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CHAPTER 6 “Hey, Syd,” Karen greeted as Sydney entered the office two days later. “How was your trip?” “Successful.” “Where’s Nigel?” “He’s taking some time off.” “Everything okay?” “Yeah, he’s just got some things to do.” Karen frowned. It was rare that the Englishman took time off. “Was he hurt on the hunt?” Sydney glanced through the messages that Karen handed her and shook her head. “No.” Not physically anyway. He’d been withdrawn and quiet on the trip home and Sydney couldn’t reason why. He had certainly been through a lot, but it wasn’t like him to dwell on things. After hours of silence or one-word answers on the plane, they were both glad when she dropped him off at his apartment. That was when he informed her that he was going to take advantage of some of his vacation days. He had months of it stored up and so she agreed, telling him to come back to work whenever he was ready. She understood he probably needed time to adjust. Now, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Perhaps, being alone was not the best thing for him. However, he was in his right to ask for privacy and so she would just have to wait for him to work through it. “I’ve gotten several calls from a Mr. Englewood,” Karen said. “He wants you to help him find the Saber of Rehdron.” Sydney’s interest peaked, immediately. “The Saber of Rehdron? That would be quite a find. The Amazon Queen Pasiti claimed it was the source of her power, gave her insight into the weakness of her enemies.” “He said he has come into some papers that may tell where it is hidden.” “Tell him…” Sydney paused. “Where does he think it is?” “A small village in the Everglades of South Africa.” Karen picked up the phone. “Shall I arranged a flight for tomorrow?” “No.” Karen’s hand paused over the speed dial button. “Excuse me?” “Tell Englewood I…I’m too busy right now.” Karen slowly put the phone down. Sydney never refused a hunt. “Syd, what’s going on?” “Nothing, I just have a lot to catch up on.” Karen stared at her, unconvinced. “Don’t give me that look. I do turn down a hunt occasionally.” “You haven’t in the two years I’ve been here. Not ever.” Karen paused. “Is it because of Nigel? Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Sometimes, Sydney hated the blonde’s perceptiveness. It was about Nigel, she wanted to be here for him if he needed her, and she couldn’t do that if she was traipsing around the jungles on another continent. It was hard to give up the relic, but some things were more important. “It’s as I said, I’m too busy.” Karen was their friend, but she couldn’t betray Nigel’s secret to anyone else, it wasn’t her place. She headed for her office. “I have to get ready for my first class.” “Syd, Jean Luc is on line two for you,” Karen advised from the doorway of Sydney’s office, several days later. “Thanks, Karen,” Sydney replied as she reached for the phone. “Jean Luc, what a nice surprise! How are you?” “I am quite well, Sydney. I trust you are just as busy as you are beautiful, as usual, non?” Sydney smiled. “Well, I do seem to always have something to do, that’s for sure. Is this a social call or is there something specific I can do for you?” “Oh, no, I was just wondering if you managed to get the schematics you needed.” “Schematics?” Sydney asked, confused. “Yes, of the Lancet. Nigel was here last week and said that you were doing some comparison schematics for another relic you were searching for.” Sydney’s heart turned over in her chest and she sat upright in her chair. “Nigel took the Lancet?” There was a long pause. “I believed you were aware of this, Sydney. He is your assistant and when he came to me and said that you needed it, of course I gave it to him. Is something going on I should know about?” Sydney recovered quickly. “No, no of course not, Jean Luc. I just thought he’d take some pictures, but he mustn’t have been able to get the impressions he needed.” “So you did request the Lancet, then?” the curator asked, relieved. “Yes and Nigel probably figured to do most of the work himself.” “I am glad to hear that. I like that young fellow, I would hate to think I could not trust him.” Sydney gritted her teeth. “No, me either. Listen, Jean Luc, I have a class in a few minutes. I’ll have Nigel finish up his study and get the Lancet back to the museum as soon as possible.” “Merci, Sydney.” Sydney hung up and tried not to panic. Her blood was boiling with a mixture of fear and anger. What had Nigel been thinking? She rose from her chair, grabbed her purse and jacket and stepped out of her office. “Karen, I’m taking the rest of the day off.” “Are you feeling okay?” “Fine, just some things to do.” Like track down and strangle a certain Englishman. She wouldn’t bother trying his phone again; all her calls went straight to his voice mail the last few days. Which meant he either was avoiding her or, now that she knew about the Lancet, something much worse. She drove to his apartment and climbed the steps