“The kidnapper wants a diary I have. He thinks it will lead him to a lost gold mine. It won’t, but we’re going to make it so it does. If we can get control over where this plays out, I think we’ll have the best chance of saving Andie. We want to salt a mine with gold. You and I need to pick a cave that will work.”
“Doc, we don’t have a lot of gold, but we do have pyrite. I can get quite a bit of it that looks like gold to the untrained eye. Do you think this person knows what real gold looks like?”
“I don’t know,” said Diane. “I was looking at the pyrite in the exhibit. Some of it looks more like gold than others. The cubes of pyrite don’t.”
“I have a lot for the reference collection, plus a lot of quartz with pyrite inclusions. I can make up a sample that looks real. How much do you need?”
“I don’t know that either. You’re the geologist; you tell me. Whatever will look real in a cave. I thought we would spread it on the floor and draw a picture in the diary to fit what we do.”
“Okay, that’ll work as long as he’s not a geologist,” said Mike.
“If it’s not a good idea, tell us,” said Diane.
“It is. Yes,” said Mike. “I can make it work. What you could do is fix a small piece of real gold in the diary somehow.”
“Yeah,” said Neva. “Use yellowed tape. This will work.”
While they figured out the logistics, David worked with the computer in one of the other workstations where he had acoustic software. Diane saw the intensity on his face and she knew what he was feeling. They hadn’t been able to save their loved ones from the massacre. They would save Andie from this killer.
Diane called Korey, her head conservator at the museum, and asked him to come to the crime lab. She sat down with Mike to work on a map, as soon as they could decide on a cave that they could use. Liam sat down with them, along with Izzy.
“What you need,” said Liam, “is a place that is a little harder to get into, kind of like that cave where Larken and Bruce were found. He’ll expect it to be hard and hidden, or somebody would have found it by now. It should also be one that is easy at first, but has a place where we can hide-if that turns out to be the plan.”
“King Cave. It fits the bill,” said Mike. “It’s not in Rendell County, but it’s just over the county line. Slim entrance. Starts easy and gets harder. It’s got a nice little cavern that would be good to salt.”
“Okay, can you draw a map?” said Diane.
“Sure,” said Mike.
Diane extended her arm to hand him the pen. That was when she noticed the sparkle on her sweater sleeve.
Neva let Korey in when he knocked.
“Hey, Dr. F,” he said. “What’s going on in the Dark Side?”
Diane told him what she needed. “It has to look real-just like the other pages. I’m hoping there are blank pages in some of the older diaries that you can remove and use. You’ll have to take it apart and rebind it, and it needs to be done in a couple of hours. Neva will help with the drawing. So will Mike.”
Korey looked at her. “The diaries that belong with the arrowheads?” he said. “You’re changing them?”
Desecration, to a conservator, thought Diane.
“I know what I’m asking, Korey. I need you to do it and not ask questions and not tell anyone,” said Diane. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Someone in Archives said that they can’t find Andie. Is that what this is about?” he asked.
Tears blurred Diane’s eyes and threatened to overflow.
“I can’t say, Korey. Please do this,” she said.
Korey frowned. “Sure, Dr. F. I can do it so it would take an expert to discover it.”
“Thank you, Korey,” said Diane.
Mike and Neva went with Korey to Conservation. When the door closed, Diane heard the ping of the computer.
Another message had come in.
Chapter 54
Diane shook as she called up the message.
“Do you know where they’re coming from?” she asked David, a little too sharply.
“Internet cafe,” he said. “The first one.”
“Where?” said Diane.
“Rockwood,” he said, but she barely heard him as the video started.
The image again was of Andie. She was sitting in what appeared to be the same location as before. Her forearms were bound to the arms of the chair with duct tape. Her shirt was off. From the waist up she was dressed in only her red-stained bra. She squirmed in her seat. She had a note in her hand.
She shook and tears rolled down her cheeks as she read. Starting and stopping, looking at her tormentor, sobbing.
“ ‘I’m still having too much fun to stop right now, so be patient. Andie was a sweet little thing in her T-shirt. She said it’s something called the
Andie sobbed after she finished.
“He’s a dead man,” said Liam, curling his lip and gripping the back of the chair. “If it’s the last thing I do, he’s dead.”
Then he fell into the silence that the rest were in-Diane, Izzy, Jin, and David.
“He hasn’t been raping her,” said David. “Her jeans are on. I doubt he would let her partially re-dress. He would want to see her. This is show.”
Liam turned on David. “How the hell do you know, damn it? How the fucking hell do you know?”
Diane could almost see the frustration pouring over him. She felt it too. Fear and frustration.
But David was bent over, staring closely at the still image of the stopped video. “Because,” he said, “everything is exactly the same as the last video, except for the T-shirt. He’s staging this. I’m willing to bet he’s already made the messages Diane will be receiving, and he’s moving from one Internet cafe to another, sending them to Diane.”
David stood up and turned to Liam. “If we are to save her, we have to do what it takes, even if that means to chill. We don’t have time for self-indulgence.”
Liam looked at him for a moment before he nodded. “You’re right. I know that. I know that,” he whispered almost to himself.
“Jin,” said David, “help me with the acoustic program while I trace this last message.”
“Don’t worry, boss, we’ll get Andie back,” said Jin before he went into the workstation with David.
“What can I do?” said Izzy.
“You and Liam work on a plan. All we have is parts of one. We need a real plan.”
The two of them nodded. No one could take their eyes off Andie, yet none of them wanted to look at her. Diane felt so sick she couldn’t think.
“It should be what I’m good at,” said Liam. “I know I didn’t do right by Andie. But from the first I cared and wanted to see where we went with each other.”
“Like Jin said,” said Izzy, “we’ll get her back.”
“I called Frank,” Diane told Izzy.
Izzy bobbed his head up and down. “That’s good. Frank’s got a good brain. Between all of you guys’ smarts and my comic relief, we’ll solve this.” He reached out and touched her shoulder and squeezed. Diane put a hand on his.
There was a time when Izzy and Diane didn’t get along. He was Frank’s friend and didn’t think she was good enough for him-his opinion helped along by the rumor mill. But they had a shared tragedy: They both had lost a