The men advanced, bats ready to strike. Before they got to her, the headlights from an approaching car shone on all of them. The two men stopped for only a moment; then one started to take a swing at Diane. She ducked when the car’s siren blasted and the blue light flashed. It was a police car. Thank God, she thought, as the men took off running across the parking lot, the police car in pursuit. Just then three of her security guards came running out of the building, their hands on their guns ready to pull.
“We need to help Dr. Price inside,” said Diane when they reached her. She and one of the security guards helped Juliet to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” Juliet whispered.
“It’s all right,” said Diane.
As she spoke, she watched the police car cut one of the runners off so that he slammed into the side of the car. The other man ran past the car and into the woods.
With the help of a guard, and flanked by the two other guards, Diane helped Juliet inside.
“Thanks for coming so fast,” said Diane when they were safely inside the building.
“Sure thing, Dr. Fallon. What was that about?”
“I don’t know. Can you take Dr. Price to my office and let her lie down on my sofa? And get her some water, or whatever she wants from my fridge.”
The security guard nodded and walked with Juliet across the granite foyer and through the double doors that led to the offices. The other two guards stayed with Diane.
“Go outside and see that the restaurant personnel and patrons get to their cars safely. Don’t make an issue of it. Just keep an eye out. Call for someone to keep a lookout on the terrace side of the restaurant.”
“Yes, ma’am.” As the two guards left the museum to go to the parking lot, one was on his radio.
Diane had a feeling that the men with the bats were after her, though she didn’t know why, except that she was the intended target of all the other attacks that took place at the museum. Better her as the target, she thought, than the patrons. Who would want to send their kids to a museum targeted by gangs wielding baseball bats?
Diane watched the activity at the police car from the doorway. She wanted to walk over to them and find out who the hell the guy was, but she would just be a distraction. She suddenly wondered what the police car was doing here in the first place. Had someone called them? Were there other problems she didn’t know about?
For whatever reason, the police were there and she was glad of it. It was clear that one guy would have gotten off at least one blow before her security people reached her.
She saw another patrol car join the first one and watched as they transferred the prisoner. The perpetrator looked to be about six feet and heavyset. The police had removed his ski mask, but she couldn’t see his face.
Two policemen from the first car, her rescuers, were walking toward the museum. When they were near enough, she recognized Archie from the morgue tent and Izzy Wallace.
Dear God, she thought. Izzy wants to talk about his son.
Diane opened the door wide for them. “Thank God you were here,” she said as they entered the museum.
“We got one of the guys,” said Archie. “You OK?”
“Yes. I’m fine. I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the two of you. They were about to do us some real harm, and they really frightened one of my employees.”
“I need to talk with you,” said Izzy.
He’d taken his hat off and he held it in his hand. Diane thought of the phrase “hat in hand.” It seemed to fit. Izzy wasn’t someone she got along with, but now he needed something. Something she wasn’t sure she would be able to give.
“Dr. Price is in my office. Let’s step into the Security office and talk there,” said Diane. They nodded.
Diane led them through the same double doors that Juliet and the guard had gone through, but Diane headed to Security instead of the Personnel offices. There was a small refrigerator in the office, and she got the three of them bottled water.
“My boy,” said Izzy, “could you have made a mistake?” He looked at Diane with eyes that pleaded with her to tell him it was a mistake.
“How . . . ,” began Diane.
“It wasn’t Archie,” said Izzy hurriedly. “It was someone else. Is it true?”
“We need to have the DNA results to know for sure,” said Diane. “Right now, we just have the x-rays.”
“But you could have made a mistake in reading the x-rays,” he said hopefully.
“Yes, I could have. Dr. Rankin, Dr. Webber, and Dr. Pilgrim also read the x-rays separately, and we all reached the same conclusion.”
Izzy groaned.
“We all could be wrong. X-rays are not absolute. That’s why we’re trying for DNA.”
Izzy shook his head back and forth. “I’d hoped you were wrong. I told Evie you were wrong. But . . . we don’t know where Daniel is. We can’t find him anywhere and it’s not like him to just . . . We’ve looked everywhere. The library, the Student Learning Center, his friends, parks, the movies, the mall.”
Izzy Wallace put his head in his hands. Diane felt sick at heart. Hers and Archie’s gazes met, and she could see he felt the same helpless sick feeling. Izzy raised his head.
“Daniel’s a good student. He’s a good boy. He’s going places, not like me. He’s smart, always gets As in school. He’s not a drug user. I’d know. I can tell a drug user.”
“I know,” said Diane. “I doubt if many of the kids there were.”
“This is killing Evie. I don’t know what we are going to do. Daniel is our only child.”
Diane wanted to cry. She could see Archie did, too. How was Rosewood ever going to heal from this?
“Why couldn’t they get out?” said Izzy.
“What?” said Diane.
“Of the house. Why couldn’t they get out? Why didn’t more of them get out?”
“I’m not sure,” said Diane. “I think that the explosion . . .” She trailed off. “I’m not sure.”
