Angel Face

Where Were You?

XXXVI

I kept pacing the corridor while his phone kept ringing but no one answered it. I had lost track of how many times I had called, and with every ring of phone, I felt my patience slipping away. He had promised me that he would never do this again but yet we were right where we started. I scowled, annoyed, before disconnecting the call. 

I stomped back to my office but continued pacing. "Hey, Ange--" Nick's head popped up through the office doorway, looking as giddy as always. But it disappeared immediately when his eyes landed on me. "Okay, you're still pacing." He mused as he fully entered the office and closed the door behind him with a sombre look on his face. "What do you mean by 'still'." I asked as I placed the phone back on my desk.

"I mean that I had come to your office like an hour ago? You were pacing then and even now." He shrugged, placing a few files on my desk. "Still no answer?" He asked like the all knowing person he was. I rolled my eyes and sat behind the desk before taking the first file to go through. "Not even a squeak." I mumbled as I read through the reviews. "Any lead on the Brutus?"

"Not really. I'm trying to keep an eye on everyone, which I might add is almost impossible. But so far nothing. I cornered the ones who had tried to sneak in but they said they were only in it for money but stopped when their team leaders threatened to render them jobless." He answered. "And you believed them?" I asked distractedly as I approved a few of the reviews. "Are you kidding me?" He scoffed. "Of course not. Guilty until proven innocent." I snorted at that. "Yeah? Then what are you doing here? You should've joined some law enforcement."

"So, you still can't get a hold of Duncan?" He ignored my sarcastic comment and instead decided to interrogate me. 

Three days ago, after the discussion in my office, Duncan and I went to his office, where he left me in the waiting area with Herbert before going to have a short, about ten minutes long private meeting, with that FBI agent. Once done, as promised he dropped me home to rest my sprained ankle, only to come back for dinner. After which he got a phone call and left with a worried look. Now, it wasn't like he had disappeared off the face of the Earth because, he was indeed coming back home. The only parts that worried me were that, we hadn't crossed paths in three days, he wasn't home to sleep and he wasn't answering my calls. Not to mention no one knew where he was before and after work hours. But today, he didn't even show up at work.

"No. I can't." I closed the files and linked my hands, giving him my full attention. "Did you try calling his friends?" I swear, I wanted to slap that smug look off his face."You're so annoying. Of course I called them and they know anything." I gave him a flat look before glaring at him.

"Am I not always?" Of all the things I said, he heard only that?

"Of course, you are. I wonder, how Julia tolerates you." I grumbled, moving onto the next file. For the sake of my sanity, it's better if I ignore him. "Remind me not to tease you when you're in a bad mood." I looked at him from under my lashes to see a grimace on his face. "What's the use? You'll still do it." I shrug, going back to underlining the things on the reviews that I felt like needed to be looked at. "You're right." He trailed off with a far off look. I placed the pencil to the side before counting the number of pages in the files. Each piece takes one page for review. So that would be... hmm, way too many pages.

Giving up on counting, I looked through my drawers for the list which had sorted every artifact that came in under Luciantra, on the basis of type and material. Okay, lets see; utensils, jewelery, paintings, restored rotten books, clothes, trinkets, weapons and others. Which gives us a total of 386 pieces. How did we even manage to fit all of these here, again? Anyway. "Nick, call Lydia." I said as I started comparing the review items with the listed items. "The intern? Why?" He asked as he stood up to leave.