to the sixth floor, needing something to work out her anger before she came face to face with him. She arrived at his apartment and knocked on the door. After several minutes, when she received no answer she pounded on the door and called out to him. “Nigel! It’s Sydney, open the door!” Nothing. “Fine,” she muttered as she pulled her credit card out of her purse and slipped it between the lock and the doorframe. The door opened easily and she stepped inside. The apartment was quiet and all the lights were off. She searched his bathroom and bedroom and found them empty. She did notice that his knapsack was nowhere to be found, nor was the Lancet. By his phone, she spotted a plain white notepad. She grabbed a pencil out of the small container by the phone and lightly worked the lead over the paper, grimacing as the words came into view. “Damnit, Nigel!” She ripped the paper off the pad and flew out the door. Nigel opened the door to his motel room and was only mildly surprised to find Sydney sitting in the only chair, waiting for him, in the dark. “What are you doing here?” he demanded as he closed the door and switched on the light. “I should ask you the same thing,” Sydney retorted. “Where’s the Lancet, Nigel?” “I don’t have it.” “What?” she exclaimed and bolted to her feet, furious. Nigel understood her look and immediately took offence. “I didn’t sell it for God’s sake! What’s wrong with you?” “What do you expect after the stunt you’ve pulled?” Sydney shook her head. “I’m very disappointed in you, Nigel.” “Is that why you’re here? To tell me you’re disappointed and to take back the Lancet? Is your pride hurt, Sydney?” Sydney stared at him, startled. “Hey! You’re lucky you still have a job! If I hadn’t covered for you when Jean Luc asked me about the tests we were running on the Lancet you’d be in jail right now!” “I never asked you to do that,” Nigel reminded as he pulled off his jacket and dropped down onto the bed. He was exhausted. “What did you expect me to do?” she snapped. “Now, where’s the damn Lancet, Nigel!” “Back in its case at the museum by now, I would imagine.” Sydney suddenly deflated. “Huh?” “I admit that I did borrow the Lancet for my own purposes…” he explained quietly. Sydney slowly settled beside him. “But?” He rose and moved across the room. “But, I couldn’t get your bloody voice out of my head, telling me how wrong it was.” He turned to look out the window and missed her small smile. “So, I returned it to the damn museum the same day that I left.” Relief flowed through Sydney. She knew he wouldn’t let her down. “Why didn’t you just come to me?” “This hasn’t anything to do with you, Sydney. You said I could have some time off.” She rose and moved to stand behind him. “To get your thoughts in order, to work some things out, not to come half way across the world in some half-cocked scheme of revenge.” He turned to her, amused. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” She threw up her hands at him. “I don’t know what to think, Nigel. You ask for some time off and I give it to you. The next thing I know, you’ve stolen a priceless artefact from the museum and have left town.” “I borrowed the Lancet, I never stole it.” “You took it without telling me, Nigel.” “That’s why you’re angry? Because I took the Lancet without you’re blessing?” He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had to run every little thing by the all knowing and all seeing Sydney Fox.” “Why are you being mean?” she asked, hurt. “I’m you’re friend, remember?” “You’re my friend now that I have not stolen a valuable artefact, you mean?” “Nigel, stop it. You’re trying to push me away and it won’t work. I want to know what’s going on.” “I thought you were disappointed in me?” “I am, damn it! You should have told me!” “You would have talked me out of taking it!” “I’m not talking about the stupid Lancet!” Sydney forced herself to calm down. She and Nigel had their share of squabbles, but they’d never had a real fight and with the way his voice kept rising, this was looking to an all out war if she let it continue. “I’m disappointed that you didn’t come to me and tell me what you were thinking. I’m upset that you would go off on your own, instead of trusting me to help you.” He regarded her for a long moment, and then turned away to pick up the phone. “I haven’t eaten all day, you?” “I don’t want to talk about food.” “Mexican will have to do, that’s all that’s around here,” he said as he started dialling numbers. Sydney grabbed the phone away and slammed it back on its cradle. “Nigel!” “I’m sorry,” he whispered even before she could finish saying his name. He groaned and sat down on the bed, dropping his head in his hands. “It’s different, Sydney.” She settled beside him. “What is?” “Asking for your help when it comes to our work, or recommending a good restaurant or…or even with women is one thing, but…” “But?” