One Grave Less (29 page)

More bodies for someone to follow.

Don’t lose it now
, she told herself.

“Don’t move. I don’t want to shoot you by mistake, okay? I need to see if anyone survived. I don’t want anyone following us.”

Rosetta nodded.

“You’re doing fine,” said Maria.

She crawled back to look, to see if there was anyone left, if someone had jumped out at the last minute.

Her truck was hanging over the edge, caught on a tree, or something—teetering, ready to fall. She didn’t see the other vehicle. She waited, watched, listened for groaning, someone walking over gravel, anything.

“Do you need help?” she called out just to see if anyone would answer.

Nothing.

“
Você precisa de ajuda?
” called Rosetta.

Maria wanted to laugh. What a kid.

She listened again. Something? Soft noise. Scraping?

“Rosetta,” she called.

“Yes,” she answered from the rock shelter.

Maria aimed her gun to the right and up and fired. A woman—dark hair, dark eyes, camouflage pants, and peasant top—tumbled off the top of the ledge above her and lay on her back on the talus, staring at nothing, blood spreading over her chest. Her gun clattered on the rocks at Maria’s feet. She picked it up. Maria didn’t recognize the woman. Another of the many strangers bent on capturing her and Rosetta. What the hell?

“Anybody else?” she said out loud.

No more sounds. Still she listened.

Maria finally walked back to Rosetta and hugged her.

“I’m sorry I broke down,” said Rosetta.

“Are you kidding? You’re a rock, kiddo. The best kid ever. I could never have gotten this far without you.” Maria hugged Rosetta to her and squeezed hard. “Just the best.”

Maria looked at the way before them. A long expanse of treetops in all directions. They were at the top of a butte that had a steep rocky slope down to the forest below. She could see the river, the one that went through the gorge, winding its way through the forest. Maria guessed that at some point it would flow into the Amazon.

It was a beautiful world. She wished she could be enjoying its interests and not its dangers.

“We have to climb down. It won’t be too bad,” said Maria. “There is enough of a slope that we can do it. We just have to be careful.”

She took the backpack from Rosetta and started down the slope, watching the kid pick her way through the rocks and vegetation that was getting thicker. She looked over at the river again and saw a sight that made her heart flutter. A boat. A two-decker. Possibly a tourist boat.

They couldn’t make it down in time, but if there was one boat, there could be another one. They could follow the river. Then she thought of crocodiles and decided perhaps that wasn’t a good idea.

She was tempted to pick up the pace. But she didn’t.
Don’t be reckless after all this
. She got the map and compass out of the backpack and calculated how much farther they had to go. A little more than forty miles. Not far. Not far at all. She felt lighthearted all of a sudden. Maria quickened her pace when they reached flatter ground.

“It’s not far,” she told Rosetta.

Rosetta grabbed her hand and the two of them followed the compass toward Benjamin Constant.

“I’m thankful you built the safe room,” said Diane as they raced through traffic to Frank’s house. She heard sirens and hoped they were heading for Star. She had her arms crossed around her middle, holding herself together.

“Me too,” said Frank. His face was a tight mask. “She’s in the room. She’s safe. It’s a good room. Strong.”

The safe room was built after a violent intruder beat down the back door and broke in the house with Diane alone at home. It was on the first floor. Frank had taken a small spare bedroom with a tiny on-site bathroom and converted it to a safe room outfitted with steel doorjambs; Kevlar, steel-reinforced, fire-resistant, soundproof walls; controlled ventilation; and separate communication to the outside world. It was small, but comfortable. Frank made a few other renovations, the kind that might be made to make a home handicap accessible, to allow quick access to the room from all areas of the house. It was still a work in progress, but he had finished the main safety features first.

