As Diane walked down the hallway to the large conference room, she heard murmurs of restless conversation. Turning the corner, she saw the board members standing in the hallway. Half were looking very unhappy. Donald was deep in conversation with Madge Stewart. He looked up when Diane approached, then down at his watch.

"It's locked," said Madge, tapping her foot, her springy gray hair bouncing with each tap. Madge had missed the contributors' party because she had marked it wrong on her calendar, and she blamed Diane. It appeared to Diane that Madge often blamed whomever was available for everything that the vagaries of life made her do.

"I have other meetings. If I ran my restaurants like . . ." Craig Amberson was fidgeting with his briefcase. Laura had told Diane he was quitting smoking. He had actually asked the doctor if he could wear two nicotine patches in the beginning.

Kenneth Meyers was working on his Palm Pilot. "Get yourself one of these," he told Craig. "You can work anywhere."

Diane looked at her watch. Three minutes late. "I'm sorry. I had some unexpected business to attend to."

Even Harvey Phelps appeared curt. "Where's Andie? Doesn't she have a key?"

"Laura went to look for her, just before you got here, Harvey," said Mark Grayson, looking at his watch. "Look, Diane, if this is the way you intend to run things . . ."

Laura rounded the corner. "Couldn't find Andie or Diane. . . . Oh, there you are."

"Andie's running some errands," said Diane. "I have three minutes after eleven. Why is everyone so impatient?"

"Because we've been waiting for more than twenty minutes," said Mark.

"Donald reminded us last night that the meeting was rescheduled for 10:45," said Laura.

Diane had the key in her hand, ready to unlock the door. She spun around and faced Donald. "Why did you do that?"

He took a small step back. "You said to change the meeting to fifteen minutes earlier."

"No, I did not."

"I have your E-mail."

"I didn't send it. This is going to stop." She thrust the key in the lock. Before she turned it, the door opened, almost knocking her backward.

Chapter 9

Diane and every one of the museum board members took a step backward at the startling sight of a disheveled, droopy-eyed Signy Grayson stumbling into the hallway and almost to the floor, if Diane hadn't held on to her arm. The heavy aroma of metabolized alcohol and perfume wafted over the small crowd.

"I must have fallen asleep. It's, uh, been a long day." She looked at them in confusion.

No one said anything for several beats, shifting their gazes from Signy to Mark, who stood strangely silent and surprised. Diane broke the silence. "Are you all right? Were you here all night?"

"Signy?" Mark found his voice and pushed his way to the door and took her by the arm. "Sweetheart, are you ill?"

"Just feeling a little tired. What does she mean 'all night'?" Signy put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes.

"Because it's Wednesday," said Diane. "The party was last night."

A look of alarm crossed Signy's face. "Oh, no."

"It must be the cold medicine," Mark muttered to the silent crowd around them. "We won't be long here, and I'll take you home. We can pick up your car later."

"Would you like to go to the first-aid station and lie down?" asked Diane.

"No . . . I'm fine, really."

Diane spotted the head conservator walking in their direction. She nabbed him as he came past, heading toward the elevators. "Korey, will you escort Mrs. Grayson to the staff lounge?"

"Sure thing, Dr. Fallon. I have the proposal for the conservation workshops." He waved the folder he was carrying. "I'll give it to Andie."

"Good. I'm anxious to see it."

"Come with me, Mrs. Grayson. I was just heading in that direction."

There were some quiet whispers among the board members who stood watching Signy, in her red sparkling dress, walk down the hallway with the much taller Korey, dressed in his khaki dockers and yellow museum tee shirt, his long dreadlocks falling past his shoulders. As the two of them turned the corner to the elevators, Diane heard Korey say: "Lovely dress, Mrs. Grayson."

Diane wondered why it wasn't Mark who was escorting his wife-and how he didn't know she hadn't come home last evening. Laura must have wondered the same thing. She lifted her brows at Diane, who knew what she must be thinking: Mark was up to his same old tricks as when he was married to her.

Signy must have slept on the leather couch at the end of the room. It stood against the wall with two companion stuffed leather chairs arranged in a conversation group. A small gla.s.s-and-wood coffee table held an overturned winegla.s.s. It was a comfortable sofa. Signy should have gotten a good night's sleep on it.

