Mariah Stewart - Last Breath

“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?”

“I think we should just drop in on him. For one thing, if you call, maybe he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, he hangs up. If you cold-call, once you get your foot in the door, he’s likely to hear you out.”

“Okay, so let’s go.” Daria began to stand.

“Let’s finish up first. I know you’re eager to get going, but let’s get all the info we can now, then we’ll start tracking people down.”

“All right.” She sat back down. “You’re right. It’s going to make me crazy, though, knowing that there’s a piece so close. Just down the road, practically.”

“If he still has it, it’ll most likely be there tomorrow.”

“True.”

“And this way, we’ll track what we can, check off what we’ve found on the list, then maybe have this friend of mine see what he can do before we decide whether we want to turn over the list to the Bureau.”

“Good point.” She resumed her search. “Why don’t you stick with the private collectors, and I’ll start going through the museums.”

“How will you know if a museum has any of the missing items?”

“Easy. Many of them list their exhibits by name and identify not only the artifacts, but where they came from.” She typed for a moment, then sat back and said, “For example, here’s the website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over here on the left, we’ll click on Permanent Collections. There, you have a listing of their collections. We’ll click on Ancient Near Eastern Art…”

“You can see photos of what they have right online.” He shook his head. “Why does this strike me as being too easy? Shouldn’t someone have done this before?”

“Why would anyone? Who would have known to look? Remember,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “no one knows it’s here but us.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” he muttered.

“Well, they certainly have a wonderful collection, but I don’t see any sign of what we’re looking for. Not that I’d expect to, but I wanted to show you how easy it can be to track things. And see how under the photograph of each item they list the provenance of the piece. Where it came from, whether it’s on loan from a private collection or donated outright or purchased, and the year of its acquisition.”

Connor watched over her shoulder as she skipped from one item to another.

“Do all museums have their collections available like this?” he asked.

“There’s one way to find out.” She closed out the screen and typed the name of another museum into the search engine. “Let’s see what they have.”

They spent the next several hours searching the Internet, but came away with a mere six artifacts in private hands. Interestingly, four were within driving distance of Howeville.

“That’s six more than we knew about this morning,” she reminded Connor as they walked across a quiet campus. “And all very significant pieces, three of the collectors are almost in our backyard. One in Greenville, the other two here in Pennsylvania. Which makes me think there’s a dealer-or was, at one time-close by. Maybe in Philadelphia or Wilmington.”

“I want to get on this right away. We’ll start tomorrow with Damien Cross,” Connor said thoughtfully. “He’s the closest, and he might know of other collectors and be able to direct us to someone else. We’ll find out who sold him the piece, and when, and maybe we can track down the dealer or the party who sold it to him. Then we’ll move on to the Blumes-Anderson and Kelly, they’re the couple in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania -and from there, we’ll go see Mrs. Sevrenson in Philadelphia. We’ll leave the two parties in New England-the Westport couple and the woman in Marion, Massachusetts -for last.”

“Sounds like a plan. I can’t wait to get started.”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Connor couldn’t help but smile. “You’re just beaming from ear to ear.”

“Well, it was a successful search. We’re close to at least a few of the missing artifacts, and maybe tomorrow we’ll even get to see one of them. I’d say that was a good day’s work.”

“Agreed.” They’d reached McGowan House and stopped at the end of the walk.

“You’re not driving back to Maryland tonight, are you?” Daria asked.

“I don’t have a reservation anywhere, but I noticed a motel on the main drive coming into town, right off the highway. I’m sure I can get a room.”

“Great. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“See you then.” He walked off into the night.