She nodded. “I’m almost positive.”

“All right,” he mused. “Well, I’ll call the police and get them—”

Suddenly, he stopped and snapped the file shut, glaring at her over his bifocals.

“Mme St. James. What are you thinking you can do? This is a matter for the police, and only the police.”

She shrugged innocently. “I would never do any—”

“Right. Just like you would never break into anyone’s private office,” he said, sitting back in his chair and dragging a hand down his face. “Please, Mme St. James, let me handle this. You do not need to be getting involved.”

She frowned. The police’s way of handling it would be going to the guy’s house, asking him a few questions, and then letting him go free. They’d never find the necklace by playing by the rules and trusting the man’s word on things.

No. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

And Diana had already flirted with breaking the law a few times, and she’d come out just fine.

Once more wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Diana got it in her head that Leo Linville, the possible culprit, lived at rue La Bowtie, so, of course, the man in the shuttle looked at her like she had three heads.

Then it was like a light bulb went off in his head, and he said, “Do you mean La Boétie?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I think.”

“Well, I have to get back to the hotel, but it’s close by . . .”

“Great. You don’t have to drop me off right in front. If you could just drop me anywhere around there, that would be fine,” she assured him, rubbing her hands together. Her heart was beating like crazy as she thought of her next steps.

True to his word, the driver dropped her at a street corner, in a busy intersection. She quickly jumped out and headed down the street, trying to find the number for his house. At forty-seven, she stopped and looked inside the glass door. It was an apartment building.

She pulled on the door, expecting it to be closed, but it opened with ease. She went inside and found herself in a lobby with a few mailboxes. They were named. The third one said: L. Linville. There was also an intercom button next to it.

She almost pressed it. She had her finger, hovering over the button, ready to go. But what would she say to him? Hello, WHERE IS THE NECKLACE?

That wouldn’t work. She’d have to be more subtle than that.

There was another glass door, and beyond that, a narrow hallway that stretched down the middle of the building, with two doors on each side. From the door, she spied Leo Linville’s apartment at the very end on the left. She tried the interior door, but that was locked.

Diana went back out onto the street. Maybe she should give up and let the police handle it. After all, they were the experienced ones.