“Do you think that might be what Thomas was searching for?” Dane asked.
“It doesn’t sound like him. He’s a scientist, so I can’t envision him searching for lost cities. I could see him searching for Bigfoot before he went after a lost city.” She shook her head. “Then again, I wouldn’t have expected him to have any interest in someone like Percy Fawcett, either. I guess I didn’t know him as well as I thought.”
“Okay, so we have the possibility that Thomas was looking for the lost city of Z. That’s not much to go on.” Dane cracked his knuckles and picked up the picture. “If he truly believed this picture was enough for someone to come after him, there’s got to be much more here than meets the eye.” He gazed intently at the picture, as if the famed explorer could speak to him. “How about the book? Is there a connection between Fawcett and…” He took a close look at the picture, turning it so he could make out the title on the cover. “The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle?”
“I loved that book when I was a kid.” Bones smiled and, for a moment, his eyes took on a faraway cast. “Seems like the connection would be obvious, though. That book was written around the time Fawcett was exploring. What other book would you put in his portrait?” Then his eyes lit up. “Dinosaurs! Kaylin, you said Thomas might go after Bigfoot. What if he believed dinosaurs still live somewhere in the Amazon? Would that be something he’d go off in search of?”
“I… suppose.” Kaylin frowned. “It doesn’t feel right, though.”
“I agree,” Dane said. They were thinking about this all wrong. They were looking at the picture from the perspective of a Fawcett scholar, deepening the mystery about his quest for Z. What they should be doing, however, was put aside what they thought they knew about Fawcett and Z, and instead, treat this image as a set of bread crumbs that would lead them to Thomas. “Look up Fawcett and The Lost World.”
Kaylin typed the terms into the search engine, and the screen filled with hits. “Wow!” she whispered. “Look at all of these.” Dane and Bones scooted closer to the monitor. “It appears that Fawcett and Conan Doyle were friends. Some of Fawcett’s explorations inspired the story, and the main character in The Lost World was even modeled after Fawcett.” She continued reading. “Conan Doyle presented Fawcett with a signed copy of the book, and…” An excited smile spread across her face as she went on. “Percy Fawcett took it with him on his next-to-last expedition in the Amazon. Members of his party said he used it as sort of a personal journal, making notes in the margins.”
“That’s got to be it!” Bones pounded his fist into his palm. “Thomas must have found something written inside that book that told him where Fawcett was headed on his final expedition. Find the book, find Thomas.”
“But why wouldn’t someone have discovered it before now?” Kaylin looked as if she was afraid to believe it could be true.
“Maybe it’s in code or something, like what was on the back of the picture,” Bones said. “We don’t have any better ideas, do we?”
“Does it say where this book is kept?” Dane’s heart was racing. This felt right. “Is it in a museum somewhere?”
“It’s kept in the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society in London.”
“Did Thomas make a trip to England at any time in the last few years?”
Kaylin frowned, her brow furrowed. “He actually did, shortly after we started dating. I remember thinking it was odd because he was gone much longer than he had planned, but I didn’t want to be nosy. We weren’t serious at the time. You know, he seemed excited when he got back, and he stayed that way. I assumed it was because he and I were getting along so well, but maybe it was something else.” Her face flushed and she hastily called their attention to a thumbnail-sized image of the book inside a glass display case.
“Here’s the book.” She clicked on the image and the snapshot filled the screen.
There was nothing remarkable about the book itself, but something else had caught Dane’s eye.
“Go back to the previous screen for a minute.” Kaylin clicked the back arrow. “Click on this picture here.” He pointed to a thumbnail image farther down on the page. Kaylin clicked it, opening an image of one of the rooms in the Royal Geographical Society.
“Look at the picture hanging on the wall in the background.” The resolution was low, and the image blurred, but there was no mistaking the portrait.
“It’s the same picture,” Kaylin whispered. “Thomas’s picture. Our picture!”
“You know what this means.” Dane smiled. “Time to pack our bags for England.”
“Well, I have mixed feelings about this.” Bones frowned, looking disheartened.
“What’s wrong?” Kaylin asked.
“I’ve been to England,” he said. “The beer’s okay, but the food sucks.”
Chapter 7
“You are telling me that this is the sole piece of evidence you have collected?” It was only with the greatest of effort that Salvatore Scano kept his voice calm. He found cold serenity to be much more intimidating than anger or annoyance. Let them wonder what was going on behind that calm façade, and they would always fear that you were about to do something rash. “With all the resources you have at your disposal, the best you can offer me is nothing more than a poor quality photograph of an early twentieth-century painting?”
Silence reigned in the conference room as everyone exchanged sideways glances. No one wanted to be the first to speak. Finally, Alex, his son, cleared his throat. “That is the only piece of evidence there is, Father. Thornton left no other clues regarding his plans.” He fell silent, wilting under his father’s cold gaze.
Shane Kennedy took up the explanation from there. “We searched everything, Sir. Thornton’s office, his apartment, even his girlfriend’s apartment. Nothing that would tell us where he’s going. We were thorough.” Few men could meet Salvatore’s stare for very long, but, when it came to Kennedy, nothing seemed to intimidate the gritty former Marine, a quality that Salvtore both appreciated and found annoying.
“Details.” He reached for his cup of espresso, his eyes never leaving Kennedy’s.
“Breaking the encryption on his office computer was child’s play, but all the files dealing with the Amazon expedition pertained to the trip he was supposed to take with his students — not the one he actually took. He had no computer at home. It’s either hidden, been destroyed, or he’s taken it with him. No paper trail, either. He cleaned up after himself nicely.”
“What about his phone records, credit card charges and such?” Salvatore took a small sip of the hot, dark liquid, its bitter taste a perfect match for the information Kennedy relayed.
“Nothing helpful in the phone records. We believe he used a disposable cell phone for whatever calls he needed to make. We’re still working on obtaining the rest of his credit card information, though what do we have doesn’t reveal much.” He drew a sheet of paper from a manila envelope and slid it along the table to Salvatore, who eyed it dispassionately. It was a copy of a credit card statement with a charge for a round-trip ticket to London highlighted. “Thornton went to London several months before his expedition. While this doesn’t tell us anything specific, it suggests that the painting is of significance. Percy Fawcett was from the U.K. after all.”
“Anything else?”
“Not yet, Sir, but we are still working.”
“I expect nothing less.” Salvatore nodded and returned his attention to his son, Alex, who sat chewing his lip and staring daggers at Kennedy. “And what of the man we have in custody? Thornton’s colleague?”