One Grave Less (28 page)

“No. The chap told her that you hired Simone to track down a lost shipment of valuable South American Indian fabric for the museum, and that Simone had no idea what she was getting into or what she was carrying.”

“Damn,” said Diane. “She believes it still, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. She won’t be talked out of it. It is proof, after all, that she was right, and her daughter should have followed her advice,” said Gregory.

The waitress came to refill the coffee and bring David several packets of hot chocolate to put in his. They stopped talking until she left. Diane took a long sip of the hot coffee, wishing Simone had at least written her a letter, an e-mail, or something. What was this about?

“Did Simone’s brother, Pieter, have anything to say?” asked Diane. “You said you were to meet him in the coffee shop.”

“He said Simone was obsessed,” said Gregory. “She discovered something in Oliver’s things and it made her crazy. Simone had been secretive and preoccupied ever since she looked into the boxes that Oliver mailed from the mission. She told Pieter she was finishing an investigation that Oliver had started. Pieter thinks she had collected some kind of evidence of her own, and that she was bitter and determined, but would not confide in him. She told him he was safer not knowing.”

“She knew to trust Diane,” said David. “Whatever she had, or whatever she discovered, it must have revealed who was involved. Otherwise, how would she know who to trust? How would she know to trust Diane? She must have discovered which one of ‘us’ ordered the raid on the mission—if that was what her words to you meant, Diane.”

Steven went still. “What? What do you mean—one of us ordered the raid on the mission? It was Santos.”

“We believe that Simone thought it was one of our team who asked him to do it,” said Diane.

Steven shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that. We were too close.”

“Perhaps she meant someone on the periphery of your group,” Frank suggested. “Someone loosely connected with the project or the mission.”

No one said anything for several moments.

“No,” said Diane, as if she just truly realized what Simone’s warning meant. “Simone meant someone close. She said ‘us.’ That’s who we were then—a family, an ‘us.’ Someone close. She meant one of our small family.”

Steven shook his head. “You’ll have a hard time convincing me of that.”

“Perhaps, whoever it is,” said David, “meant to kill Simone and stop her from revealing their identity. They caught up with her here, at the museum. These rumors were meant to distract us, to give us something to do other than investigate what they hoped was Simone’s death. Destroy our credibility, cost us our jobs. It was their bad luck that she spoke to you before she lapsed into a coma.”

“That doesn’t explain my problem,” said Steven. “I knew none of this. Why would I need to be distracted?”

“Perhaps you know something,” Gregory said to Steven. “There’s a reason. We just need to flush it out. It gives me some satisfaction that, if David is correct and these rumors were meant to give us a time-consuming hobby away from Simone, they had the opposite effect.”

No one had anything to say. Steven looked like he had been broadsided. He kept shaking his head.

“Do you have any theories?” David asked him.

Steven was quiet for several moments. He drummed his fingers on the table.

“Okay,” he said, tapping the tabletop with his middle finger. “Why now? Why did all this happen now? And why these god-awful rumors? What happened to trigger all this? You’re saying Simone was investigating stuff she dug out of Oliver’s belongings—belongings that she just recently felt emotionally strong enough to face going through. What if that wasn’t the trigger? What if there are no boxes? Or what if that stuff was only souvenirs, after all? What if the real trigger was the announcement of your upcoming nuptials, Diane? I saw it in the
New York Times
. I imagine she did too.”

Diane’s eyebrows shot up.
New York Times
? Vanessa put her engagement in the
New York Times
? Why? Maybe she was garnering some publicity for the museum. But still . . . However, Diane didn’t say anything to interrupt the flow of Steven’s ideas.

“She admired Diane to the point that she idolized her,” said Steven. “But her greatest tragedy was the death of her fiancé, Oliver—the man she should now be married to. Sometimes fierce loyalty can turn into jealousy. Simone was fragile after the massacre—even before. You know that. She was good at her job, but she was vulnerable.”

David frowned. Gregory looked impassive, but Diane knew he didn’t like where this was going. No more than she did. Frank simply looked interested. She wondered what his take on all of this was. He would be more objective—something Diane was having a hard time being at the moment.

If Steven sensed anything from them, he didn’t show it.

