“Here,” he said, passing a plate. “This will do the trick.”
I took a portion and examined it. A piquant olive spread, languishing over a piece of crusty bread. I bit into it and the salty treat seemed to revive me almost immediately. In the center of the table sat an array of succulent fruits. I selected a few grapes and set them on my plate.
Aspen and Finn straggled in a moment later, looking charmingly bedraggled from their day’s work.
“God, I need a cocktail,” Aspen sighed.
“Boulevardier?” offered Dorian, getting up.
“That would be divine.”
“I’ll have one, too, if you don’t mind,” Finn said, a finger raised in the air like he was summoning a garçon in a quaint Parisian café. He turned his attention to Aspen. “Plants giving you a hard time today?”
“You have no idea.” She slumped into the seat across from me.
Lexi sauntered in, wearing an elegant slip dress, her hair done up in a messy bun.
“Lex, you want a drink?”
She shook her head at Dorian as she took her seat at the table. “Good Lord, don’t you all look haggard. Robin, did you have a good day?”
She reached out and grabbed an apple from the bowl, daintily taking a bite.
“Yeah. I’m still getting the hang of the archives, but there are some amazing things down there.”
“You want a cocktail, Robin?” Dorian called from the bar, where he was clinking things about.
“Not tonight, thanks,” I said. “I really can’t get over how massive this place is. How many acres is it?”
“Once you factor in the woods, it’s several thousand,” said Aspen.
“When Lexi took me on the tour today, I noticed a sign for an observatory. Do many of your students take an interest in astronomy?”
Lexi stared at me as if I’d taken them by surprise. “Oh, the observatory. That old thing was torn down ages ago. How is the cabana working out for you?”
“Great,” I said. “But I noticed that Dr. Casimir left a lot of her personal belongings in the cabana. Do you want me to pack those up?”
“We’ll deal with them at some point. For now, just ignore them unless they’re bothering you,” said Dorian.
“They’re not bothering me, but they seem very expensive.”
He shook his head. “Don’t give it another thought.”
I took a breath and tried to steady myself.Here we go.
“I did some googling and came across a blog post about Professor Casimir and her recent trip to Essex. She talked about a statue they found, and she mentioned that she brought it back to Hildegard. Is that right?”
No one spoke for a moment, and I couldn’t tell if they were confused or considering. Finn sat down and tented his fingers. He looked over at Lexi, who looked at Dorian, who shrugged and continued making cocktails.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” said Lexi at last.
“It said she brought it back with her?”
“I don’t think she would have been able to bring something back from an excavation site,” said Lexi. “I don’t know much about archaeology, but I doubt it’s just finders keepers. Wouldn’t she have had to leave it with the rest of the finds?”
This was something I had considered, and the whole thing did seem unusual, but I didn’t know what kind of facilities they might have here. It seemed possible that they would have been able toconduct further research on campus. It still didn’t explain why Isabelle was there in the first place, though. Something was off about the entire thing, though I couldn’t place my finger on what.
“I saw her office. It seemed very empty.”