They filed around the long mahogany table with Diane at the head. She stared down the length of it as the board members found their seats. Mark Grayson sat to her immediate right. His eyes darted from his watch to the door. As they waited, several board members took quick glances in his direction. They were probably wondering the same thing she was-how come he didn't know his wife hadn't come home last night?

Mark shifted uncomfortably in his chair again as Craig Amberson sat down to Diane's left. She knew that Mark had made the most headway with Craig in his quest to sell the museum and property. They could have been taking up battle positions, surrounding the enemy, the way they seized possession of the chairs and drew them up to the table.

Diane tossed down her papers and glanced at each member of the board. She had decided against bringing up the duplicate orders until she had a chance to question the staff.

The conference room door opened and Gordon Atwell rushed into the room. "Sorry to be late, folks. I didn't get the message about the changed meeting time until a short while ago." He took a seat at the table.

"You're denying you sent the E-mail?" Craig Amberson asked Diane.

"Craig, I didn't send the E-mail."

"I did get it," said Donald. He clamped his mouth shut and stared at her like a bulldog.

"I don't doubt it. Forward me the E-mail when the meeting's over. I'll check my computer to see if that's where it came from."

"All right," said Mark. "I'd like to open up the discussion to moving the museum and selling the property. The monetary gain for the museum would be enormous."

"And what would that be?" said Diane.

"What?" Mark stared at her in surprise.

"What is the monetary gain? Presumably, you've worked out the figures. May I see them?"

"We're talking several million added to the museum's holdings."

"This is a million-or more-left over after we either build or refit another suitable building with the correct s.p.a.cial, environmental, electrical and security requirements to house the collections, and including relandscaping the nature trails? I think we need to examine your figures line by line before we're even prepared to discuss a change this radical."

"Look, Diane, I called this meeting to discuss the concept. This is a great opportunity to increase the museum's holdings."

"I'll set aside for a moment your odd use of the word increase increase, since all I've heard up to now will decrease the holdings. If we discuss this idea in theory and the figures don't work out, we will have wasted a lot of time."

"I agree," said Kenneth Meyers, fingering his Palm Pilot. "Mark, what's this obsession you have about moving the museum? I can't see how it could work out in the museum's favor. I don't think the land here is going to be as valuable as you seem to believe, and we just remodeled this place, for G.o.d's sake."

"With all due respect, Ken, what do you know about real estate?"

"I haven't made any bad real estate investments lately, and I can balance a checkbook. I know we'd have to be getting downtown-Manhattan prices in order for it to pay off for the museum in the way you're suggesting."

"I move we table this until Mark develops a line-by-line detailed budget for the sale of the property and building and moving the museum compared with the current figures for the renovated museum." Laura was smooth and casual in stating her motion. Diane wondered if Mark noticed how detailed it was.

"I second," said Kenneth.

"All in agreement with Laura's motion raise your hands." Laura, Kenneth Meyers, and Harvey Phelps raised their hands. Three votes out of the seven board members present. Mark looked around the room and smirked. His gaze shifted to Diane, whose hand was also raised.

"You can only vote to break a tie," said Madge.

"You're forgetting, I have Vanessa Van Ross' proxy. All those against Laura's motion."

Mark Grayson, Gordon Atwell, Craig Amberson and Madge Stewart all raised their hands, producing a tie vote.

"I vote for Laura's motion," said Diane. "We'll table this discussion until Mark has his figures together."

"Why don't we all just send you a rubber stamp with our signatures, and we won't have to waste our time showing up for these meetings?" said Mark. "I don't know why we even have a board, since you will do what you want anyway."

"Milo intended the board members to offer their expertise for the good of the museum," said Diane. "Why do you consider having to get your facts and figures together a defeat?"

Diane didn't wait for an answer. She stood and took a stack of papers and began pa.s.sing them out. "Here are the new figures for the opening. They include some workshops we will be offering to the public."

"Stop ignoring legitimate questions for a moment. This is something we need to discuss."

