❝ LOVE AND TREASURE ❞ ── Ben Gates ✓

❝ CHAPTER 6 ❞

▌Chapter 6 ─ Those Letters ▌

      ━━━━━ BEN LOOKED OVER at Clara who looked back at him. "Clara lost it?" Riley asked looking back at them. Ben stood up and walked over to the container and pulled it off the shelf. Clara placed a smile on her face watching him pull out the Declaration of Independence.

"See? Ok. Now, could you please stop shouting?" Ben asked the other blonde. Clara watched as she went to lean forward grabbing it.

"Give me that!" She said, but Ben pulled it away from her before she could grab the document.

"You're still shouting. And it's really starting to annoy. How did you two become friends?" Ben asked, looking over at Clara.

"She came to my university where I worked and asked me to look at the documents and since then we've been friends." Clara explained readjusting herself.

"You'd do well, Dr. Chase, to be a bit more civilized in this instance." Ben said, walking to the front of the van and sitting down while Riley laughed at his words.

"If this is the real one, what did they get?" Abigail asked them, moving over to the front of the van.

"A souvenir." Clara replied, causing Abigail to look back at her.

"You knew?" Abigail questioned her.

"Of course I knew, he came to me and asked for my help." She simply replied, giving her friend a shrug of the shoulders.

"How do you two know each other?" Abigail proceeded to ask her.

"We used to date." Clara replied, causing Ben to look back at her.

"This is the guy that you were talking about?" She asked, shock running off her tongue.

"You told her about us?" Ben questioned the blonde.

"Clearly I wasn't the only one. You told Ian about me, of all people." Clara said, giving him a nasty look.

"I thought it'd be a good idea to have a duplicate. It turned out I was right." Ben said changing the subject. "I actually had to pay for the souvenir and the real one, so you owe me $35 plus tax." Ben said.

"Genius." Riley said, laughter falling out of his lips.

Abigail turned to look at Ben, "who were those men?" She asked wanting to know the truth about what she had been pulled into.

"Just the guys we warned you were gonna steal the Declaration." Ben replied, looking at her for a brief moment before his eyes made their way over to Clara who was looking down at her hands.

"And you didn't believe us." Riley added, taking his eyes off the road for a second.

"Big mistake." Clara breathed out, lifting her head up to look at Abigail who looked back at her. "We did the only thing we could do to keep it safe.

"Verdammt! Give me that!" Abigail shouted trying to take the document. Clara couldn't help but laugh, she knew that Ben wouldn't give her the document unless there was a reason.

"You know something? You're shouting again." Ben told her.

"I'm pretty sure she was swearing, too." Riley said, looking over at Ben.

"Well, we probably deserve that." Ben said, looking over at Riley.

"It means damn it." Clara said a bright smile on her face, she knew that was one of the many words Abigail used when she was frustrated. Clara had picked herself up and was standing behind Ben, her hands resting on the chair so she didn't fall down.

"There is not a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence." Abigail told the three.

Ben picked up the casing that held the Declaration, "and there's not chance anyone can steal this either." Ben said, shaking the case back and forth to make his point. "I leveled with you 100%. Everything I told you was the truth." Ben said, looking back at the window.

"He's not one to lie all the time, trust me Abigail." Clara said, looking down at her friend.

"I want that document, Mr. Brown." Abigail said, staring at him.

"Ok, my name's not Brown. It's Gates. I leveled with you 98%." Ben said, refusing to give her eye contact.

"Wait a minute, did you just say Gates?" Abigail questioned, she looked at Ben, then at Riley. "Gates?" She asked once more, looking up at Clara who didn't make eye contact with her. "You're that family with the conspiracy theory about the Founding Fathers?"

"It's not a conspiracy theory." Ben told her. Clara placed her hand on Ben's shoulder giving him a comforting squeeze.

"Per say." Riley said, both Ben and Clara seemed to ignore his words.

"You know what? I take it back. You're not liars. You're insane." Clara looked down at Abigail, disappointed in the words she had chosen to use.

"We're going to run a chemical test on the Declaration." Ben informed her.

"That's why Ben pulled me in." Clara said, eyes still on the road.

"You can't seriously intend to run chemical tests on the Declaration of Independence in the back of a moving van." Abigail said, eyes trained on Ben.

"We have a clean-room environment all set up. EDS suits, a particulate air filtration system, the whole shebang." Riley explained, continuing to pass through the lights.

"Really?" Abigail questioned looking between Ben and Clara.

"We can't go back there." Ben informed the three, but it was mostly directed towards Clara and Riley.

"What? Why not?" Riley asked, looking over at him taking his eyes off the road.

"I didn't have enough cash, so I had to use my card." Ben said, looking at Riley then back at Clara.

"A credit-card slip? Dude, we're on the grid. They'll have your records from forever. They'll have my records from forever." Riley said, becoming panicked.

"I know. I know. It's only a matter of minutes before the FBI shows up at my front door." Ben told them.

"What do we do?" Riley knew that the two could come up with a new plan on the spot without even talking to each other about it.

"We need those letters."

"What letters?" Abigail asked them.

Clara looked over at Abigail as she waited for the answer to her question to come to light. She was happy to know that Abigail was interested in what they were going to do. Though Clara was still unsure whether or not what Ben was searching for was real. A small amount of hope rested in her chest and she would hold onto it for as long as she could.

"You know, get off the road, take a right." Ben said, pulling Clara out of her thoughts and not answering Abigail's question.

"What letters?" Abigail proceeded to ask again, Clara only smiled at her.