The mosquitoes were the next to arrive, and to Daria’s mind, they were the last straw.

She’d made several phone calls to Louise and they brought each other up to date. She’d called her sister, Iona, and her brother, Sam, and was greatly disappointed at having to leave messages for both.

The next time Connor came out of the house, she waved him over.

“I’m really sorry that we’ve been held up here for so long,” he apologized as he approached her, “but I think we should be able to leave very soon.”

“I never knew a crime scene was so complicated, so many people coming and going.”

“I suspect what they’re doing here isn’t so very different from what you do.” He pulled out the chair next to hers and sat. “What do you do when you find a tomb to excavate, for example?”

“We go layer by layer, photographing, drawing diagrams. We number whatever we find, note the layers of soil or rock. If we find remains, we note their condition and study them thoroughly before they’re moved. We make sketches, we photograph everything in context.”

“Same here. The entire scene is photographed, evidence is numbered and photographed in situ, marked and tagged and placed in evidence bags. The body is carefully examined before it’s moved. Not much difference, really.”

“The difference is that the remains I deal with are often thousands of years old, not newly dead.” She felt uncomfortable with the admission. “Actually, I’ve never seen a newly dead body. My experiences with death have all been secondhand, in that I study the context of the remains, I study what’s been left behind. But I don’t have to study a flesh and blood body. For me, the experiences have been more intellectual than emotional.”

“Ahhh,” he said softly. “I understand. I can see why this must be very upsetting for you. I’ll check inside, see if anyone needs anything else from me.”

When Connor was halfway to the door, she called to him. “Do you think we could take Sweet Thing with us?”

“What?”

“Sweet Thing. That’s her name.” Daria pointed to the dog’s collar. “It’s on her tag.”

“I’ll ask.”

“What would they normally do?”

“Probably take her to a shelter.”

“I’d hate to think of her being in one of those places. She’s probably confused enough. I’d like to take her back to Howe.”

“Let me see what Vince Coliani, the lead detective, thinks about that.”

He disappeared into the house. When he returned ten minutes later, he had a leash in one hand and the bag of dog food in the other.

“He said it was okay?” Daria’s eyes lit up when she saw what he carried.

“He said just take her and go quietly. If any next of kin show up and want the dog, he’ll give me a call. Frankly, I think he was glad I offered. His life just got very complicated, so it’s one less detail for him to handle. So we’ll just take Sweetie Pie-”

“Sweet Thing,” she said.

“Right. Let’s just get in the car and go on back to Howe.”

He opened the passenger-side door for her, and she got in.

“You’re going to have to make room for her somehow. She’s probably going to have to sit on your lap,” Connor told her. “Are you going to be all right with that?”

“Sure.” Daria somehow managed to get the seat belt on and the dog situated on her lap.

She heard the trunk slam and a moment later Connor slid in behind the wheel.

“I put the rest of her things in the trunk,” he said, handing her the dog’s leash. “I hope Louise is all right with you bringing her back.”

“I already asked. She doesn’t mind.”

“You spoke with her?” Connor started the car and backed out between two police cruisers.

“Several times. My dance card wasn’t exactly full tonight.”

“Sorry. Crime scenes take a while to process.”

“I know. I don’t mean to complain. And I realize that poor Mr. Cross-they’re still assuming it was him, right?”

“Yes. His wallet was in the pants pocket.”

“It was the same, wasn’t it? The same as Elena Sevrenson?”

Connor nodded and turned onto the road.

“This is really frightening. Two people-”

“Actually, four. I got a call back from Will Fletcher, our computer geek. It appears the Blumes died the same way.”

“Dear God.” Daria leaned back against the headrest. “You told the detective back there about the others?”

“Of course. I had to.”

“I guess he’ll contact the Philadelphia police and the police out where the Blumes lived.”

“He already has. Which is what I meant when I said his life just got complicated. And the press hasn’t even gotten hold of the story yet. I expect we’ll be hearing from them very soon.”

“Good Lord, I hadn’t thought about that.” She frowned. “Do you think it will all come out, even about the thefts?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

“Do you think it will hurt the school?”

“Are you kidding? This story is going to guarantee that once the museum is opened, Howe won’t be able to handle the crowds. The public eats up this sort of thing. They’re going to want to know more about Shandihar, about Alistair, about you.”

“Ugh.” Daria grimaced. “Next thing you know, someone’s going to be talking about a curse.”

“If there isn’t one, someone will invent it.”

The dog tried to get off her lap and onto the floor, so Daria moved the seat back as far as it would go.

“I can pretty much shoot that down. I certainly read no such thing in Alistair’s journals, and I never heard about anything like that from my father.”

“Your father read the journals?”

“Years ago. He lectured at Howe as an adult and he had an opportunity to read them, but most of what he knows he learned from talking to his father.”

“His father being one of Alistair McGowan’s sons?”

“Yes.”

“We need to find out who else could have known about the artifacts in the museum basement. And who knew enough about Shandihar to know about the wicked punishments the priestesses meted out when they were pissed off.”

“I asked Louise who else might have read the journals.”

“And?”

“The journals have been kept in the president’s office in a glass case all these years, for at least as long as Louise has been at Howe. She said they were in the case when she took the job, and thinks they might have been there all along. She noted that the condition of the bindings and the paper is exceptional for books that old, which they would be if they’d been kept behind glass and out of the sunlight all these years.”

“Which doesn’t mean they hadn’t been removed, read, and returned over the years.”

“Well, they have been, several times that she knows of. Members of the archaeology department have borrowed them, but never for any length of time.”

“I’m assuming she knows who those department members were?”

“Only the ones during her tenure. Not before that.”

“She can’t be certain that they’ve always been kept in her office. There’s always the chance that someone else had them. Maybe they were even in the library.”

“That’s highly unlikely.” Daria shook her head. “I’ve seen these books, and I’ve seen books of that same age that have been circulated even in a very limited way. I agree with Louise.”

“By the way, I spoke with John this afternoon. He agrees with me that it’s time to turn the entire theft issue over to the NSAF.”

“He’s probably right.” She looked out the window. “I thought it would be better to do this quietly, but with all these people dying…” She shook her head. “I think it’s best if someone who knows what they’re doing takes over from here.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

They drove several miles in silence.

“So, I guess you’ll be going on to another case.”

“As soon as John has something for me. Right now, I’m sort of between jobs.”

“What exactly do you do?” she asked.

“A little of this, a little of that.” His eyes never left the road.

“You’re very evasive, you know that?”