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Author's Chapter Notes:
The name Federico Joni was mentioned in an article I read. He was a real person, and apparently a famous art restorer and forger around the turn of the century.
Chapter 19: Another Assignment

Giles was not nearly as pleased with Buffy’s espionage work as she had hoped he would be. He barely looked at the reams of tape she had brought him that showed nothing untoward going on at the Thorndale manor. All he had been interested in was the locked room and missing painting.

Buffy insisted that he drop the investigation like he had promised, but Giles refused. “It’s not like there’s nothing there, Buffy. Either the missing painting or the so-called studio could prove to be important. Add that to what happened in New York, and he still looks suspicious.”

Buffy wasn’t sure exactly what Giles was referring to about the New York trip. Most of what had happened Buffy had kept to herself. Did he somehow know that they had had to defend themselves against thieves, or was he referring to their run-in with Angelus? Both those incidents had been carefully glossed over in her report: she didn’t see what either unpleasant situation had to do with her investigation.

So it was with a little trepidation that Buffy asked, “What about New York?”

“You don’t know? You mean he didn’t tell you? Only that while he was in New York, Mr. Thorndale look a long lunch break from his pressing business to travel clear across town to meet with Federico Joni.”

“So. He’s an art dealer.”

“He’s also a known forger, with strong ties to the black market. And it strikes me as very peculiar that Thorndale would travel all the way to New York if all he wanted to do was purchase a painting. There are plenty of reputable dealers in right here in LA.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Giles. None of this means anything! Why don’t you just admit you were mistaken and let it go?”

“Because while any single item might not be incriminating, taken all together it still seems suspicious. So far we haven’t come up with anything concrete, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. Now here’s what I want you to do…”

~~**~~

Reluctantly Buffy had agreed to follow her boss’s advice, but she had once again gotten him to promise that when the search came up negative, he would finally drop the investigation. She would do as he had requested and then the entire thing would be over. Buffy couldn’t remember when she had wanted anything more.

This wasn’t something that Buffy was used to doing, and Buffy freely admitted that she was out of her element. Nevertheless, she was never one to shirk from a challenge. Giles had offered to foot the bill for a caterer, but Buffy had declined thinking it would then seem too contrived. Instead, she had attempted the spaghetti and meatballs herself. She was reasonably confident in the salad, and there wasn’t much she could do to ruin the wine since she had the foresight to suggest that Spike bring some as his contribution to the evening’s meal. But she was concerned about the meatballs, and the sauce, and the spaghetti. What if it was overdone? What if it wasn’t done enough? She never proclaimed to be a good cook. Not even a fair cook. In fact, she wasn’t any kind of cook at all. Somehow that was one skill she had never taken the time to learn.

At least her concern over the meal gave her something she didn’t mind being overtly worried about. There was no way she was going to let on that she was worried about having Spike alone with her in her apartment, to say nothing about successfully carrying out her assignment.

To her delight, Spike at least claimed that the meal had turned out perfectly. Spike had even taught her how to tell when the spaghetti was done. They had tried tasting it off one another’s fingers, and playfully he had suggested that another time-tested manner of testing spaghetti’s doneness was to throw it against the wall. That little experiment had ended with both of them pulling spaghetti out of their hair.

After dinner the atmosphere became a little more charged. Buffy had carefully broached the subject of his leaving, but Spike seemed not to hear it. To her utter dismay, he insisted on staying and helping her do the dishes. It wasn’t so much that she wanted him to leave, as she didn’t want him to get the impression that she wanted him to stay. Despite what he may or may not have thought when she had called and invited him over to her place for dinner, Spike spending the night was definitely not part of the plan.

When they’d finished cleaning up her apartment, Spike insisted on the ten-cent tour, as payback for the one he had given her. Dutifully she showed him around the five-room loft. The upstairs area had been subdivided, so that most of the space was used as storage for the gallery below. Buffy was happy to show off the few of her mother’s paintings on display; she liked to rotate the pictures that she still owned so that they always seemed fresh. They were vivid reminders of her mother, and although some of them were technically offered for sale, she wasn’t anxious to give any of them up.

