“Think the man who grabbed the oracle last night is from the Foundation?” Spode asked after a while.

“Damned if I know,” Barrow said. “I think we should assume he is. For now, at any rate.”

“The situation is fluid,” Spode said. “There’s too much at stake. I can no longer handle it from here. I need to be on the ground.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, but we don’t have any choice.” Spode pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll prepare another dose of the serum for both of us.”

The words of the oracle he had killed nearly a year ago whispered in his head. Dead man walking in a dying garden.

CHAPTER 15

Disaster.

Or maybe, finally, a seriously lucky break, Gwendolyn Swan thought. Either way, the already dangerous project had become riskier by a factor of . . . who knew?

She and her sister had tried to calculate the potential downside when they arranged to put the camera into Olivia’s hands, but the main concern at the time was that she would go straight to Victor Arganbright and draw the attention of the Foundation.

They had not foreseen the possibility of an outsider—a complete stranger—getting involved.

The man standing beside Olivia LeClair in front of the sales counter was an unknown quantity and, therefore, a major complication. The card he had given her read John Reynolds, Insurance Investigator.

Really? Olivia had brought in an insurance investigator? What the hell was this about?

Gwendolyn braced herself behind the counter and managed a polite smile. There was no need to worry about Olivia—she was a useful pawn. The risk factors linked to her were known and had been accounted for. But the insurance investigator was a new headache.

“Mr. Reynolds’s company issued a policy that covered a collection of antique cameras that may have included this one,” Olivia said.

“There was a break-in at the client’s home a few months ago,” Reynolds said. He adjusted his black-framed glasses. “Several cameras were stolen, including one that closely resembles the antique Ms. LeClair purchased in this shop.”

“I see,” Gwendolyn said. Shit.

“Our client has been keeping an eye out for the stolen items online, hoping to recover some of them,” Reynolds continued. “He spotted this one when Ms. LeClair went looking for information about it.”

“I was hoping to find a collector who could help me identify it,” Olivia explained. “It’s a very unusual camera. I’m curious about the manufacturer. There are no markings. No serial number. It may have been a prototype that never went into production.”

Gwendolyn stifled a groan. This was not good. Shit, the Sequel.

“The client showed the photo to my boss, who asked me to run it down,” Reynolds said. “There’s been a dispute about the value of the collection.”