the rest of them, trying to hold it in. He wanted to yell at Liam. She knew David. He wanted to tell Liam that he, David, was doing the best he could. But he simply stood there, waiting for an answer.
“What if you’re right and he got her to make all the messages—however many of them there are—and then he killed her? I can’t get that out of my head,” said Liam.
Diane understood. She had worried about the same thing, but for one important factor.
“He has to know that I’ll ask for proof she is still alive before I turn over the diary. I don’t think he will kill her before that.”
“Maybe,” said Liam. “Maybe he thinks he’s in total control and any hope you have at all to get Andie back is to just hand over the diary.”
“I think he is smart enough to keep her alive,” said David. “We have to believe that and believe that he wants the gold more than he wants to kill.”
Liam nodded.
The crime lab’s elevator started up, which meant someone was coming from the outside to visit the lab. Diane went to the elevator and waited. It opened to Frank and one of the lab guards who had escorted him up. Diane put her arms around him and hugged him as tight as she could after the elevator doors closed.
“What’s up?” he asked. “I think this is the first time you have ever summoned me.” He gave her a small, cautious smile.
Diane knew Frank would come. He was among the few truly dependable people she knew. He was also a good thinker, and that was what she needed, especially since her brain shut down every time she had a spasm of fear.
“Andie’s been kidnapped by the killer—the one who killed the Barres and Watsons in the night. He’s taken Andie, Frank,” she said.
“Jesus, no,” said Frank. “When? How?”
Diane showed him both the videos plus the security-camera videos. Afterward, the four of them filled him in on what they were doing so far.
“That’s quite a lot in a short amount of time,” he said. “What do you need me to do?”
“Think. Look at the video. Find anything we’re missing. I need your eye. We need as much information as we can get,” said Diane.
Frank nodded and sat down in front of the video to watch it again with Izzy and Liam. Diane was glad to give Liam something to do, even if it had to be watching Andie suffer over and over.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at their conference table to calm down. The refreshed feeling she felt from sleeping in was gone. She was exhausted and puke sick with fear. Her gaze rested on her sleeve again. In the light where she was, the small spread of glitter had a gold-orange glow. Geez, it’s everywhere, she thought.
Then why was it on only one sleeve?
For some reason, she thought about Izzy touching her shoulder not thirty minutes ago. Diane had on the same sweater yesterday, and she remembered Maud grabbing her arm, and the oddly sparkly makeup she had on for a very straitlaced woman. And she thought about Vitruvian Man.
Chapter 55
“Maud and Earl? From the church? I didn’t see that coming,” said Izzy.
They all stared at Diane. Frank and Izzy because they had met Maud and Earl. David and Liam because the others were.
“I’m thinking secondary transfer,” said Diane. “We need to find out who Maud came in contact with yesterday. She won’t respond to me. Any of you charming enough to get the information?”
“What is it you’re saying?” said Liam. “That glitter is from Andie’s shirt?”
“The Vitruvian Man T-shirts have a pale burnt-orange glitter that is meant to mimic the color of aged parchment—like Leonardo da Vinci’s journal,” said Diane. “And as everyone in the museum knows by now, the glitter we got for the T-shirts transfers quite readily. Maud grasped my arm when she came by—”
“Why did she come by?” asked Izzy.
“I’m not completely sure. They wanted me to confess to lying about Leland Conrad—that he hadn’t put me in a jail cell with a bunch of drunks—because he was too good a man to do something like that.”
Diane heard Liam snort.
“I think they were feeling a little guilty,” she continued, “because they had told Conrad I was at their church, and they wanted me to alleviate that guilt for them. Anyway, I noticed that her makeup had a golden reddish sheen to it, as did