Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,36
Bailey said.
“Looks can be deceiving. They defecate all over everything and scream loud enough to wake the dead.” The man’s gaze dropped to the notebook in her hand. “Are you a reporter?”
“I’m with the Herald and I’m—”
“I know why you’re here. Come in.”
She followed him to a French door, where he balanced the books in one arm as he entered a passcode. The temperature in the building was a good thirty degrees cooler than it was outside. He led her down a hallway with arched windows and into a spacious library with bookshelves that had to be twelve feet tall.
“Wow,” Bailey said, looking around.
She followed him past a row of computers, where several people were spread out with backpacks and papers. Stopping at a large mahogany desk, the man set down his armload of books.
“I’m Alex Mendoza.” He offered her a handshake.
“Bailey Rhoads.”
The man was younger than she’d first thought, now that she saw him up close. He had a shaved head and thick dark eyebrows. Like Tish, he wore a lanyard around his neck with a photo ID on it. Bailey read the title beneath his name.
“You’re a research librarian?”
“I don’t know about the ‘research’ part. But I’m in charge of the books.” He glanced around the room. “More than ten thousand volumes, many of them first editions.” He nodded at the row of workstations. “We get grad students in here who use our collection.”
Bailey took out her pen. “So, I understand you were friends with Dana?”
He tipped his head to the side. “Friends?”
“You weren’t?”
“I didn’t know her very well, really. She was quite an introvert.”
Bailey sighed. She’d been all over town today, and she was striking out. Meanwhile, her profile was due in a few hours.
“She did spend a lot of time here.” He gazed out at the room. “She liked books. And she loved our Rossetti.”
“Rossetti?”
“The painting by the alcove there. Dana called it ‘the Sunshine Girl.’”
Beside a windowed alcove was a large painting in an ornate gold frame. Bailey stepped closer. The picture showed a woman in a billowing yellow dress reclining on a sofa. Her cascade of blond curls spilled over her shoulders and swirled around her arms.
“Are you familiar with Rossetti?”
Bailey turned around, and Alex was standing closer now.
“No. But that looks like nineteenth century.”
He nodded. “He was the star of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in England. It’s really an exceptional piece. Collectors contact us all the time, wanting to acquire it, but we’d never part with it.”
Bailey stepped closer to the painting. The woman had delicate features and smiled coquettishly, as though trying to tempt someone to join her on the sofa.
“She looked like her.”
Bailey turned to Alex. “Who? Dana?”
“Except for the blond.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Dana’s hair was much darker, you know.”
She studied the picture again. Then she turned to face Alex, determined to get something she could use before she had to rush back to the newsroom.
“What was Dana like?” she asked. “Besides introverted?”
He seemed to think about it. “Smart, I would say. She asked good questions.”
“About what?”
“Whatever.” He gave a shrug, and Bailey felt a surge of impatience.
“Do you know anything about her family? Her background? Where she went to school?”
“No, no, and no.” He gave a slight smile. “Sorry. Like I said, she wasn’t very talkative.”
“Do you know where she was from?”
He looked up at the painting and sighed. “Everywhere and nowhere.”
“Excuse me?”
He glanced at Bailey. “I asked her once, and that’s what she said. ‘I’m from everywhere and nowhere.’ I have no idea where she was from originally, but it wasn’t here.”
“How do you know?”
“She complained about the weather all the time. Didn’t understand how anyone could take the heat.” He shrugged. “The classrooms aren’t air-conditioned, so it does get pretty oppressive. But nothing like the heat wave we had a few years ago.”
Bailey stifled a sigh. She’d been out all afternoon, and she hadn’t gleaned anything substantive for her article. She looked at the Rossetti again.
“Wish I could help more, but I really didn’t know her outside of the museum,” Alex said. “Did you check her Instagram account?”
“I don’t think she had one. I understand she didn’t like computers.”
“Who told you that?”
“Her employer.”
He laughed. “Dana loved computers. She was in here all the time using ours.” He nodded at the row of workstations by the door. “She parked herself in that chair every Tuesday and Thursday from after class until closing.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT’S technology lab occupied a remote corner of an underground warren of offices that Jacob