Turning to Connor, Louise asked, “Have you decided to bring in the FBI’s art people?”

“Not yet,” Daria replied before Connor could. “We will if we have to, but if Connor and I can handle this on our own, I think it would be better for everyone. I’m fairly confident that we can, at least for the time being.”

Daria explained to Louise how even the hint of having purchased stolen antiquities could ruin the reputations of collectors as well as museums, not to mention tarnishing the reputation of the university.

“Well, if we can guarantee the return of whatever items you might be able to find without causing undue embarrassment to the owners, I’d certainly go along with that. Of course, if you’re unable to locate any of the missing pieces, I expect we’ll have to turn this over to the FBI.”

“That’s the plan,” Daria assured her.

“How long do you suppose before you’ll know if you’ll be successful?”

“A few days, maybe. I expect to find some of the information we need on the Internet. It’s either there or it isn’t. In which case, Connor will call in his people.”

“Go to it, then,” Louise told her. “Daria, does this mean you’ve accepted our offer to reopen the museum?”

“First things first, Louise,” Daria said from the doorway. “Without a commitment from the bank, there won’t be a museum. Get your funding, and then we’ll talk.”

“But you’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Connor asked as they walked back to McGowan House.

“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, mine included. If they can’t renovate that building, and do it quickly…if they can’t guarantee the security of the collection…” Daria shrugged. “It all depends on whether or not Louise can convince the bank to give the university a very large loan. I can’t even begin to estimate what it would cost to do everything that has to be done to the museum. They’ll need all new systems-new electric, new plumbing. Air-conditioning and a new heating system. You name it, that building needs it.”

“It looks pretty good, though, considering its age. I guess boarding it up for a while preserved it somewhat,” Connor noted. “I’ll be interested to see what the insurance company recommends.”

“That was a good suggestion, by the way,” Daria said as they approached her temporary home. “Getting the insurance company to prepare the appraisal and assess the building. And since the bank will probably want its own expert to come in, that will give the university two appraisals. Hopefully, the two experts will agree.”

She unlocked the front door.

“But, as Louise noted, at least we have a game plan.” She pushed open the door. “Come on in. I’m sorry it’s so hot and stuffy in here. There’s no air-conditioning and only one fan in the house, and I put that in my bedroom last night so I could sleep. I tried to open the windows downstairs but haven’t been able to get them to move.”

They stepped into the quiet house.

“Maybe I can budge them,” Connor offered. “Which ones would you want opened?”

“The ones in the kitchen, for starters, since I’ve been working in there at night.” She gestured toward the hall that stretched out in front of them. “It’s back here.”

“This is some house,” he said, looking around.

“Isn’t it? Benjamin Howe built it as a wedding present for his daughter, Iliana, when she married my great-grandfather,” Daria explained. “She was his only child, and I guess he wanted to guarantee that she stayed close.”

“So I guess Pop wasn’t disappointed when Iliana fell in love with one of his hires.”

“Not at all. According to her journal, he was pretty damned pleased with her choice of husband. It worked out well for her, I suppose, in the long run. Alistair was quite a bit older than she, and he died when their children were still young, but at least they had a roof over their heads. Since her mother died when Iliana was a young girl, she served as her father’s official hostess here at the university. She stayed until her death, actually, in the late 1930s. She died in this house.” Daria smiled. “Louise says that some who’ve stayed here claim she’s still around.”

“No sightings?”

She shook her head and grinned. “Of course, I’ve only spent a few nights here, but no. Nothing’s gone bump in the night, not even a knocking pipe to wake me. Of course, I sleep like the dead myself, so anything could be going on around me and I’d probably miss it.”

She placed her bag on the table. “I’m going to run upstairs for my laptop. We should probably set it up in the library, if we’re going to get on the Internet. They have wireless access there. Feel free to wander if you want.”

She found him in one of the front parlors when she came back downstairs.

“I was admiring the tiles around this fireplace,” he said when she came into the room.

“Mercer tile,” she told him. “There are different tiles surrounding each of the fireplaces in the house. Whoever chose them had great taste.”

“I agree.” He straightened up. “Ready?”

“Yes.” She turned a lamp on in the front window. “Just in case it’s dark later.”

“I’d like to stop at my car and pick up my own laptop,” he told her as she locked the front door behind them.

“Because two heads are better than one?”

“That, and because I may be able to gain access to areas you might not.”

“You have super-duper FBI powers?”

“Something like that.” He fell in step alongside her. “And if we really need to call in the cavalry, I have a friend at the Bureau who has extraordinary computer skills. He can get into just about any place.”

“How?”

“If he told me…”

She laughed. “Yeah, yeah, he’d have to kill you.”

“That’s what he tells me, so I don’t ask. I just let Will do his thing.” They’d reached the parking lot, and Connor unlocked his trunk. He opened it, took out a black leather case, and slammed the trunk lid closed.

“The library’s just over on this side of campus,” she told him. “It’s not far.”

“I’m not in a hurry. Besides, I like the company.”

She couldn’t think of a response, so she let it go.

They went into the library, which on a hot Sunday evening was deserted except for the lone librarian at the front desk. Not bothering with the pretense of a welcoming smile, she glanced pointedly at the clock above the door-no doubt noting the late hour-before gesturing in the direction of the cubicles where Internet access was available.

Connor and Daria took seats next to each other, then booted up.

“What’s the procedure?” he asked.

“First, we go to our favorite search engine.” Daria typed in an address and Connor did the same. She glanced at his screen. They’d chosen the same one. “Next, we type in…oh, let’s try ‘artifacts from Shandihar’ and see what comes up.”

The screen filled with a long list of choices.

“Look here, see the second entry?” Daria leaned over and pointed at his screen. “It’s a link to a newspaper article from Westport, Connecticut.” She clicked on the link on her computer. “Justin and Cloris Porter. Collectors of antiquities.”

She began to skim the article.

“Here you go, third paragraph. ‘Their collection contains a very rare ceremonial goblet from the lost city of Shandihar, an ancient settlement in what is now Turkey that was excavated in the early 1900s and later lost again when an earthquake struck the region.’”

Daria took a notepad and pen from her bag and wrote down the names and location of the item.

“See? Not so difficult,” she told Connor cheerfully. “We don’t need an FBI team to do this. We’ll go through all these links, then we’ll start on the museums.”

“Don’t get overly confident,” he cautioned. “Maybe you just got lucky.”

“And got lucky again.” She tapped him on the arm and pointed to her screen. “It appears that Damian Cross from Centerville, Delaware, is the proud owner of a statue of the goddess Ereshkigal.” She glanced over at Connor. “ Centerville is really close, maybe a forty-five-minute drive. We could go…or should we try to get a number and call first?”