"You mean the purpose of the board? That's covered in the hand-"

"I know, Milo's handbook. Milo is dead, yet every time anything comes up about the museum, you or your friends trot out his name like he's going to show up any minute and judge what we've done to his his museum. Time goes on, and there are new considerations." museum. Time goes on, and there are new considerations."

"Milo may not be here with us, but he left us his plans in his will-along with his money. His death didn't change the validity of his plans for the museum. Nor did it change Mrs. Van Ross' commitment to see his plans realized." Diane gazed around at the board members. Most were looking at her handouts.

Mark detected the sudden lack of support and stood up. "I need to get Signy home. Perhaps there will be a future time when this is not such a forbidden topic." The way he left the room reminded Diane of a spoiled child.

There was a moment of silence finally broken by Madge Stewart. "This conservator's workshop, what's that?"

"Korey Jordan, our head conservator, thought members of the community would be interested in learning how to protect some of their family heirlooms," said Diane.

"Oh, I'd be interested in that," said Madge. "I have this quilt. . . ."

Craig Amberson let out a sigh, and Madge glared at him.

"I think the meeting's clearly over," said Diane. "Have a look at the budget I've handed out and we'll discuss it next meeting. Come with me, Madge, and I'll take you to meet Korey. He can give you some acid-free tissue paper and a box to store your quilt in."

"Well, this was a big waste of time." Craig Amberson stood up and stuffed the budget papers in his briefcase.

Gordon Atwell looked at his watch. "I might have just as well stayed at the bank. We should have at least talked about Mark's plan, if nothing else but to get it over with."

"Nothing to talk about without figures," said Diane. "Until we have those, it's all speculation-that's a waste of time."

Craig muttered something under his breath and walked out the door with Gordon. Diane took Madge to the conservation laboratory. It was not a large laboratory. Many of their items were contracted out to be processed. They did have a large storage vault controlled for temperature and humidity, a fume hood for handling chemicals, deacidification facilities, a suction table for treating fragile objects that can't be completely immersed in water, binocular microscopes, and photographic equipment, all managed by a head conservator and five a.s.sistants. Diane was negotiating an arrangement with the local technical schools to offer cla.s.ses for training conservation a.s.sistants.

Most of the items Korey worked with were bones, botanical specimens and objects from nature, but he also had expertise in the conservation of historical objects and paper. All the doc.u.ments that pa.s.sed through the museum went through Korey's hands first, before going to the archivist.

Signy was leaning over a table looking at water-stained doc.u.ments, Korey's jacket over her shoulders.

"We found these in an old trunk in a corner of the bas.e.m.e.nt," Korey was telling her. "They contain some of the history of the place. Once I test the ink, I'll know how to clean the paper and separate the pages that are stuck together. I think they'll eventually make a terrific exhibit."

"There's certainly a lot more to this museum business than one would first guess," said Madge.

As they discussed the doc.u.ments, Diane noticed boxes of supplies, three layers high stacked against the wall. "What's this?" she asked Korey.

He laughed. "Enough supplies to last me into the next millennium. I don't know what's going on. I suddenly started receiving a triple order of everything. I called the supplier and they said we'd ordered it."

"Send me the paperwork that came with it," said Diane. "I'll take care of it. We'll send back all the extras that have a shelf life."

Madge rubbed her bare arms. "How can you stand it so cool in here? I'd turn up the temperature."

"It's best for the stuff we work on if the room is kept a little cool," said Korey. "We get used to it."

"Would you give Miss Stewart a box and some wrapping tissue? She wants to store a quilt."

"Sure thing." Korey went to collect the items.

"I suppose the meeting's broken up, then." Signy took the jacket off and laid it on the table.

"Yes, it has. I imagine Mark will be looking for you in the lounge. I'll show you the way, if you like."

"Thanks, Korey," she yelled after him. "I appreciate the tour."

"No problem, Mrs. G."

"Korey will take care of you, Madge," said Diane. "He can give you advice on cleaning your quilt, if it needs it."

Diane left Madge looking at a tray of resin casts of dinosaur eggs and walked Signy out of the lab to the elevators that led to the staff lounge on the second floor.

"How did the meeting go?" Signy looked at her watch. "You couldn't have gotten much done."

"No. We didn't get much done. Just small business. Did you enjoy your tour of the conservation lab?"