In fact, on their way home in the rental car Agatha suggested she take the lockbox with the journal and deliver it to her client. After all, that was why she hired Nina and Sam to help her and since she now had what she was looking for she wanted to cut and run. But her brother convinced her otherwise, eventually, and suggested in turn that she should stay until morning and see how things turn out. Purdue was not the kind of man to give up a good chase of a mystery and with the incomplete poem, it all just provoked his inexorable curiosity.
Purdue kept the box with him for good measure, locking it in his steel valise — a portable safe, in effect — until morning. That way he could keep Agatha here and prevent Nina or Sam from taking off with it. He doubted that Sam would bother. Since Agatha spat that obliterating insult about Trish, Sam had reverted into some dark, melancholy mood where he refused to speak to anyone. When they got home he went to take a shower and then went straight to bed without saying good night, without even looking at Purdue when he came into the room.
Not even a lighthearted baiting, the type Sam normally could not resist joining in on, could push him to action.
Nina wished she could talk to Sam. She knew this time sex was not going to fix another Trish meltdown. In fact, the very idea of him still folding like that over Trish only convinced her more that she meant nothing to him in comparison to his late fiancé. It was odd, though, because he had been fine about the whole horrid affair in the past years. His therapist was pleased with his progress, Sam himself admitted that he did not hurt anymore when he thought of Trish and it was clear that he had found some sort of closure at last. Nina was certain that they had a future together, should they be so inclined, even through all the hell they had walked hand-in-hand.
But now, all of a sudden, Sam was writing detailed pieces about Trish and his life with her. Pages and pages went into the culmination of circumstances and events that led to them both ending up at that fateful gun-running incident that changed his life forever. Nina could not imagine where it had all come from and she wondered what had picked that scab on Sam.
With her emotional confusion, some contrition for clocking Agatha, and a whole lot of bewilderment born from Purdue’s mind games regarding her love for Sam, Nina finally just gave up her conundrum and let the rapture of sleep take her away.
Agatha stayed up latest of all, nursing her throbbing jaw and aching cheek. She would never have guessed someone as small as Dr. Gould could pack such a punch, but she had to admit that the small historian was not someone to push to physical action. Agatha loved to occasionally engage in some close combat martial arts for fun, but she never saw that jab coming. It only proved that Sam Cleave meant the world to Nina, much as she tried to play it down. The tall blonde went down to the kitchen to get more ice for her swollen face.
When she came into the dark kitchen, a taller male figure stood in the faint illumination of the fridge light that streaked vertically over his chiseled abdomen and chest from the ajar door.
Sam looked up at the shadow that entered the doorway.
At once, both were frozen in awkward silence, just staring at each other in surprise, but neither could look away from the other. They both knew that there was a reason they came to the same place at the same time while the others were absent. There were amends to be made.
“Look, Mr. Cleave,” Agatha started in a voice just above a whisper, “I am deeply sorry for that low blow. And it is not because of the corporal punishment I suffered for it.”
“Agatha,” he sighed, his hand held up for her to stop.
“No, really. I have no idea why I said that! I categorically do not believe it to be true whatsoever!” she pleaded.
“Listen, I know we were both furious. You almost died, I got the shit kicked out of me by a group of German assholes, we all almost got arrested… I get it. We were all just high-strung,” he explained. “We’re not going to get this secret unveiled if we are divided, you know?”
“You are correct. Still, I feel like snake shit for saying that to you, just because I know it is a sore spot for you. I meant to hurt you, Sam. I meant to. That is inexcusable,” she lamented. It was uncharacteristic of Agatha Purdue to show remorse or even to explain her erratic actions. That was a sign to Sam that she was sincere, yet he could not forgive himself all over again for Trish’s death. Oddly enough, he had been happy for the past three years — really happy. Inside, he thought he had closed that door forever, but perhaps it was because he was busy writing the memoirs for the London publisher that the old wounds still had the power to yoke him.
Agatha approached Sam. He noticed how attractive she really was, had she not had such an uncanny resemblance to Purdue — that was just a right cock blocker for him. She brushed against him, and he prepared for an unwelcome close encounter when she reached past him to get the tub of Rum Raisin ice cream.
Good thing I didn’t do anything stupid, he thought sheepishly.
Agatha looked him square in the eye as if she knew what he was thinking and stepped back to hold the frozen container against her bruised welts. Sam scoffed and smiled, and reached for a lager in the fridge door. When he closed the door, dousing the streak of light to drape the kitchen in darkness, a figure stood in the doorway, the silhouette only visible by the backlighting of the dining room. Agatha and Sam were surprised to see Nina standing there for the moment, trying to see who was in the kitchen.
“Sam?” she asked into the dark before her.
“Aye, lassie,” Sam answered and opened the fridge again so that she could see him sitting at the table with Agatha. He was ready to intervene in the impending chick fight, but there came nothing of the sort. Nina simply traipsed in toward Agatha, gesturing for the ice cream tub without saying a word. Agatha passed Nina the frigid container and Nina sat down, holding her torn knuckles against the pleasant soothing of the ice-cold container.
“Aahh,” she groaned and let her eyes roll back in their sockets. Nina Gould was not going to apologize, this Agatha knew, and it was fine. She deserved that clout from Nina and in some odd way it was far more rewarding to her guilt than Sam’s graceful forgiveness.
“So,” Nina said, “anyone got a fag?”
Chapter 23
“Purdue, I forgot to tell you. The housekeeper, Maisy, called last night and asked me to let you know that she fed the dog,” Nina told Purdue as they set the lockbox down on the steel table in the garage. “Is that code for something? Because I fail to see the purpose of placing an international call to report something so trivial.”
Purdue only smiled and nodded.
“He has codes for everything. My God, you should hear his chosen similes for lifting relics from the archeology museum in Dublin or altering the compounds of active toxins…” Agatha gossiped loudly before her brother interrupted.
“Agatha, could you kindly keep that to yourself? At least until I have cracked open this impenetrable case without rupturing whatever is inside.”
“Why don’t you use a blowtorch?” Sam asked from the door as he sauntered into the garage.
“Peter doesn’t have anything but the most basic tools,” Purdue said, scrutinizing the steel box from all sides to determine if there was some trickery afoot, perhaps a hidden compartment or pressure-point method to open the lockbox. About the size of a thick ledger, it had no seams, no visible lid or lock; in fact, it was a mystery how the journal was placed inside such a contraption in the first place. Even Purdue, who was not unfamiliar with advanced systems of storing and transporting, was baffled by the design of the thing. Still, it was only steel, not any kind of impregnable metal devised by scientists.