I sat back, stunned. I could see why Alan had wanted Judith out of town for the morning—so that he could be free to rob her company. But why Angelina? Why leave her sitting in the middle of a national park all day?

“Where are your suitcases?” I asked suddenly.

“Alan came and got my suitcases yesterday when no one was home. That way when I left this morning, even if someone had spotted me, they wouldn’t have realized I was leaving for good.”

“Why all the secrecy, Angelina?”

She shrugged.

“My brother did not trust Alan. He would not have wanted me to see him.”

“But Nick couldn’t stop you. You’re old enough now to choose your own boyfriends.”

“There is Judith, as well,” Angelina said, shaking her head. “She has had a crush on Alan since he first came to work for her. He said if she knew he was involved with me, it would cause problems for him at work. So we kept our relationship a secret.”

I thought about Alan, marveling at the fact that he had managed to keep two women, both living in the same house, each unaware that he was having an affair with the other. Amazing.

“I waited all day for him,” Angelina said. “I thought maybe he got held up at work or something. But then I finally realized he was not coming. He only used me. Nick was right. He said I do not have enough experience with men, that I never learned how to separate the good from the bad.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else I could say. I was puzzled at Alan’s true motivation. He obviously used people to get what he wanted. But what could he possibly have gotten from Angelina that was worth anything?

My heart skipped a beat as I instantly answered my own question: the shirt! The shirt belonging to Thomas Jefferson. At first Alan must have planned to have Monty Redburn steal it; that’s why he wanted him working in the house. But then Redburn screwed up, so Alan turned to Angelina. He romanced her into thinking they were going to elope; then he got her to steal the shirt and pack it with her own things. He picked up her suitcases yesterday; he probably took out the shirt and discarded everything else. I remembered when Carlos and I had startled Angelina in Wendell’s study, the night before. She had probably gone in there to take it then.

“You won’t go back to the Smythes because of the shirt?”

She looked at me sharply, panic in her eyes.

“They know it was me? They know I took it?”

I shook my head.

“Why, Angelina? Why would a nice girl like you steal from the family that has been so good to you?”

She cried softly, shaking her head.