Page 54 of Buried Treasure
Sydney looked to Lucy, who gave her a very business-like nod. "It would be helpful if you cooperated," her lawyer advised.
She moved out of the way and let the agents come into her apartment. The search team's leading man began to direct the other agent to look around different areas of her apartment before walking over to inspect the DVDs on Sydney's shelves.
"The X-Filesbox set? Cool," he said.
Normally, this would make Sydney happy, and she would immediately ask him what his favorite episode was. Instead, the compliment made her skin crawl. She felt dirty and gross with these people in her apartment. She would need a long hot shower after this. Hell, she would take that shower now if there weren't people poking around her personal space. Unless…
"Lucy?" she asked quietly.
Lucy leaned closer to her without taking her eyes off the S.E.C. guys. Sydney followed her eyes towards the lead investigator, who was staring at the books on her shelf trying to cover up the fact that he was obviously more interested in the conversation between the two women.
"As your lawyer, I would suggest you be careful with what you're about to say," Lucy said sternly.
"I was just wondering if I had to be here for this."
Her lawyer shook her head. "Just make sure you stay somewhere close in case these guys have questions."
"I'm going to Ryan's," she explained. "I need a shower."
Without waiting for a response from Lucy, she went into her bedroom and grabbed a messenger bag from the shelf in her closet as the other S.E.C. agent stood nearby watching.
"Going somewhere?" he asked in an accusatory voice.
"Next door to my neighbor's place so I can take a shower." She stuffed a pair of jeans and purple sweater in the bag. "My lawyer said I could leave," she added with a sarcastic sneer.
Sydney headed to her bathroom and grabbed her vanilla body wash from the shower. She didn't care what kind of shampoo Ryan had — or even if he had any — but she had to clean this S.E.C. filth off of her, and whatever manly soap he had was not going to help.
Sydney slung the bag over her arm and headed for her front door, grabbing the phone on her counter on the way out.
"Ms. Barton, could you leave that?" asked the S.E.C. agent in her living room.
"I can't take my own phone?"
Lucy gave her an apologetic smile. "We're cooperating," she explained. "I'll make sure they only look for what they need."
"We won't be checking for anything personal," the agent explained. "It's just protocol."
He held his hand out for the phone, but Sydney just smiled extra sweetly at him and dropped it on the counter where she had picked it up from while she made sure to maintain eye contact. Screw that guy. He gave her a tight smile and turned back to keep poking around her desk, which gave her the perfect chance to slide Andy's card off the counter and into her pocket. The government guys could dig into her phone all they wanted, but they weren't going to take Andy's number from her.
"Come get me if you need anything," Sydney said to Lucy.
Then she walked out the door and slammed it hard behind her. Exiled from her own apartment and without her phone, she had no way of texting Ryan to give him a warning that she was on her way over. Oh well. She took the short steps to his place and knocked loudly, assuming he would be asleep at this hour after the long flight home from the west coast. Surprisingly, he answered pretty quickly wearing black Detroit Pirates sweatpants and a white t-shirt. It looked like he had slept on the plane though with his hair sticking out in every direction. The initial smile on his face quickly faded when he took in Sydney's appearance.
"What happened?" he immediately asked.
"I need a shower," she replied as she pushed past him into his place.
She could hear the door close behind her and turned to see Ryan still staring at her with a skeptical look.
"You came over here just because you need a shower?"
Sydney dropped her bag on the floor and started rummaging around for her vanilla shower gel.
"The S.E.C. is in my apartment, and I couldn't deal with them so I'm here instead."
Her hands finally found the shower gel and she stood up, knowing full well that she was giving him a desperate pleading look. But at this point, she was done caring about wearing her emotions out in the open like this.
"Can I please use your shower?" she begged.