Izzy uncapped the water and took a sip. The three of them sat there for several minutes, saying nothing. Diane wished she could make this go away. It seemed like an eternity since she was awakened in the middle of the night to the sight of the fire reflected in her photograph of the chambered nautilus.
“Thanks for seeing me. I just . . .” He fidgeted with his hat. “I just wanted . . .” His lower lip trembled. “I just wanted you to tell me you made a mistake.” He put his head in his hands again and sobbed.
“Did he suffer?” he said at last.
“No,” said Diane. She laid a hand on his. “But Izzy, until the DNA comes back . . . We aren’t a hundred percent certain it’s Daniel.”
“I know. But where is he? Why can’t we find him?”
When Izzy and Archie left, Diane wanted to sit down and have a good cry. Instead, she took a deep breath and walked to her office to see how Juliet Price was. This ought to have set her back, thought Diane. If she wasn’t already having nightmares, this day should surely bring them on.
Juliet, drinking from a bottle of orange juice, was sitting on the stuffed red sofa in Diane’s office. The guard was sitting in the easy chair. He looked up, relief evident in his face. Diane guessed he had been trying to engage Juliet in conversation. Diane thanked him. He eagerly got up, nodded a good-bye to Juliet, and left.
Juliet set down her drink, looked at her hands a moment, and twisted her ring, an aquamarine in a gold setting. “I—I’m sorry. I disappeared on you when we were in real trouble. I’m sorry.”
What an odd way of putting it, thought Diane as she pulled up a chair and sat across from Juliet.
“There was nothing you could have done. We were lucky the police and my security came when they did. This was not your fault.”
She looked up at Diane, her ice blue eyes swimming in tears. “I’m useless. I just disappear when things get hard.”
Diane noticed blood seeping through the fabric on the arm of Juliet’s shirt.
Chapter 18
“W
ere you hurt?” Diane reached over to look at her arm.
Juliet pulled it back. “It’s nothing.”
“Did you cut yourself?” asked Diane. Juliet was silent. “Dr. Price.” Diane used her title and a firm voice. “Let me help you. It looks like you need it.”
“There is no help,” she whispered. “I’ve tried.”
“What if there is help to be had? Isn’t it worth it to try again?”
“I’m sorry I deserted you.”
“You didn’t desert me. You were faced with maniacs with bats. Half the people in the museum would have collapsed in the face of that. I’m concerned about your cutting yourself. That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
Diane saw that the door to the bathroom was open. She usually left it closed. She guessed that Juliet had cut herself when she came in from the episode in the parking lot. Some kind of strange coping strategy that Diane didn’t understand.
Juliet was rubbing her hands, as if washing them, almost wringing them. Her face looked panicked.
“I know that seems strange, but I have to.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Diane.
“Now it does. That’s the point. It doesn’t at first. It’s as though I’m disappearing—I can’t even feel anything. The cutting brings back the feeling. It anchors me back to the ground. Without it, I’ll just fade away.”
Odd, thought Diane. Fading away was the way she saw Juliet.
“I said it was not my intention to mind your business, but I feel like you’re in this current situation because of me.”
“You? How?” asked Juliet.
“The men were more than likely after me, and you were just an innocent bystander.”
“Really?” She seemed surprised.
Diane wondered why. Did Juliet see everything as her fault?
“Yes, and I’m sorry. However, since I have a responsibility, I feel like I need to urge you to see someone. It doesn’t have to be Laura, and your job doesn’t depend on it. But for your own sense of self, give it a try.”
Juliet nodded, but Diane wasn’t sure she was even listening.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
“That’s good enough,” said Diane. “Now let me drive you home.”
“I can drive. I’m here now. I’m fine.”
“I’ll have the guards walk us out.”
“I’ll agree to that.”
It was good for Diane to be home in her own apartment. “I need a vacation,” she said to herself as she stripped off her clothes and got into the shower.
After a long shower, she slipped on a nightshirt and got into bed, hoping for no midnight phone calls or explosions. She fell asleep wishing Frank were here in bed with her.
It was her clock that awoke her and not the phone. Diane thought that was a good sign. She breakfasted on peanut butter on raisin bread and an apple and dashed off to the museum. As she was getting in the car, she looked through the woods at the tent city being disassembled. She was glad to be working in her own lab from now on. She got in the car and drove off.
After Diane checked in with Andie, she went straight to the Security office. Chanell Napier, her head of Security, was on duty.
“They tell me we had some excitement last night,” said Chanell. “Are you all right, Dr. Fallon?”
“I’m fine, Chanell. Have you found out anything?”
“The police caught the second guy. They have them both downtown. I expect they’ll let us know what it was about when they find out. You know how Chief Garnett hates anything to happen to the museum.”
Diane did. He hated anything that might make Diane rethink her arrangement with Rosewood about having a crime lab in a wing of the museum. He and the mayor had promised that the crime lab wouldn’t attract anything dangerous to the museum. They hadn’t been able to keep that promise, but Garnett certainly tried.
“Keep your ears open,” said Diane. “Find out if anyone else has had any problems at all going to their cars. But I actually came here on another matter. Aquatic Animals have had several valuable seashells stolen.” Diane handed her the folder that Whitney Lester had given her.