Diane hoped Star wasn’t terrified, and was relieved she had made it to the room, scared at the reason she had to. Frank was pushing past the speed limit. Gregory was with them in the backseat. He said nothing. Diane sensed he was worried. He leaned forward, as if willing the car to go faster. He hadn’t met Star, but Marguerite had when they visited Paris and London on their trip to buy Star’s wardrobe—her reward for meeting Diane’s challenge of sticking out her first year in college and maintaining at least a 2.7 GPA. Gregory had been out of the country at the time. Marguerite was a great help shopping in Paris. It had been fun. Star had a great time. The trip broadened her horizons, made Star see herself in a different light.

Diane had told Gregory about Star and the death of her adoptive parents, Frank’s best friends, and how Frank became her guardian and formally adopted her. She still called him Uncle Frank, which brought no end of confusion to people meeting them for the first time—especially since Star tended to introduce him as “This is my dad, Uncle Frank.”

Diane’s mind was racing, hopping from one trivial thing to the next. Her heart thudded against her chest. She wanted to call Star in the safe room but Star was keeping the line open to the police.

They turned onto Frank’s street. Not much farther to go. Diane could see the police cars in the driveway. Frank pulled in and parked in the grass, out of their way. He jumped out of the car and raced in, Diane and Gregory close behind him.

The police were in the front door. It had been smashed open with, it appeared, a battering ram. Probably took only a couple of hard hits to collapse the door. That door and all the outside doors would be next on the list to reinforce.

A policeman held a hand out before he recognized Frank.

“Duncan,” he said. “We just got here. We’re searching the grounds. It looks like they only made it through the front door.”

Diane knew the policeman, but not well. He had been hired to replace Izzy when Izzy came over to the crime lab. He was a young man, several years younger than Izzy. He pointed to the shattered door askew on its hinges—as if it weren’t noticeable.

Frank rushed past him into the house.

“Uh, we haven’t cleared the house yet,” the policeman said.

The safe room’s outer door was a bookcase in the corner of the living room. Frank opened a small door that concealed a keypad. He punched in his code and the door opened.

Star stuck her head out. Her black hair was cut in a smooth bob with bangs. It was all one color, which Diane thought was an improvement over fuchsia and chartreuse. She was dressed in black slacks elaborately decorated with swirls of metal studs near the bottom of the pleated leg. With it she wore an ice-blue satin blouse and jacket.

“Uncle Frank!” She came running to his arms. “The safe room works. I heard someone around the house trying to break in and I ran to the room and locked myself in and called nine-one-one. But I have to tell you, we need a PA system in there so I can fuss at the guys while they are in the house, like, ‘What part of
this house is protected by a security service
don’t you understand?’ And I need a gun.”

“Star.” Diane hugged her. “You’re safe, thank God.” Diane had Star’s face between her hands. “You did good.”

“It really worked. I felt like Jodie Foster and that vampire chick in that movie.”

Diane had to flip through her memories of popular culture to figure out what Star was talking about. Frank hugged Star again and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m proud of you. You’re not getting a gun,” he said.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur. Diane called Neva and the two of them worked the house as a crime scene. Frank and the policemen searched the house from attic to basement, assisted by Gregory, who was unable to just stand around while everyone was whirling about him. The other policemen searched the grounds.

Garnett drove up thirty minutes later. He told them that, even with all the mess, Izzy wasn’t finding anything useful in Diane’s old apartment. Diane and Neva weren’t finding anything either. The intruders knew how to not leave much behind.

The policemen searching did find where the perps had parked their vehicle. Diane took as many measurements as she could of the ill-defined tire marks. They weren’t even real tire tracks, just impressions in the leaf detritus. Still, she got a rough idea of the distance between the wheels. She might be able to narrow down the type of vehicle they used.

It was past midnight before they had the house back. Gregory helped Frank repair the door. Neva had to take Gregory’s fingerprints to add to the exemplars. A terrible way to treat a guest. Gregory took it with a lot of humor, like this was just his life. Diane was dead tired. Fear about Star had drained away a lot of her energy.

