[Reviews - 318]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 1849 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks again for the reviews. I am trying to post this section quickly, because I know I have left you hanging, so check back often.
Chapter 26: Secret Agent Girl


She’d have to remember to ask Giles to check into how Spike could have so effectively erased all record of his real birthday, or if William Thorndale was a false identity all together. In this day and age, that wasn’t any easy thing to do. Not even the gossip rags or journalists had questioned the obviously fictional birth date.

The contents of the safe were much as she had expected. A large stack of cash, some jewelry cases and a few gold coins. Those weren’t what she was after. But at the bottom she found several notebooks. It was a good thing her kit included a camera phone. One of the few pieces of ‘spy’ apparatus she could claim. She’d never have time to read through all of this. Dutifully she began snapping pictures of each page, not even taking the time to read what she was photographing.

The last notebook she came to was the oldest, and was different from the others. Instead of being a ledger or an address book, this small notebook was more like a diary or journal, it had also been apparently used as a sketchbook. By the date of the first entry she could tell that it was approximately the same vintage as the crimes Spike was suspected of. The handwriting looked somewhat different from that in the ledgers, but perhaps that was because it had obviously been used by a much younger William. She wasn’t a handwriting specialist, but she’d stake her reputation that the sketches were made by the same person who completed the paintings upstairs.

Fascinated, she began skimming the entries, forgetting to photograph the pages. Almost every other page contained a sketch or a poem. The first several pages were full of sketches of buildings and train stations, mountains and rivers, and a variety of people in different types of ethnic dress. Often the sketches were accompanied by short poems that weren’t nearly as good as the artwork, but seemed just as heartfelt.

She’d heard about some of his travels first hand from Spike, when they’d sat for hours in that coffee shop. Apparently this was the personal journal of a young William Thorndale. It began after they had left England and described William’s travels with his mother throughout Europe. However, as she skimmed the pages, and read a few of the entries, it became clear to her that this was not a pleasure trip for mother and son. As both he and Tara had stated, Mrs. Thorndale was seriously ill – and was consulting doctors and mystics from all over Europe hoping for a cure. Apparently Spike had been telling the truth about how his mother had died. But she hadn’t quite put it together that this trip was why Spike had seemed so well traveled. If taken for any other reason, it would have been a spectacular adventure.

After mother and son had reached China, the tone of the diary began to change. Instead of pictures and poems about peoples and landscapes, young William had begun a series of sketches of very realistic nudes. Looking more carefully, Buffy realized that almost all of the pictures featured the same raven-haired beauty. Buffy suddenly recognized who she was: Drusilla. The woman she had met briefly in New York, who had been Spike’s wife, and was now his ex.

Looking back at the diary, Buffy noticed that at the same time William started sketching nudes, he stopped describing the fabulous sights and customs of the people he met. His writing also became more …personal. Buffy blushed when she realized what must have happened. Spike had apparently met and courted his ex-wife while in China with his mother.

As she continued flipping pages, other figures slowly found their way onto the pages as well. A well-built man, and what was clearly a different woman. Disturbingly, they were also often depicted nude. She nearly dropped the book when she finally got a glimpse of the man’s face. It was Angelus.

Swallowing hard, Buffy forced herself to turn the next page. It wasn’t what she expected. Instead of Drusilla or one of the other nudes, there was a picture of what could only have been William’s mother. Instead of the warm and vivacious woman depicted in the first pages of the journal, here she was drawn as cold and still, laid out formally in her coffin. As reported, William’s mother had died in China.

Suddenly the nudes were gone, and page after page of the journal was covered with depictions of his mother that he must have drawn from memory. After that, there were no more pictures. The journal returned to words and poems alone.

Her hand paused as she skimmed ahead to the last few pages. She was a fool. The journal probably contained Spike’s own first hand account of what happened in China, and possibly in Romania as well. Would he actually have written about such horrible events? But then, he certainly never expected anyone else to read his journal. He kept locked in his safe after all.

Stupidly she realized she’d been so embarrassed by the dirty pictures that she’d forgotten to take photographs! Hurriedly she brought the camera up again and began snapping wildly. There’d be time to read the entries later – for now she needed to get a copy of what he’d written. And then she needed to get the hell out of here.

Gods. What could he possibly have written? She swallowed. This diary would go a long way towards ending the entire investigation one way or another. It was illegally obtained evidence, but Buffy knew that if he admitted to the crimes in this journal, the Agency wouldn’t rest until Spike was behind bars, one way or another. They’d find some way to legally break into his house and get what they needed to lock him up for a long time, either on one of the murder charges, or something else.

Still Buffy had a hard time bringing herself to believe that the man she knew was capable of any such thing – she wanted to believe his plea of self-defense in the incident in China - but what if he had written something different in his private journal? And Spike’s confession had not even mentioned the Romanian girl or Nikki Woods. If he had written it all down, she would be forced to hand over the incriminating evidence to her superiors, whether or not was admissible in court.

The urge to actually read what she was photographing was undeniable. Surely it wouldn’t take too much extra time, would it? But being caught alone in Spike’s study was one thing; being caught photographing the contents of his wall safe something else entirely. Especially since she now knew what it contained.

Almost as soon as she had the thought, she began hearing sounds of someone else awake in the house.

Getting busted at this point would be bad. Very bad. Unthinkingly, she had left the pickup back with her street clothes in the bedroom. Should anything go wrong, she had no way to signal that she needed help. If she was caught now, she couldn’t call for back up.

Hurriedly she gathered up all the documents she had removed from the safe, and arranged them with the journal at the bottom, just as she had found them. Quietly she returned everything to the safe, shut and locked the mechanism again, and stowed away the camera in her bra.

Incriminating evidence put away, Buffy foolishly worried that she’d feel exposed if Spike found her here clad in only her panties and the shirt he had loaned her to use as a night shirt. Suddenly cold, she buttoned up another button on the shirt, and headed out into the corridor.





You must login (register) to review.