My Life Of Evasion

19. Even If I Had Multiple Personalities, None Of Them Would Like You

Chapter 19

Even If I Had Multiple Personalities, None Of Them Would Like You

 

 

“Let’s just hope that we don’t actually have to steal anything from this museum,” Max said beside me as he smiled and took my hand in his.  “That always seems to be the case with us, doesn’t it?”

Me?  I put on my best fake smile and looked back at him.  “Yeah, it does, but we’ve got permission to look at it without it being in a case this time.  No stealing should be involved.”

It had been a few days since our little…argument…about the whole lying situation.  I’ll admit, I was trying to get it out of him still, but subtly.  Very subtly.  I was having no such luck, though, and neither, it seemed, were Ben and Drew.  The two of them always made sure that they’d drag him away for some ‘man talk’ away from the girls, but never seemed to get anything out of him.  They’d report back to me whenever he wasn’t in the room with us. 

We were on the ground floor of the museum, which had glass floors in some areas so that you could look down at the excavated site underneath since the building was built on top of it.  I was so preoccupied with looking down that I didn’t even look where I was going until Max pulled my hand back to stop me. 

When I looked up, there was a woman around Dad’s age standing there, her name tag reading Adra Ballas.

“Hello,” she said with just a slight accent.  “You must be the Landon’s?”

Dad nodded and stuck his hand out to shake hers.  “Yes,” he said.

She smiled as she shook the rest of our hands and then turned to lead us through the museum toward a set of double doors without saying another word.  It wasn’t until the doors shut behind us and we were going down a dim hallway that she started talking again. 

“So I heard from Director Moros that you are interested in looking at the golden box that we’ve recently acquired?” she questioned, looking back at Dad and Brielle with Addy strapped to her chest, who were right behind her. 

“Yes, that’s right,” Dad said, nodding.  “So you haven’t had it for a while then?”

Ms. Ballas shook her head.  “No, only a few weeks.  It was donated to the museum.”

She stopped right in front of a door with an electronic lock and swiped her keycard.  The little red light that was on top of it switched over to green before the door slid open, revealing a lab.  There, sitting in the middle of a glass table, sparkling under the lights above it, was the golden box, looking exactly like the one in the picture Max had – somehow – gotten. 

“We’re still cataloging it and trying to find more information on it before we put it out on display,” Ms. Ballas said as we all gathered around to take a better look at it.  She reached over and grabbed a set of gloves so she could pick it up.  Turning it this way and that, she was about to show us every corner of the outside.  “It’s impeccable work and in excellent condition considering the time period we think it dates back to.”

“And that would be?” I asked, looking at her. 

“We’ve dated it back to the beginning of the Roman Empire, though it could quite possibly be older than that.  We have associates at another museum in Italy that received an exact match to this one, even down to the unidentifiable seal in the inside.”

Dad’s eyes locked with mine from across the table right after she said seal.  He leaned forward a bit, peering inside the box as she opened it gently to show him.