging out with in those last days?”
Nina froze, staring into space. Then she rose to her feet and embraced Joanne. “Jo, you are a fucking genius. Dick-whipped, but genius nonetheless.”
Chapter 16 — The Third Hunter Comes
Three days later Nina and Joanne were sitting on the front porch of their rented cottage, eating cupcakes the camp director's wife had baked.
“Not bad,” Nina mumbled with her mouth full. “Sam's going to love these.”
“My tummy just tingled,” Joanne grinned.
Nina shook her head. “He can be quite insufferable, you know?”
“Don't care,” Joanne chuckled through the clumps of cake in her mouth. She suddenly stood up, staring ahead in stunned silence. Her mouth was hanging open as if she had just seen a ghost.
“What's wrong?” Nina frowned, but when she followed her friend's line of sight she sighed and relaxed. Carrying on with her cupcake as if it was an everyday occurrence, she hollered, “Hey Sam!”
“'Allo, Dr. Gould!” he smiled, walking towards them in cargo pants and a tight-fit, long sleeve shirt that had Joanne swooning. With his duffle bag tossed over his back, he held the handle tight to his shoulder with one hand while the other carried his equipment bag. It had taken him all of two days to travel to Canada after Nina had contacted him about the possible existence of a hidden treasure from the personal coffers of Alexander the Great.
She had forwarded all the details and news reports she could get to Sam via e-mail, finding that he still detested technology after all this time. He had agreed to use his contacts and resources to investigate the case of Leslie Michaud and Sam had managed to dig up some fertile information pivotal to their trek.
“Sam Cleave, this is my old friend and fellow, Miss Joanne Earle, history teacher and treasure detector deluxe,” Nina introduced them. Sam was no stranger to female starry-eyed admirers and he could immediately see that Nina's friend thought the sun rose in his boxers. Keeping as cordial as he had to without leading her on, Sam gave her a hug, complete with the pat on the back.
What he could not deny though, was that she was very attractive. Still, he knew better than to step on Nina's toes by complimenting Joanne. Secretly the journalist was elated that he got to go looking for the remnants of Alexander the Great's wealth with two beautiful and professional women. He’d have them wrapped around his little finger from the start and his juvenile humor was going to elicit every bit of pampering from the situation possible.
“Did you sleep during the flight, at least?” Nina asked as she brought Sam a beer.
“Aye, a few hours, but it still feels like it wasn't enough,” he replied. “Thanks.” He took the beer and cracked it open with a jovial expression. “Cheers!”
Joanne toasted with him, lifting her beer festively while Nina stood behind Sam, leaning against the doorway with her cup of coffee. “When did you start drinking beer?”
“Oh,” Joanne said, trying not to pull a face at the horrid taste she’d never been able to handle since she was a teenager, “I drink the occasional beer, depending on the function.”
Nina nodded, looking impressed, regardless of the fact that she and Joanne knew the history teacher just wanted to impress Sam. Yet Joanne appreciated the fact that Nina did not judge her for it and kept her secret. The historian just smiled at her friend and winked.
“So, Sam, what did you find out about Leslie Michaud that was so good that it merited you flying all the way here to make this happen? Obviously you must have uncovered something worth the trouble,” Joanne pried. Nina was equally eager to find out what Sam had on the case, but she played it cool. Knowing him, he would deliberately keep information from them to jest if he knew how desperate they were to know what he knew. Sam moved forward on his chair to answer.
“I think there’s more to what the reports said and I found out from a reliable source who the boyfriend was and why this despicable thing befell an innocent woman who was just hanging out with the wrong man on the wrong night. The whole affair is actually a sad outcome to an accidental incident and that makes it so much more of a good story,” Sam admitted. “I must confess, ladies, I am as much in this for the tragic story of Leslie Michaud as I am for the treasure of one of the world's richest and powerful kings.”
“That is understandable. Even just the fact that her body was dumped in the middle of nowhere and left where nobody, her loved ones or the world knew she was. That is what is the saddest for me. The moment my student called me over all shocked, pointing out the skeleton in the woods I could feel that sorrow and sense of loss,” Joanne recounted.
“Now I’m curious, Sam. What did you get on her involvement with the trinket?” Nina relinquished her stiff upper lip attitude for the need to know. “Please, Sam, don't fuck with us. Just tell us what you’ve got.”
Joanne laughed, “Yes, Sam! After all, had it not been for us you would not have gotten this story in the first place. You owe us.”
“Full disclosure, mate,” Nina commanded light-heartedly.
“Alright, alright, ladies,” he surrendered. “Let me just take a leak and get another beer and I'll meet you in my cabin in ten for a debriefing.”
“I'll help you lug your stuff so you don't spill that precious beer. Joanne will kill me if I allowed any of her favorite drink to go to waste, right Jo?” Nina mocked playfully as she grabbed Sam's photographic gear and started toward his cabin, one over.
“That’s right!” Joanne played along, digging into the last cupcake. “Don't… spill my beer, guys.”
Out of earshot of Joanne, Nina asked what she was desperate to know from Sam.
“Have you heard from Purdue, by any chance?” she asked.
“The last time I spoke to him face to face was when I Skype'd you for your birthday and he was with you, remember?” he reminded her, sounding a bit sour. “But he left me a message at my hotel and when I called him the woman harboring him told me he took off in a hurry. To tell you the truth, I thought he was just rushing back to you, since you are so close these days.”
“Hey, you’re the one who decided to take off and break communication with Purdue, so it's not my fault that he was with me on my birthday while you were God knows where, enforcing your distance policy,” she defended.
“I had to be far away, otherwise Paddy's agency would use me to track Purdue down and you know it,” he snapped back.
“So why the hell are you so pissed off that he was with me on my birthday?” she asked angrily. “Jesus, I'm not your wife, you know!”
Sam stopped and turned to her, shoving the door shut. He grabbed Nina without warning and kissed her passionately, wrapping her up in his muscular arms to keep her from protesting, which she would not. She missed him terribly and although she would never admit it, he could feel it coursing through her — an intense and shadowed yearning. Almost inaudible moans sounded inside her throat as he kissed her and her hands told him what her tongue never would.