“It’s blurry.” I sounded apologetic, wishing there was a clear shot. A clear confirmation of what was out there with Naira and Luke.
With his thumb and pointer finger, he zoomed in on the picture, peering closely at the two red dots. “Right there. Those dots. That’s what her eyes looked like.”
His voice was shaky. His hand, shakier, as he swiped to the second picture of the necklace in the exhibit. All bravado erased, the tremor in his voice was clear.
“And that gold… I saw some gold on her arm. Right before she disappeared into thin air.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Want to explain all that?” Hailey started up as soon as we got back in the Camaro. “Where’d you get those pictures? Can I see them?”
Her questions were rapid-fire. I settled in my seat and handed my phone over. “From Naira. They’re the last thing she ever sent me.”
Hailey turned the phone every which way, pinching her fingers, then expanding them just like Barry had done. We’d left him back on the docks worse than how we’d met him. It was like I’d confirmed UFOs were real. Now any story he told about the Isle would be backed by the strange woman he’d encountered on the boat ramp.
“I think I’ve seen this necklace before. At the Endowment Research Lab.”
“I think we should go there next.” I buckled up, tightening the strap as I thought about our drive here. She handed back the phone and pressed the ignition button, making the engine roar to life.
Hailey’s eyes met mine. “I agree. But we might have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“You’ll see.”
The campus was busy with activity. The quad was decorated with school paraphernalia, and in the center stood a large stack of wood pyres with a huge papier-mâché lion on top. There were too many people, sending my senses into overdrive. I quickly stuffed my earbuds in to help mute the noise.
Hailey tapped her ear, and I pulled a bud out to hear her. “Start of the school year is coming up so they’re having a new student–orientation kickoff,” Hailey informed me as we walked through the maze of students on the lawn, sprawled out on blankets and playing games like Frisbee, beer pong, and horseshoes.
“They have all this on your magical island?” Hailey smirked. I hoped my straight face let her know how very unfunny she was.
We entered the newly built facility, where I noticed the security was pretty tight with guards posted up at the entrance. I brought it up to Hailey as we got in an elevator and she scanned her ID badge. The button for LL lit up.
“Everything’s pretty valuable. It’s underground because the researchers and restorers don’t want a lot of light deteriorating the stuff before they have a chance to study them and prepare to return them to their rightful owners.”
“But what if their rightful owners aren’t around anymore?”
Hailey shrugged. “Then we donate it to a museum specializing in that particular culture, if there is one.”
The temperature in the lower level was ten degrees cooler, and she undid the tied sleeves of her plaid sweater, shrugging it over her shoulders. I did the same with the sweatshirt I’d stuffed in my backpack.
We walked down a lit hall lined with several empty labs, each displaying different artifacts on large steel tables that we could see through the bay windows. Only a couple of labs had people working in lab coats, masks, and white gloves, holding a variety of tools.
We stopped at the end of the hall, where a young South Asian woman stood taking notes on the clipboard she held.
“Dr. Patel.”
The woman looked up, mildly annoyed at the interruption, but then smiled when she saw who was speaking.
Hailey peered in the darkened room through the glass. She frowned. “Still no word about Dr. Franco? Nothing from the investigators? Or my uncle?”
Dr. Patel mimicked the frown, twisting her lips back in annoyance. “No. Seems like I’m the only one who comes to work these days.”
“Who’s Dr. Franco?” I asked, peering around them to try to see for myself.
Dr. Patel’s frown remained, her expression saying it all.Who the hell is this?
“This is my—” Hailey turned to shoot me a quizzical look. She didn’t know what to call us. We definitely weren’t friends. Acquaintances? But in this short amount of time, we had shiftedinto some kind of alliance on our quest to figuring out what happened to Naira and Luke.
