Though we left early for town, it felt like there just weren't enough hours in the day to see everything there was to see. We walked all over the town, but there were still many places we hadn't seen. The places we did see though were such a treat. We even went to a movie, a mall, and cozy little bookstore where Cliff let me pick out a book that I liked.

As I stepped out of the bookstore behind Cliff, clutching my new treasure to my chest, I noticed the sun was low in the sky. "So, what are we going to do now?" I asked, hoping Cliff didn't intend to head home anytime soon.

Cliff swung our hands between us, which should have bothered me, but really just made me feel giddy. "Whatever you want to do," he said. "I've been here dozens of time before, so none of it is new to me."

We passed a small, second-hand antique shop and I peered in the window. I could see some interesting stuff nestled on the shelves. "What's in there?" I asked.

Cliff grinned and pulled me over to the door. As we walked inside, Cliff explained that this was one of the best places to visit because the inventory was always changing. "It has a little of everything," he said. "You never know what you're going to find buried under all the years and stories. Sometimes it's an old, worthless bottlecap, and sometimes it's a priceless glass figurine."

Most of the things we saw was stuff no modern man would be interested in. But Cliff and I were fascinated by the decades old electronics, the 80's toys, and the old school desk that sat in the corner whose tag read: "1940's school desk with inkwell". I was particularly interested in the section of poetry books from the 1800's.

"This place is amazing," I said, carefully lifting an old volume of The Berries of Anger by Joan Glassburn. The spine was falling apart, but the book itself appeared in good shape.

Cliff chuckled. "It really is," Cliff said, watching me more than the contents of the store. I ducked my head, embarrassed to be stared at, and put the book back.

We walked over to a counter near the back and Cliff leaned over it to shout into the back room, "Aaron! You in there?"

"Be there in a second!" a familiar voice called back cheerfully.

As I began putting two an two together, Cliff said, "In the same way that I work at the hospital, Aaron has a regular job on the side. His main job is more lucrative than mine though. This was actually where we learned about each other after  we had graduated college."

While we waited for Aaron, Cliff told me about how he had decided to stop by on his way home form work one night and had found Aaron in his shop, wrestling with a huge guy who turned out to be a member of a Chicago mob sent to kill Aaron under the suspicion that Aaron had killed the next heir. He had, but that wasn't the point, Cliff said. Cliff had fought alongside his college buddy and eventually the mobster was out cold and tied up in the backroom. Aaron wouldn't believe the excuse that Cliff had been into boxing before they met, and Cliff wasn't convinced that Aaron learned his skills from TV, so eventually they admitted to each other who they really were and what they did.

"I just barely convinced him not to kill me behind the store," Cliff said with a chuckle.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should have killed him anyways," Aaron quipped, walking out of the back. "What's up, you two?"

"We were just walking around, so we dropped by," Cliff replied. "Got any new stuff recently?"

"A little," Aaron said. He left and came back with a small box of trinkets. "We haven't had much come in since the store next door opened up, but we still get the valuable stuff once in a while."

With mock delicacy, Aaron pulled a few things out of the box. "We have a nice pair of earrings for the ladies."

Cliff rolled his eyes.

"...some baby toys for the new family member," Aaron continued, "and some nice cufflinks for any man in his best business suit."

"No one wears cufflinks anymore," Cliff said with a scoff.

"Maybe not, but if you need 'em, we have 'em," Aaron said with as much fake enthusiasm as he could muster. He winked at me. "If you see anything you like, just tell me."

While Cliff and Aaron talked about varying topics, I took a peek into the box. I saw a few things that caught my interest, but nothing all that great. The most valuable thing in the box was probably the little ornate butterfly jewelry box. But that wasn't of much intrigue to me, so I just pushed it aside. As I did so, however, there was a clink and I shifted a few things out of the way to grab a small black object that had knocked against a metal horse toy. It was a pocket knife, and yet, there was something strange about it. Flipping the blade open, I realized it was a actually a bookmark with a removable grip to reveal a dull blade. It wasn't a formidable weapon, but it would do in a pinch if someone was in trouble, that was for sure.

Suddenly, I could feel Cliff's eyes on me and I looked up. Him and Aaron were both staring at me like they weren't sure what I was thinking. I closed the bookmark-knife. "I was just looking," I said as I set it back in the box.

The two men exchanged glances. Then Cliff took the item out of the box and looked it over for a long minute. After opening and closing it a few times to test the agility of the actual blade, he held it up for me to see. "You want this?" he asked.

I blinked at the trinket. "Really? You'd let me have that?" I asked.

"Only if you can promise me that you won't do anything stupid with it. I won't be very happy if I have to take it away," he told me.

He was talking about me lashing out at him. While it was a tempting thought when I was reminded of all he had done, I didn't think I'd actually be able to try anything. I wasn't a violent person; at least, not enough to try to stab anyone, even someone like Cliff. I agreed to his conditions.

Cliff turned to Aaron. "How much?"

"Just take it. We haven't priced any of this stuff, so no one will know. Besides, you're a friend," he said, smiling at me. "Both of you."

As Cliff handed me the bookmark, I tucked it in the pages of my new book. A few minutes later we said goodbye to Aaron and left the shop. We stopped by a little restaurant for some takeout before finally returning to the car to head home.

*******

James held up a picture of Zane to lady. She shook her head and James sighed, walking away. The two agents, after much deliberation, had decided to try going around town and asking people if they had seen a young boy with brown hair and eyes. They had been searching since noon, but had turned up nothing so far. Everyone they spoke to had the same thing to say: "He's not from around here."

As the sun began to set, James and Sam sat down on a bench. "It's been hours and we still have nothing," James said wearily. "Maybe we're way off and he's not even here."

Sam scratched his chin, stuffing his copy of his Zane's photo in his pocket. "That seems to be a likely case," he replied, equally as weary.

"There's still a few stores left we could ask," James said without much real hope. "Should we go ahead and ask them too?"

It couldn't hurt, so Sam nodded, not appearing anymore eager than his partner, and they stood up. The agents were about to split up to cover the last stretch of town when James noticed a familiar figure walking past about twenty feet away. He tapped Sam's arm. "Sam, look."

Sam turned too and his eyebrows shot up. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Clifford Dine."

They watched him walk towards his car, seeming to be talking to someone on his other side. As he got close enough to open the driver's side door, a smaller person stepped around him to get to the passenger seat. Faster than Sam, James quickly grabbed his phone and took a picture.

The doors to the car shut and it pulled away, disappearing down the road. It didn't matter. The agents had seen all they needed to. James pulled up the picture and zoomed in on the person who had been walking with Cliff. 

"Tell me that was who I think it was," Sam said, leaning over James' shoulder.

James looked at his partner. "Yup," he said. Though the person in the picture had longer hair and he was thinner than the boy in the photos the agents carried, there was no mistaking who they had seen. They had just found Zane.

*******

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