“The rumor about you, Diane, may have been generated out of anger that you were getting the life she had hoped for and should have had.”

“What about Gregory? You? David?” said Diane. There was a sharper edge to her voice than she meant.

“Fallout. If you were involved in drug smuggling, then chances are, we were too—close-knit group, peas in a pod sort of thing. In my case, I can see the DEA thinking they might make a high-profile arrest if it were true. What’s my career compared to theirs? Politics is a dog-eat-dog world.”

“My slander wasn’t drugs,” said Gregory. “Apparently I was too stupid to enrich myself with drug money. I was consorting with prostitutes.”

Steven shrugged. “Aren’t all politicians accused at one time or another of consorting with prostitutes?”

Gregory gave him a wry smile.

“What about the mystery coworker who called Simone’s mother?” asked David. Diane could hear the understated edge to his voice.

“Probably was a coworker, hoping to cash in on her misfortune,” said Steven. “Developing a rapport with Simone’s parents. Next call, he’ll say he found out Simone was involved, after all, and he’ll have to tell the police. ‘No? Don’t tell? Really? You’ll give me money? How much?’ It happens all the time.”

Diane took a big swallow of hot coffee. It burned her throat all the way down to her stomach. “You really think Simone would do this to me, to us?” Diane said. “You can believe she would do that?”

“When the alternative is to believe that one of us orchestrated the slaughter of our friends and family? Damn straight, I can. And so can you,” he said.

Diane pondered that for a moment. “It’s not elegant,” she said.

“What the heck does that mean?” said Steven.

“Too many coincidences,” said Diane. “Too many things happening to all of us from different sources. It’s simpler if one person is doing this to cover up something they did in South America. One person spreading the rumors, the same person controlling information to the Brooks family, the same person after Simone in the museum.”

“Not everything follows the law of parsimony, Diane. Sometimes things are just complicated,” said Steven.

They were all quiet for several moments. It was Steven who spoke first, spreading his fingers wide on the table in front of him.

“Look, guys, you know my strong suit is playing the devil’s advocate. I’m not saying I like this explanation, or even believe it. David asked for an alternative theory. This is one—and a viable one. I believe the massacre was all Ivan Santos from beginning to end. Diane, you showed the world that he was a liar about the mass graves. He hated you for that. He hated all of us, but he particularly focused his hate on you. There may be another explanation for what’s happening to us. It may not be Simone. It may be something else we don’t even know about yet. She may have come here to ask your opinion about something related to her job. Didn’t you say she had a human bone? Who would she take that to, but you? Maybe the fallout on us is for the same reason—distraction—but maybe it’s from some completely different case she was working on. I’m just saying, it is going to take a lot to get me to believe that one of us was responsible for the slaughter in South America.”

He paused. They were quiet. Diane didn’t want to admit he had a point.

“You gave a fair theory,” said Gregory. “And it is what we asked for. Like it or not, we must consider it. None of us like the idea of a traitor among us.”

“Where are you staying, Steven?” asked David.

“Thought I might look up some charming B and B. Got any ideas?” he asked.

“You can stay at my apartment,” said David. “I have a guest room.”

“That would be good,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll take you up on it.”

Diane started to make some joke about David’s overly fortified apartment, but she stopped when she saw Garnett coming toward her. He looked grim.

“Diane,” said Chief Garnett, “I’m sorry to disturb your dinner.”

Diane gestured to a chair at a nearby empty table. Garnett grabbed it and sat down between Diane and David. Diane introduced him to Steven and briefly explained that Steven was suffering from the same problems that were plaguing the rest of them.

Then she said, “You look grim. It’s not Simone, is it?”

“No. I’m not even sure it has anything to do with you. It’s just troubling. There was a break-in at your old apartment. The very one you lived in. Someone trashed it, pulled out all the drawers, tore up the cushions, emptied the closets, the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator. It’s hard to say if anything is missing. Thankfully, the occupants weren’t home. The destruction looks particularly thorough. Izzy is working the scene.”

The first thing Diane thought of was the Interpol warrant on her. It had her old address, not where she lived now with Frank, in his house, but her old apartment, the one that was now trashed.

Diane’s heart thudded against her chest. Star, Frank’s daughter, was at his house . . . alone.

