One Grave Less

him,” said Diane. She was starting to feel giddy if not homicidal.
    Frank put an arm around her and they started back. They found David bending over the form of Steven, who was groaning.
    “What I don’t understand,” said David, “is, with all that time spent in the jungle, why you didn’t learn.”
    “Learn what?” rasped Steven.
    “Who’s the most feared in the jungle?” said David.
    They left Steven to be picked up by the paramedics whenever they got out there, and they walked back to the museum. Diane took them through a side door that led into the Pleistocene Room. They hurried to the security office. Chanell was gone. The guards told them that Chanell went to give first aid to Cameron Michaels.
    “They said that woman went to town on him,” one of the guards added.
    Good, thought Diane.
    They found Michaels lying on the couch in the meeting room. Lindsay had a baseball bat in her hand.
    “Confiscated from the basement encampment,” said Gregory. He stared at Ariel.
    “My God in heaven, it’s true. I was afraid to believe it.” Gregory knelt in front of her. “Do you remember me?” he asked.
    Ariel nodded.
    “As soon as you get phone service, I must call Marguerite,” he said. “She will be overjoyed. Ariel.” Gregory hugged her. “This is the best,” he said.
    “How is Cameron?” said Diane.
    “He’ll live, unfortunately,” said Gregory. “He has a lot of broken bones. But he’s not saying much, just that we can’t prove anything. I don’t know what he thinks we can’t prove after this night.”
    “Something terrible,” said Diane.
    She thought of Simone running from the supersoldier, trying to hide her proof, shoving the bag of feathers, animal parts, and the bone under the display case. Diane ran it through her head as if she were Simone, and she knew where the package was.

Chapter 68
    Across from the Mayan display was the back entrance to Mike’s office with the sign on the door saying when he would return. Simone saw a safe place for her package—under the door to an office that wouldn’t be used for three weeks.
    Diane opened the door and there it was on the floor. A bulky envelope that just fit in the space under the door, addressed to Diane Fallon from Simone Brooks.
    Diane took the envelope downstairs and opened it at a table with Gregory, David, and Frank. Ariel had stayed with Lindsay and John while Diane searched for the package. She sat in Lindsay’s lap watching her mother open the package.
    Simone had laid it all out in typewritten notes. Photographic and testimonial evidence filled in by some guesses on her and Oliver’s part. Diane laid the photographs on the table. She felt sick.
    David and Diane both were right. Simone had remembered seeing Cameron’s briefcase at the massacre site. It hadn’t registered with her for a long time. And one day, out of the blue, she remembered it. She asked Hannah to send the photographs she took so she could check and make sure her memory was accurate. It was.
    Diane thought of all of them. Family for a time. They had known one another so well back then; at least Diane had thought so. They had known Simone to the point that she and David could put themselves in her shoes. They hadn’t known Cameron and Steven at all. How could they have missed seeing what they were? Steven had been good at his job. He had seemed compassionate. What happened?
    Diane looked at Hannah’s photograph of the briefcase with Cameron’s initials sitting by Father Joseph’s desk. When Simone saw the picture she knew that her memory was correct. She saw the briefcase, saw that Cameron was actually there the day of the massacre instead of afterward. That inspired Simone to open the boxes that Oliver had sent to his and Simone’s apartment in the United States for safekeeping. It had been shocking to Simone, as it was to Diane and the others who stared at the photograph now.
    According to what Ariel witnessed, thought Diane, Oliver must have confronted a shocked Father Joe with it and it broke his heart to discover he was sending children into slavery.
    The crimes had started with selling endangered parrots to collectors. It went from there to selling people—the people who came through the mission displaced by war and disaster, people who came for help.
    Then Ariel came into Diane’s life. Because of Ariel, Diane was spending more time at the mission, so they had to be more careful in order not to be discovered. They hated Diane for