"Honey, I'm home!" I jokingly sung as I entered our RV.
"Oh shut the hell up," my partner responded while laying on the couch towards the back. He looked sick because of the blanket and ice bag on his forehead, but other than that, he looked fit as a fiddle. Though, looks can be deceiving because he had a temperature of 100°F.
"How rude! Is that the way to act towards the hand that takes care of you? I even got the ring! I guess this proves I don't really need you," I say as I put some groceries and the medicine I got at one of those 24-hour marts/pharmacies down on the counter of our narrow kitchen.
"Wait, you actually got it?! What took you so long to come back? Why the fuck didn't you call me? I just assumed you failed and were ashamed to come back and that's what took you so long."
"Heh, I'm no failure, I succeeded! Though it was at the expense of the prettiest girl I've ever seen," I dejectedly said. I took out the ring, which was safe in the zippered pocket of my pants, and showed it to him while holding it to the fluorescent bulb, which casted streams of ethereal light across the floor.
He whistled and responded to my action by asking to hold it. As I handed it over, he asked about the other detail I said about the girl.
"Her name was Ash, Ash Conti, and she was beautiful. Even her voice was angelic," as I was talking, he slowly picked himself up and onto his feet and he hobbled over to the safe in the wall and put the ring in it. When he opened it, you could see other treasures that probably added up to well over half of a million dollars.
"How did you find her?" He sat on the counter in the kitchen and took out his medicine from the grocery bag.
"About that, she was there while I was going to steal the ring."
"Don't tell me she was a guard or something that is going to turn you in?"
"No, I knocked out all of the guards like you told me to," I went to go sit on the counter beside him. "She was a fellow robber that happened to be there at the same time."
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"Heh, kinda like serendipity. At least for you. She might hate you for snatching the ring instead of her," He replied.
"I know, I know. You're probably right. She did seem to hate me, but still."
I just couldn't get her out of my head. It seemed almost too coincidental that I met Ash. If he wasn't sick, he would've been the one that met her. Even though I hate doing the actual jobs, I'm kind of happy that he was sick so I could do it because of Ash.
"I'm probably never going to meet her again, so we can just drop the topic," I sighed.
"Well, onto another subject. As I was on my laptop today, I saw a museum opening for the 'Zephyr Lady'. Apparently it's a statue of a nymph in the clouds and they found it in a shipwreck off of the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean."
Ooh, sounds intriguing.
I hopped off of the counter and crossed the RV to where his laptop was and plopped onto the couch. My partner followed suit while holding a water bottle and some pills. I looked up 'Zephyr Lady statue' and he pointed to a picture of a statue that matched his description. He threw the pills in his mouth and chugged down some water. His face looked sour because of the taste, but I didn't really care because I was reading the museum website's little spiel that said:
JOIN THE WILLIAMSON MUSEUM'S UNVEILING OF THE 'ZEPHYR LADY', AN IMACTULATE WORK OF ART FOUND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. IT WILL BE PRESENTED ON OCTOBER 16TH, WHERE IT WILL BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. BRING ALL OF YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!
It sounded promising. If we went, we could scope out the place and figure out how heavily guarded it is. It would be nice to have a job right after another. The only problem though...
"It's next week. Are you going to be up to it?" Even though he might get better tomorrow, he might get better in two weeks. I would rather not go to the opening by myself and figure out the floor plan, where the cameras are, the guards, and the sensors. That's barely scratching the surface of what we do at these events and to go them alone is a huge undertaking. But this would be passing up a big opportunity because opening nights are the most hectic, so they're surprisingly the easiest environment to look slightly suspicious in.
"Are you kidding me? It's bad enough that I missed out on stealing the ring and meeting a hot chick. There's no way I'd pass this up, or my name isn't Colin Fitzgerald!"
"But it's not your name..."
"I know, but it's a nice pseudonym, right?" He looked so proud of himself.
"Sure it is. But I'll still call you Blake."