She reached up and slapped him, hard, across the face.
Peter’s eyes flashed with resentment. He stared at his niece for a moment, then turned and left the room.
Ben Thomas moved over to stand beside his sister.
Tony Olsen came forward, took the diary from Belle, closed it with care, and handed it to Ben. “This belongs to you, to both of you. It’s a living legacy, and your mother would want you to have it. You’re its rightful owners.”
Ben accepted the diary.
Leila blinked away tears. “Thank you.”
Tony walked over and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You know, I never believed your mother had anything to do with it.”
“I know,” Leila said.
“I was secretly hoping we’d expose a murderer, tonight. And we might have,” he whispered in her ear.
The girl looked up at him and nodded.
25 Phillip Margolin
Nunn knew he had to get away for a few minutes. He needed to be alone, needed to mull over what had just happened, so he headed for the ramp to the lower exhibit gallery, and the exit. A guard had been stationed at the ramp but he was now gone. When Nunn got to the ground floor, he wandered through the darkened halls, preoccupied by his thoughts about what he’d just heard, until he found himself in the Arms and Armor Room.
He walked around the room, then stopped when he walked past one of the display cases. Something was wrong. The case contained daggers and swords. Each was labeled with information about the artifact. One of the labels read RONDELL DAGGER, FOURTEENTH CENTURY, but there was a space where the dagger should have been.
He was walking over to the case so he could examine it more closely when he heard a scream echoing through the marble halls of the museum.
Hank Zacharius could sense a news story when other reporters were oblivious to what was going on around them, but he didn’t need any special instinct to know that a hideous scream at a museum was out of place.
He was off and running. He made the turn into the corridor and was surprised to see Tony Olsen walking down the hall toward him. Olsen’s shoulder was even with the door to the ladies’ room, and Hank thought he saw the door closing, but he couldn’t be certain.
“Did you hear a scream?” Olsen asked.
“Yeah, I thought it came from this hall,” said Zacharius.
“I already passed the offices,” Olsen said, pointing to the rooms on the other side of the hall from the restrooms, “and there’s no one in any of them.”
“That leaves the bathrooms.” Hank pushed open the door to the men’s room, which was empty.
“In here,” Olsen shouted from the ladies’ room.
Hank got his cell phone and darted inside.
Haile Patchett lay crumpled on the floor.
Hank snapped a quick photo of the young woman and a close-up of the blood that was coming from a nasty gash on the back of her head.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Olsen shouted.
Hank took a step closer to Haile but Olsen pushed him away.
“Go outside and keep everyone away from here,” said Olsen. “And get someone to call the police.”
Everyone was huddled around the door to the ladies’ room.
Nunn pushed his way inside.
He found Tony Olsen and a horrified Haile Patchett, who was seated on the floor with her back pressed against the wall. Haile had a hand to the back of her head and blood was seeping between the matted strands of her red hair.
“What happened?” Nunn asked.
“I, I don’t know,” Haile said. “I was fixing my lipstick when I saw a shadow across the mirror. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing him.” She pointed at Tony Olsen.
Olsen looked up at Nunn. “I was with Zacharius when I found her.”
Nunn nodded. “Do you think the attacker was already in here when you came in or do you think whoever it was followed you in?”
Haile just shook her head.
Two policemen rushed up the ramp toward the ladies’ room, and a few minutes later, Haile Patchett came out, a bandage on the back of her head.
“I’m fine,” she announced to a confused and worried crowd. “It’s just a scratch.” She was embarrassed everyone was staring at her.
Hank Zacharius had rejoined the group but hung back, whispering on his cell, calling the story in.
26 Jeffery Deaver
Crazy night, huh?” the crime scene officer, who’d just come, said to the security guard sitting behind the massive desk in the front lobby of the museum.
“Rates as one of the strangest,” the guard answered the cop, who along with his partner was assembling their gear. The two police officers who’d initially responded to the call had left, but not before asking him a few questions. The poor lady with the cut on her head had also left the museum, but in an ambulance. The guard glanced up at the crime scene officers again. They were wearing those outfits-jumpsuits and bootees and hats and masks-that made them look more like surgeons than cops. They’d come in to process the scene-he knew that was the term they used because he watched CSI.
The guard looked outside and noticed the crime scene van parked on the curb. Beside it another ambulance that had responded to the call.
“What’s with the second ambulance?” the guard asked the taller of the crime scene cops.
“That’s how it is sometimes, more than one ambulance shows up. Are they having a party in there?”
“It’s a memorial.”
“What’s your piece?” The first cop was nodding at the pistol on the security guard’s hip.
“Oh, just a Colt. Thirty-eight. They don’t let us carry automatics here. I don’t know why.”
“How ’bout that. I’ve got a thirty-eight as my backup.” He glanced down at his ankle. “Nice weapon.”
“Totally dependable,” the guard said proudly, pleased a cop had liked his choice of gun.
“You have a backup?”
“Me?” the guard replied with a laugh. “Not hardly.”
“Ah. Good.”
“Good?” the guard asked uncertainly, wondering why it was good. Then his mind did a leap and it occurred to him that it made no sense for crime scene officers to be here. That only made sense if-
“Tell you what,” the taller cop said. “Lift your hands out to your sides.”
“Oh, no,” the guard said miserably as he felt the other officer behind him touch a gun to his skull. “This is… shit, this is all a setup, isn’t it? You’re not cops. You’re hitting the place, aren’t you?”
“Hands,” the first one repeated.
The guard lifted his hands. He felt like crying. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”
The second cop-well, fake cop-pulled the.38 from the guard’s holster. His wallet too.
The first one asked, “What’s your half of the code to the special exhibit room, the one in the tower?”
The room that contained a traveling exhibition of some small but important Renaissance drawings and prints. It had taken a year to get the Vatican to agree to lend the masterpieces, and they only did it because the museum installed a special security system that required two people to open it.
“Oh, they don’t tell us that.”
A voice behind him: “Who’s the little girl in the picture?”
The guard whirled around and saw the second fake cop looking through his wallet.
“Your daughter, right? Is she at home now?”