“Here are pictures of the seashells. There is a sheet with the value in there, too. I think the theft amounts to over six thousand dollars.”
Chanell shook her head. “Not another one. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Diane.
“Other departments have had losses. Always rare items and always small items.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?” asked Diane.
“Most of the complaints have come in just recently while you were at the explosion site. The collection managers just now noticed things missing. In some cases, less valuable items were substituted for the real ones, and it took a while to discover the difference.”
“What’s been stolen?” asked Diane, horrified that systematic theft was happening in the museum.
“Just yesterday, the Geology manager said three gem quality stones are missing, including a diamond donated by Vanessa Van Ross.”
“Oh, no, not her ten-thousand-dollar diamond.”
“I’m afraid so. They also have two valuable geodes missing. Entomology reported that a rare”—Chanell got a folder from her desk and opened it—“Boloria improba acrocnema is missing.” She pronounced the name syllable by syllable. “That’s a butterfly. The curator said it’s worth about seven hundred dollars.”
“Anything else?”
“Paleontology reported fossils missing, including dinosaur eggs.” She waved a sheet with a list of items. “We don’t know the value yet, but right now we may be looking at about thirty thousand dollars worth of missing items.”
“What’s being done to get to the bottom of it?”
“I’m reviewing the videotapes. So far nothing stands out. The problem is we don’t have a specific time for any of the thefts. I’ve asked all the departments to tell me, as best they can, exactly when was the last time anyone can confirm that the missing items were still here. I’ve been in touch with the GBI and the FBI. Right now the value is not enough for them to sit up and take a lot of notice. But they are helping me look at collectors who are known to buy stolen property. I’ve asked all the departments to go over their inventory. That’s how Geology discovered the gemstones. The collection manager is beside herself. Someone put fake gems in place of the real ones so no one would notice anything was missing. She said Mike was going to be furious when he gets back from wherever he is.”
“He’s searching for extremophiles in caves in Brazil.”
“Lord have mercy . . . whatever that is. It’s an education every time I talk to one of these curators.”
Diane smiled. “Has Archaeology suffered any losses? They have some valuable artifacts.”
“I asked Jonas Briggs. He said no. I think he was a little offended.” She grinned. “But you know him.”
“Keep on this,” she said. “Keep me informed of all developments.”
“We will, Dr. Fallon. We’ve been talking with Dr. Williams while you’ve been working on those poor students’ remains. That whole business is just simply awful.”
“Yes, it is. It’s caused a lot of profound grief. It’s going to take a long time to recover—if ever. You don’t really recover from the loss of a child.”
“No, ma’am, you don’t.”
Diane called Kendel Williams and asked her to meet her in front of Aquatics. She left Security, which was in the east wing, and walked to Aquatic Animals, which was in the west wing. On the way she passed the museum store and she wondered if they had had anything stolen. She stepped into the store and asked the manager. She was putting Dora the Explorer dolls on the shelf.
“Stolen?” She ran a hand through her platinum hair and shook her head. “No. Not here. We occasionally get someone trying to shoplift, but the detector always catches them.”
“Let Security know if anything turns up missing.”
“Of course.”
On her way out of the shop she met Kendel.
“What’s up?” Kendel asked.
“Some personnel business. I need a witness. I think she’s going to be a problem and I’m just being cautious.”
Kendel’s fine brown hair was in a smooth French twist today. Different from the usual turned under, shoulder length do. Her brown eyes and soft voice fooled a lot of people when they met her. She could negotiate for museum items with the best, and was hard-nosed about it. She had acquired several nice pieces for RiverTrail. Diane was glad to have her as assistant director.
“Troublesome. That would be Whitney Lester,” said Kendel.
Diane and Kendel continued on to Aquatics just across the west-wing foyer. The museum hadn’t opened yet, so there was no one among the exhibits. They passed the shells, and Diane lingered a moment at a few of them before she went into the lab.
Juliet was there working on the educational kits. All the kits were popular with teachers. Juliet and her counterparts from different departments put together examples of shells, or rocks, or fossils, whatever the subject was, into a box, along with lesson plans, activities, and educational material. They couldn’t keep enough in stock, even though the kits were not for keeping but for checking out and returning to the museum. Several schools in the area designed their science classes around the kits.
“Hello, Juliet, how are you this morning?” asked Diane.
Juliet looked up, startled. “Oh, fine. I’m fine. Really.” She smiled at Kendel, tugged at her long sleeves, and went back to work.
“Is Mrs. Lester in?”
Juliet nodded without looking up. “Yes. She’s been in about an hour talking on the phone.” Juliet bit her lip. “You should gird your loins.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Diane knocked on the door.
“Juliet, I’m busy. I told you when I arrived that I don’t want to be disturbed. I meant it.”
Diane exchanged glances with Kendel and knocked on the door louder.
Chapter 19
“Damn it, Juliet. . . .” The door swung open and Diane and Kendel came nose-to-nose with a red-faced Whitney Lester. “Dr. Fallon. Dr. Williams. I didn’t realize. . . . Actually, I’m glad it’s you. I need to talk to you.”
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