Frank and Gregory were finishing up the door, Diane was wiping down the fingerprint powders left on the surfaces. She stood looking at the clock on the mantle. She had to find a way to get some answers. All of the brain power they had dedicated to crime, and they had nothing. Diane needed to talk to some of the others. Martine Leveque knew Simone Brooks and Oliver Hill best. Damn it, she was just going to have to talk to them.

Diane went into the room she had made into her private home office and sat down in front of the laptop on the desk, called up her address book, and looked for the number she had for Martine. She calculated the time difference between here and Paris—six hours. Martine would already be up, having her cup of coffee, looking out the window. That was her habit in South America. Diane dialed her number.

“
Oui
,” came the answer. Diane recognized her voice.

“Martine, this is Diane Fallon. I know you prefer not to talk with me, but I really need to speak with you. Please.”

There was a long pause. Diane thought she may have hung up, or simply left the phone.

“I told Gregory, I don’t want to maintain our friendships. It’s not personal. You understand,” she said.

“I do. Simone has been attacked. She may die. I’m trying to find out why.” Diane thought she heard a slight intake of breath.

“Simone?” she said.

“She’s in a coma.” Diane hurriedly explained what happened.

“She is saying one of us caused that terrible thing? I don’t believe it,” Martine said.

“Neither does Steven. He’s here, suffering from the same rumormongering that I am—and that Gregory and David are,” said Diane.

“My life here is very calm. I teach children to paint, I arrange flowers, I garden, I ride my horse, I surround myself with beautiful things. But I will try to help you. What do you want to know?”

“Simone was investigating something—we don’t know what—that Oliver Hill had discovered before his death. Something she only recently found among his things. She decided to take it on as her own project. I think it is what got her hurt. Do you remember Oliver saying anything about an investigation he was doing? Or something bad going on at the mission? Anything he might have said, no matter how odd.”

“Odd? You know—knew Oliver. He was the definition of odd. No, nothing stands out. He was always melancholy, except when he was around Simone. What a pair those two were, like two injured birds. If something was going on, you would expect David to be tuned in to it. But I guess we all have our blind spots. Even dear paranoid David.” She paused.

“Birds. There was one thing Oliver said that was odd. I don’t think it means anything, but . . . He was sitting out in the garden with me drinking coffee one morning, watching the birds. You remember the colorful macaws that came up. Wasn’t your little Ariel always trying to get them to talk?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Diane.

“Oliver asked me if I knew how the first child abuse prevention societies began. He said they were connected to cruelty to animals. That children were considered the property of their parents, which meant that parents could do anything they wanted to them. It was when someone convinced a judge that a child being abused was a little animal that the child got relief. He said that was the beginning. He thought it odd that animals and children were so often lumped together. I thought the whole conversation was strange and sad.”

Diane’s mind cast back to the bag that Simone hid in the museum—animal parts and the bone of a human child.

“Why would one of us betray the rest of us?” asked Martine.

“Money would be the only reason I can think of,” said Diane. “A lot of it. It’s almost always money.”

“Perhaps you are right. How are you doing?” Martine asked abruptly.

“I’m good. I’m director of a museum here in the United States. I’m getting married in a couple of weeks,” said Diane.

“Married? Oh, wonderful. Is he a good man?”

“He’s rational, loving, smart, honest. Yes, he’s a good man.”

“All that? Are you sure he is a man?” said Martine.

Diane laughed. “Thank you for talking with me, Martine.”

“I’ll give you my e-mail. Let me know about Simone. I’m glad you direct a museum. That’s good. Surround yourself with beauty. It’s the only thing that helps.” She rang off after giving Diane her e-mail address.

Diane sat in the chair thinking for a long time. She listened to the hammering in the other room. Listened to Star kibitzing.

She called up Google on the computer and typed in
parrot feathers
and
South America
and some of the other keywords describing things that were in Simone’s bag. As the hits came up, Diane was rather startled by what she found.