One Grave Less

it. That was a bad time we had,” said Cameron. “I haven’t played Go since. Don’t have the spirit for it after Father Joe and Oliver.”
    “We’re having some strange problems all of a sudden. Diane seems to be on Interpol’s Most Wanted list, or at least their Look-Out-For list.”
    “What? Just a minute.” They heard typing in the background, then Cameron’s voice. “This can’t be right.” He came back on the phone. “What’s the girl been up to?” He laughed slightly.
    “Minding her own business.” Gregory told him about the other rumors whirling around the three of them—her, David, and Gregory. “And now this. I don’t mind telling you, we are getting rather cross.”
    “I don’t blame you. How strange. Is Diane in Brazil?” he asked.
    “No, she is in the United States. Rosewood, Georgia, to be exact. And she has all manner of mayors, detectives, and board members to prove it.”
    There was a pause.
    “Someone has got it in for you. Is it happening to anyone else?” asked Cameron.
    “Not that I can discover. I wanted to ask you if you are having problems.”
    “None that I’m aware of. Hell. I guess I need to make sure. I haven’t heard anything. But what really bothers me is that someone has hacked into our secure files. That’s not good.”
    “What degree of difficulty does that require?” asked Gregory.
    “Quite a bit, I would think. It’s not my bailiwick. But I’m going to find out. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll give the authorities in the town a call—Río de Sangue. Never heard of it.”
    “Nor have I,” said Gregory. “Thank you, Cameron. It’s good speaking with you again. I hope all is well.”
    “You too, Greg,” he said. “I’ll keep in touch. I have your number here.”
    Gregory hung up. Diane didn’t talk to Cameron and it seemed to her that Gregory hadn’t wanted her to. She asked him why.
    “I haven’t been telling anyone where I am. Just seems better to keep a low profile. I trust the people who were on our team, but not necessarily their confidants. Until we find out where this is coming from, we need to give out less information than we get. That’s why I didn’t tell him about Simone.”
    “So where are we?” asked Diane.
    “Nowhere at the moment. I’ve gone over in my mind what this could be about, who benefits from our disgrace, who we have offended, what was going on with Simone. The only thing I’ve discovered is that I need more information. To that end, I’m going to try my hand at speaking with Simone’s parents. Put my diplomatic skills to the test. Perhaps I can pry out of her brother where she might have put the things of Oliver’s that she kept.”
    The two of them sat staring at each other for several moments. Gregory broke the silence first.
    “We were investigators. Top-notch. Was there something going on around us that we completely missed?”
    “I don’t know,” said Diane. “We are still assuming that Simone is connected with the rumors. We don’t know that.”
    “No, we don’t. Quite a coincidence, however,” Gregory said.
    “And this latest Interpol thing originated in Brazil.” She got on the other computer and looked up the location on a map. “Near Peru,” she said. “About six hundred miles southeast of the mission, but still in Brazil. Everything seems to point to our time there.”
    Gregory nodded.
    “Could it be drugs?” asked Diane. “Could someone have been dealing in drugs and we not know it?”
    “As hard as that is to imagine, one must consider it as a possibility,” Gregory said. “We were out in the field a good deal of the time. Someone could have timed their activities to correspond to when we were gone from the mission. However, the other members of our team would have noticed something. And certainly Father Joseph or the nuns would have.”
    “Maybe Oliver did,” said Diane. “Maybe that’s what the drug-soaked bag was about. Perhaps that’s what Simone was investigating.”
    Gregory pressed his lips together in a tight line. “She wouldn’t have just taken up whatever investigation he may have been conducting, if that’s what she was doing, unless she thought it had something to do with his death.”
    They looked at each other again for a long time. Gregory’s gray eyes took on a steely appearance. “It was one of us?” he said.
    “But it was ex-bloody-dictator Ivan Santos who massacred the people at the mission.” Diane spoke through gritted teeth, defying