“Would you send a police car to Frank’s?” said Diane. She rose from her seat. “They can get there before we can.”

“You thinking it was meant for you?” said Garnett.

“I was remembering the warrant. It had my old apartment address, not Frank’s house. But whoever is doing this may be educating themselves and may have a short learning curve.”

Garnett’s phone beeped. He looked at the display before he answered it. He listened a moment, his frown deepening.

“Damn it. That was dispatch,” said Garnett. “They are on nine-one-one with Star; she’s holed up in that panic room you built, Frank.”

Maria had the accelerator all the way to the floor. The tires were skidding on the small rocks and detritus in the road, which was getting narrower by the foot. There was a long drop-off on the right and a high bank to the left. They were on a precipice over a gorge. The road was nothing more than a gravelly ledge along the precipice.

Maria should have chosen the other road. She wasn’t thinking. It was a good road and good roads lead to places, like villages and towns. She was in the middle of nowhere and running out of road. Damn.

Rosetta had fished out the guns from the backpack. Maria put each in a pocket with her right hand as she steered with her left. The gun she had been using was lying beside her on the seat.

“Put the map and the compass in the backpack,” she said. Rosetta obeyed.

She rounded a blind curve going fast and couldn’t see, until it was too late, that she was out of road. She slammed on the brakes, the truck fishtailed, and a wheel dropped over the edge on the right. The vehicle came to a grinding halt, tilted toward the passenger’s side at the edge of the precipice. A wall of rocks was close up against the truck on her left. No egress. Their pursuers were closing behind them. They would be rounding the curve at any moment. Maria grabbed the club she had put under the seat, the one that was her first weapon. She started punching the windshield with all her strength, which, with all the adrenaline pumping through her body, was considerable. A spiderweb crack spread out across the windshield. She hit it again and the windshield collapsed outward. She pushed the cracked sheet of glass out and scraped the club over the bottom of the frame, trying to remove the small pieces.

“Toss those rags from behind the seat over the window frame and climb out.”

Maria shoved the backpack onto the hood.

“Go, go, go. Now!” she said.

Rosetta didn’t hesitate; she scrambled out of the truck onto the hood.

“Take the backpack and get as far from the truck as you can get. I’ll be right behind you.”

Maria climbed out, half sliding on the curved hood of the truck. Rosetta was in front of her.

Ambush was one of the best of plans. Maria, for the first time, wasn’t afraid. Either the adrenaline knocked it completely out of her, or her brain understood that fear was of no use anymore. She got her gun and scrambled over the rocks blocking the road, moving to higher ground so she could see over her truck at the road behind them.

“Get farther away, Ariel,” she said, using the little girl’s real name. “If this doesn’t work out, hide until they leave and make your way to Benjamin Constant like we planned. Use the compass and the map, the way I showed you. Find someone with a phone and call your mother at the RiverTrail Museum in . . .”
Shit, where was that damn museum? Damn it
. “Rose, no, Rosewood, Georgia. If you can’t find her there, call John West in Cherokee, North Carolina. Tell him what happened. Tell him you were with Lindsay, and to come and get you.”

“No! You’re coming with me!”

Maria heard the panic in Rosetta’s voice and saw the tears in her eyes.

“I’m going to do my best. What I’m telling you is just plan B. Now, go. You can do this. You are the strongest little girl I know.”

She could hear the truck now, hear them gunning the engine. If she was lucky, they would come around the curve too fast and slam into her truck before they could stop. But she wasn’t going to count on luck. She had the advantage. She supported her arm on a rock and aimed. As soon as she saw the truck, she fired at the windshield on the driver’s side. She didn’t stop to see if she hit anything, she continued to fire as the truck careened down the narrow ledge. She saw the automatic weapon outside the passenger side window trying to aim at her, firing over her head up the mountain, unable to aim accurately. She saw the truck swerve and skid; she saw that it was not stopping. She fired again at the passenger side of the windshield, hoping she struck the gunman. Then their vehicle hit her truck with a terrible noise. She ducked as she heard more gunfire and crawled over rocks until she found Rosetta huddled under an overhang, wide-eyed with fear, her lower lip trembling and tears running down her face. They listened at the crunch and deep squeal of metal against metal, then they heard the thunder of something big tumbling over the side into the gorge.