Page 41 of Artifacts

The reference to a chocolate bar confused Aldric even more, but he fetched stools, and he, Elliot and Jonas took four boxes each. Elliot took a gilt sandglass from a shelf and turned it over.

“We’ll work on a box until the sand runs out, then switch,” he declared.

Aldric cheated a little by starting with the rectangular one he’d opened before. It had taken him a while when he’d played around with it last week, but now it was simple to slide the lid back—and not be frustrated when it didn’t move all the way—then forward as far as it would go, then back to the closed position. The next move was to the left, and, when he moved the lid to the right after that, it glided completely off. The box was empty.

“Uggh!” Elliot drummed his fingers in frustration on the counter either side of the box he was working on. “I heard a click, but then I did something and heard another click, and nothing’s moving!”

“That’s the difficulty, locking it again without knowing how you half-opened it,” Aldric replied.

They managed to open two more as the morning went on, but neither of them was the box in question. That was easily the most ornate and Elliot studied it from several angles and different distances, much the same as Aldric had the works of art in the museum.

“I think it must have something to do with the inlay squares,” Elliot said at last. “They’re applique, not just different marquetry wood mosaic.”

He began pushing at the middle strips, perhaps hoping to push them out as he had the square box he’d solved, but nothing happened. Jonas tried twisting the top one way while twisting the box another, in the same manner in whichhe’dopened a round box and found a netsuke miniature sculpture inside, but that did nothing in this case.

“This is infuriating, and I don’t see us getting anywhere,” Elliot said at last.

“My cousin Selena would just smash it,” Aldric admitted.

“No.” Jonas put out a hand, as if Aldric were about to do just that. “Oh, not because of any curse, but from what I’ve been reading, some bigger ones like this were used to carry secret documents or messages and had thief traps in case anyone tried to smash them open.”

“Like what?”

“Dye that destroyed the paper inside,” Jonas told Elliot. “I’m convinced this box contains something.”

“Thief trap…” Aldric closed his eyes to think. “That’s what we need. To draw anyone who wants the box to it, but under our terms, not theirs.” He opened his eyes again. “What if we displayed the boxes somewhere, but just for a short space of time? Luring whoever’s after them to attempt to steal them, or this one, and we catch him red-handed?”

Catch Nick Buckman.Aldric had been thinking over what Darrell had said about the guy, whose own father had kicked him out, being back in town to see what he could get his hands on now his father was gone. Darrell’s face, when he’d hinted that Nick wasn’t exactly a model citizen… He thought the man was behind it—Aldric was convinced. Aldric did too.

“It seems a good idea, but shouldn’t we involve the police?” Jonas asked.

“We tried that and got nowhere.” Aldric swallowed. That sentence was a good description of what had happened between him and Darrell. “So let’s try again, and this time do better.”

“If you’re absolutely sure,” Elliot said slowly.

Aldric wasn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter Eighteen

“You’re great for business!” Enzo, the owner of the Spectrum Art Space, told Elliot, clapping him on the back later that afternoon and beaming at all the visitors wandering around the artifacts that Aldric, Jonas and Elliot had laid out.

“Oh, I think business is good here as a rule. This static display of old trinkets is nothing in the grand scheme of things, which is why I very much appreciate you ceding us this hall,” Elliot replied to his friend.

Aldric had supposed a gallery or art space owner would be older, and more of a businessman, like Elliot, especially with him being a buddy and the only reason they’d been given a venue for their pop-up exhibition. Or that he’d be wearing a suit and have a quiet, soft manner, like the curators Aldric had seen at the museum. Instead, the man had the ponytail, goatee and small rectangular glasses of a hipster, and the enthusiasm and energy of a middle-schooler.

The space, part of the first floor of the Navarro Building downtown, was just as fashionable, with its different rooms showing a variety of exhibitions and displays, from immersive and experiential art to interactive installations, mostly by local artists and collectives. “The whole Spectrum,” as Enzo put it, making the reason for the choice of name clear.

Aldric barely knew what the words meant or even if these fields of art were very different, and despite having taken quick peeps into the other rooms, with their neon lights and experimental music, was still not much the wiser. He could have spent longer in each space and had Enzo or even the artists themselves show him around. The multi-location virtual walk through an alternative San Antonio looked very interesting, if puzzling, but Aldric wouldn’t leave the Intrinsic Value artifacts display for long. He kept his eyes glued to the table in the middle of their room, the one holding the hexagonal box.

Elliot touched his arm. “You can take a break, Aldric. We do have others to watch the items.”

Aldric still couldn’t believe Elliot had hired a security guard to escort them from the store to the gallery when they’d conveyed the artifacts earlier, or that the same guard was here now, standing out like a sore thumb amid the much more colorfully dressed and animated visitors.

“Is this how rock stars feel?” he’d asked, bemused, when he and Jonas had arrived with their boxes. By no means a confident, at-ease person, he’d been more watchful since the attack in the alley and the attempt on him at the mission. The idea that there could be someone lying in wait made him shiver.This is your idea, remember?he’d told himself both on arrival and at intervals throughout the afternoon, whenever he’d felt any prickle of suspicion or warning.

“No. Thank you, but I’d rather stay,” Aldric replied to his employer. “After all, this was my doing. Well, my idea.”

He couldn’t claim any credit for putting on the exhibition or drumming up the publicity for it that had attracted the steady trickle of visitors. He just hoped Elliot hadn’t had to spend too much money to get ads on the local radio to get the news out. Word of mouth had contributed as well, he supposed. There’d been people calling into Intrinsic Value since midday, curious to ask them about the ‘haunted’ or ‘cursed’ objects.

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