Diana carried a large leather tote, bulging from the weight of an oversized book. “I’m glad we caught you,” she said. “We were just about to take off. This is my brother, Ryan.”

Belatedly I saw the resemblance. The solemn dark eyes were clearly a family trait. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

Ryan and I shook hands. He wore gray slacks and a charcoal sport coat over a pin-striped dress shirt. His red tie introduced the only note of color. Offhand, I pegged him as a salesman working in the retail clothing business, maybe Sears. I couldn’t imagine why she was back again.

“Mind if we come in?” she asked.

“Might as well.”

I stepped back and let them move into the office ahead of me. They settled in the guest chairs, Diana adjusting her skirt before she placed her tote on the floor. She tilted the case against the modesty panel on the front of my desk. There was something self-satisfied in her demeanor, a quality I’d seen before and one that made me testy.

I sat down in my swivel chair. “What can I do for you?”

Even before she spoke I could tell she’d rehearsed her remarks, eager to present herself as someone organized and in control. “I told Ryan about the conversation we had—”

I interrupted, hoping to throw her off balance. “We’ve actually talked twice—once at the dig and again the next day.”

“I’m referring to our meeting here. Something nagged at me when you talked about Michael’s seeing the two men in Horton Ravine. If you’ll remember, I asked you then what made him so certain of the date and you told me it was because it happened on his sixth birthday.”

“Okay.”

“Even at the time it seemed off and I remember saying so.”

“You know you really don’t have to go through the whole thing again.”

“I’m touching on the salient points,” she said. “I hope you don’t object.”

“Far from it. I’m begging you to get on with it. I’ve got work to do.” She ignored that and went on. I half expected her to whip out her little spiral-bound notebook, but she’d committed her recital to memory. “You told me Mary Claire Fitzhugh was kidnapped on Wednesday, July 19, 1967. Michael claims he saw the two men two days later, on Friday, the twenty-first.”

I waved a hand in the air, dismissing the details, which I didn’t feel bore repeating. As far as I knew, none of this was in dispute.

She shot me a dark look and then went on. “According to his account, Mom dropped him off at the Kirkendalls’. Billie was sick so his mother let Michael wander on the property and that’s when he came across the two men. I’m repeating this for Ryan’s sake since he was the one who pointed out Michael’s error.”

“The error?”