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I don’t know who I am, anymore,” he said, tormented. “I can’t ask you to help when I don’t know what I am doing.” Sydney was startled by the anguish in the Englishman’s eyes. “Nigel, you’re the same person you were, before all of this happened. Nothing has changed.” He bolted from the bed. “It has changed. Everything is different!” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. He tossed it at her. “It’s all been a lie. Everything I am, everything I was and knew is a lie, Sydney!” Sydney unfolded the note and read the results of the DNA test. Damn. She wished now that she had let him burn it that night in the hotel. “Nigel…” She shook her head and stood. “This doesn’t mean anything. You’re still Nigel Bailey.” She stepped forward and pulled him into her arms, he was trembling. “We are defined by our experiences, by what we do and who we love. You haven’t changed at all.” “I can’t get it out of my mind,” he muttered as he clung to her. “I’m remembering things, instances with my family where there might have been a clue of this…this horrendous mistake. I’m trying to recall if my parents were truly happy, or if they just seemed that way. I’m second guessing everything and my whole world is falling apart.” “No, no it isn’t,” Sydney soothed. “You have to get a grip, Nigel. This doesn’t change anything.” She didn’t believe her own words. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through, but to suddenly have your identity question in such a horrible fashion, she didn’t know that she could cope either. He looked up at her, his gaze suddenly frantic. “Twins, Sydney. I had a twin brother. Shouldn’t I have felt…some connection? Isn’t there always something between…” He shook his head and moved away. “I’ve always felt so alone, so set apart from everyone. I was never close to Preston, even before he became an ass, I couldn’t…” He dropped down onto the bed, miserably. “I keep asking myself if that was part of it. If…the reason I never felt…whole, was because I had a twin somewhere and never knew it.” He bit his lip. “A twin and a father that are murders.” Sydney sat beside him, lost for what to do. “Nigel, your parents are the people who raised you…” “Do you think that was why they sent me away to school?” he demanded. “Because my father…because Ross Bailey couldn’t bear to look at me, a constant reminder of his wife’s infidelity?” Sydney’s eyes widened. Nigel had dropped into an abyss of regrets that held nothing but more questions. “No! Nigel, you…you told me how much your father loved you.” “I never told you that.” “What about the stories of Sir Gabriel? He wouldn’t have shared those with a son he didn’t love.” She squeezed his shoulder in support. “And your mum loved you, you told me she would let you brush her hair, a hundred strokes every night, and you played duets on the piano together. Remember?” “It means nothing now. None of it does.” “Nigel, it means everything. I’m sure they only sent you to boarding school because they felt it was where you’d get the best education.” “They didn’t want me there! They hated me! I was a bastard…” Sydney pulled him into her arms and started to rock him. “No, no, Nigel!” God, how could she get through to him? He was in so much pain, so much denial. “It was all a lie,” he muttered. “I’ve no one now. I don’t belong anywhere. I’m nothing but the offspring of a criminal.” Sydney pulled back and caught his face between her hands. “Stop it! You are more than that, you’re much more than that and you know it.” She smiled a little and her hands on his face turned into a caress. “Do you think I’d allow the person your describing to work for me? Do you think I could trust someone like that?” “You didn’t know…I didn’t know…” “I knew who and what you were the first day I met you, Nigel Bailey, and I’m never wrong. You’re still that person no matter what some piece of paper says. You’re still my partner, still my friend. You’re still one of the brightest and most ingenious scholars on the planet and most of all…” She leaned closer and pressed her lips to his in a light kiss. “You do have someone. You have me.” She smiled again. “And you have Karen and all the people at the university that adore you.” She pushed his fringe away from his forehead. “You have Preston, he loves you even if he is an ass and you, you Nigel Bailey will always belong, right here, with me.” Nigel stared at her, dumbfounded. He realized that he was drenching himself in self-pity, but he couldn’t seem to stop and yet, this lovely, wonderful woman had pulled him out of that drudgery with the simplest, sweetest of words. “I don’t know what to do, Syd,” he admitted, quietly. “We’ll figure it out, together.” He folded his arms around her and laid his head against her shoulder. He seemed to be spending an awful lot of time hugging Sydney, lately. “Then everything will be fine,” he decided. Things always worked out well when Sydney was involved. Sydney smiled and dropped a kiss in his hair as she soothed her hands over his back. “Yes it will.”
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