L'affaire Bob

36. How To Be a Gift From Heaven: A Guide

-"Long story short, I made a mistake while traveling, got back to the Victorian Era, was spotted by English officers who took me to jail, and met that guy right here who turned out to be a time-traveler too," she paused. "Oh, and by the way, thanks Sam," she smiled.

-"You're welcome," my old friend kindly replied.

-"Why are you thanking her again?" I interrupted. "I'm afraid I'm not quite following."

-"She put a second sandglass in my shirt. Without it, I wouldn't have gotten back."

-"Why? Did you lose yours? You're that irresponsible, huh?" I teased.

-"Shut up, and no, I didn't lose it. They took it away from me, as well as the rest of my belongings. Well, what I had on me, anyway."

-"Good thing they didn't take your clothes," the new guy, Mike, snorted.

I choked.

-"Ew, Mike, shut up. And Paul, that's not funny."

-"Did anything out of the ordinary happen? Anything that can disturb or change the timeline?" asked Nathan.

-"Hmm, let's see. I've been arrested, took one of their prisoners with me, freed another, and came back here. So nope, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary," Emma sarcastically replied.

-"Emma, both you and I know this is no joking matter. Next time, don't take it so lightly," Nathan reprimanded her.

-"Right, right. My bad."

-"Jokes aside," Sam barged in, "did you and Paul find anything about Bob?"

-"How did you-" I started.

-"Honey, I've known you since we were 17. I can see through you easily," Samantha winked at me. "So, did you?" she then repeated, hope glinting in her eyes.

Both Emma and I exchanged a glance.

Noticing our worried glances, Sam's expression immediately darkened.

-"But hey, hey, we're not going to stop searching," I tried to comfort her. "We'll do whatever we can to find out who killed him."

-"Thank you, Paul," she smiled gratefully.

-"You guys are doing an investigation, huh? Maybe I could help, ya know," intervened Mike.

-"Yeah, well, maybe you can't," Emma glared at him. "Don't interfere in other's businesses, please."

-"Don't be so harsh, Emma. Who knows, maybe he's a gift from Heaven and will help us find the answers," I told her, raising an eyebrow.

-"Maybe I am," Mike conceded with a smirk on his face. "What's the case about, anyway?"

I took a deep breath.

-"My best friend, who was also, umm, Samantha's husband, was found dead a week ago."

-"OMG, I'm so sorry to hear that."

-"OMG? What's OMG?" Amanda pumped him.

-"It's an abbreviation for Oh my god. It's use escalated like crazy in the early 2000s. It's-" he halted.

We were all looking at him, urging him to shut up.

-"Oh, yeah, right. Sorry," he quickly muttered. "Anyway, you were saying?" he then continued, turning towards me again.

-"You know what? I'll just hand you the newspaper in which the article was. Sam, Amanda, do you have a copy of it here at the base?"

-"I'm not sure, but I'll go check out. It must be in our library, in the news section," replied Amanda.