One Grave Less

way. Blood in the eyes, always good.” He smiled. “He had pissed you off and he knew it. He knew you didn’t hesitate. He believed you would shoot without any indecision. That’s why I chose you. It’s not because I believe you are a natural-born killer.”
    Diane nodded. “Thanks for that.” She shook her head. “What a mess. Star must be terrified.” She smiled. “She’s tough, though. You’d never know she was scared.”
    Korey and Jonas wandered into the room, talking in low tones to each other.
    “What are you two doing here?” Diane said.
    They looked at her, startled. She hadn’t meant to sound so sharp.
    “Jonas and I just came over from a project we are working on at Bartram,” said Korey. “Kind of took all night. We thought we’d stop by here.”
    “My God,” said Jonas, “you look terrible. Did you get beat up?”
    “Yes,” said Diane. “We had an incident.”
    “Here in the museum?” said Korey.
    “Yes. I’ll tell you about it later,” said Diane. “I’m sorry I snapped. It happened on the second floor and I was afraid . . . just afraid.”
    Jonas and Korey pulled up chairs. As much as she liked them, she wished they would go somewhere else.
    “It must be the phase of the moon,” said Jonas. “Lots of bad things happening.”
    Diane looked at him. He looked worried.
    “We have a friend who may be in serious trouble,” said Korey. “You probably know her; she’s a forensic anthropologist, but mainly a professor of archaeology at the University of Georgia. She wrote me a letter of recommendation for this job.”
    “She’s missing in the Amazon rain forest,” said Jonas. “Her department is afraid she’s been kidnapped for ransom, but they haven’t heard anything. They didn’t realize anything was wrong until she missed a couple of lectures in Cuzco. We are all deeply worried.”
    “Her boyfriend is a fairly coolheaded dude,” said Korey. “But I talked to him yesterday and I can tell he’s pretty distraught. The Peruvian authorities are looking into it.”
    Diane stared at them.
    “What?” said Jonas.
    “Forensic anthropologist from Georgia in the Amazon,” she said.
    “Yes,” said Jonas. “You heard something?”
    “Damn,” said Diane. “Damn.”
    She stood up quickly and swayed. Liam put a hand on her arm and guided her back down to the chair.
    “You think it was her?” said Liam.
    “It was the one rumor that didn’t make sense.” Diane spoke to Liam, forgetting about Jonas and Korey.
    “All the others were insubstantial, lacking detail. The thing from Interpol was just so strange and could be so easily verified,” she said. “There has to be a connection.”
    “Well, if it is her, she’s damn tough,” said Liam. “If she’s the one who killed those four men.”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Jonas. “Let’s back up and act like Korey and I are still sitting here worried about our friend. What the hell is going on?” His crystal blue eyes glittered in anger.
    Diane looked over at them a moment, her forehead creased in a frown. She put a hand on Jonas’ arm.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean be so insensitive. Something just clicked into place,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”
    “She’s not dead, is she?” said Korey. He and Jonas exchanged glances.
    “Please don’t tell us that,” said Jonas. “What do you know?”
    “I don’t know if she’s dead. I have no information about that. But what happened to her may have something to do with me.”
    “What?” said Jonas.
    His face was red. Diane worried about his blood pressure.
    “Interpol put out a warrant on me for the murder of four men. Liam investigated and learned that the dead men worked for the criminal element in the area—people who might be kidnappers.”
    “Dear God,” said Jonas.
    “Is that all you know?” asked Korey.
    “No. We know the warrant originated in Brazil. That may be where they took her. We need to alert the Brazilian authorities. We also have a short timeline of events that have occurred and some locations—and a path of where she was heading maybe. She may have escaped.”
    “What can we do?” said Jonas.
    “I can let the authorities in Brazil know, for starters. I can call the embassy there. Gregory and I used to have contacts.”
    “I can start working on it,” said Liam.
    Diane nodded. “You were just speaking with people down there. Maybe you could speak with them again. I’ll talk to Gregory and see if some of the people