Spike seemed to enjoy poking around her apartment and asking about all manner of things. Buffy supposed it was his way of getting back at her for being such a snoop at his house. One item in particular caught Spike’s eye; the little Egyptian paperweight. It was one of the few pieces that Buffy owned that was actually an antique. For the most part her taste ran to modern art. But the little goddess had been a gift from her mother, and Buffy was never going to part with it.

“Do you know her name?” Spike asked.

“Mom told me, and I meant to look it up, but I never could find it.” Buffy wrinkled up her face as if she was thinking hard. “I never could quite remember the name Mom told me, so I called her Auntie for short. I know she said it was an Egyptian goddess, something that began with an ‘An’, sort of like Ants, or Auntie. It came from a consignment Mom handled years ago. You wouldn’t know anything about her, do you?”

Spike smiled, she was so adorable, his girl. Here she was with a priceless Egyptian statue (well, not really, it was probably only worth a couple of thousand dollars) and she didn’t even know the name of it, let alone take proper care of it. It was clear that she loved the little figurine, but instead of keeping it safe, she used it as a paperweight!

“Are you sure you want to know?” he winked, handing the statute back to her.

“Please. If I could just remember the proper name, I’d have looked it up by now. It’s not exactly like I can call my Mom and ask her.”

Spike tried to ignore the note of sadness in her voice, and answered in a light tone.

“Well, going on your splendid recall and the fact that you call her “Auntie,” my guess is that your Mom probably called her Anat or Antu. Strictly speaking, she’s not really Egyptian although your statue appears to be. Anat was also worshipped in other places under many similar names like Anath and Anant. Seems like cultures traded gods and goddesses back then the same way we trade Euros for Dollars.”

“Really? You’re not making this up, are you?”

“Course not. I wouldn’t lie to you, kitten. The goddess is real enough.”

“Do you know what she’s goddess of?” Buffy was excited now, as if he’d given her a gift. “I asked my Mom when she gave it to me, but she just smiled like it was something funny and wouldn’t tell me. I figured it was probably something dumb like fertility or corn or something.”

“Something like that. She is sometimes a fertility goddess. But she’s better known as a goddess of love, and war. Also justice.”

“Huh. Weird combination.”

“Maybe. When she fights, it’s usually to defeat her husband’s enemies. She’s supposed to be particularly ruthless. Ring any bells as to why your Mum would think it was funny to give you something like that?”

It was probably her Mom’s way of making a joke. She had given Buffy the little goddess when she had been accepted into the Agency’s training program. But what she said was, “Not a clue. Mom always did have a quirky sense of humor.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek by way of a thank you for solving the statute’s mystery, but somehow it turned into more than that. After the first few minutes, Buffy decided she didn’t mind a little snuggling and kissing, what Spike called ‘snogging,’ as long as things didn’t get out of hand. Of all the guys that she had dated (not that there had been that many) Spike was the only one who seemed perfectly content just kissing.

After finishing off the wine and more kissing than she could have imagined, it was more difficult than she would have ever expected to convince Spike (and herself) that he needed to leave. It was only when he offered to rinse the wineglasses as another delaying tactic that she finally came to her senses and reluctantly forced him out the door.

Carefully picking it up only by the stem, Buffy used a napkin to move Spike’s wineglass into a special container she had hidden under her sink. She’d bring it in to Giles on Monday for analysis. The evidence wouldn’t be admissible in court, but Giles would be able to run Spike’s fingerprints through the system and see if they came up anywhere they shouldn’t be. Once Giles had his prints and Buffy saw the infamous studio, this whole awful investigation would be over. She renewed her vow to herself that she was never again going to volunteer to work on another.





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