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unclenched her hands and held out the pendant she’d retrieved from the tangle of plants.
    â€œIt’s an evil eye amulet. I was planning to study it at home this evening.”
    Detective Henderson’s brows slid together, colliding in the middle of his creased forehead. “Are you in the habit of taking museum property home with you in the evenings?”
    â€œAbsolutely not.” Natalie felt a twinge of alarm. The amulet had nothing to do with the break-in. And the last thing she wanted was for the police to get sidetracked. “This isn’t the museum’s property. It’s mine.” She closed her hand around the pendant again and met his magnified eyes. “My personal property.”
    â€œYou said the intruder tried to take it from you. And that he was wearing gloves. Which means the only prints on it would be yours, Dr. Landau?”
    â€œYes, that’s right. He was wearing gloves. Black gloves. The thin cotton kind you’d wear for gardening.”
    He paused to scratch again at his notepad and Natalie waited uneasily. She suddenly felt too warm in her belted gray cashmere sweater. Detective Henderson’s manner reminded her, uncomfortably, of her childhood neighbor, Mr. Petroskey, who spent every spring accusing her or Dana of picking his precious tulips.
    â€œIs it valuable? Your amulet?”
    The question jolted her, and her mind raced in a panic.
    How was she to answer
that
? She had no idea yet whether it was valuable or not. And if she told him it might be, he’d ask her where she’d gotten it—and then what? She’d have to tell him that her sister, the famous newscaster, had sent it fromIraq. Without knowing its provenance, the last thing she’d want was to inadvertently get Dana in hot water or to embarrass her network.
    Natalie’s thoughts flew ahead. What if Henderson followed up—and it turned out the pendant
was
an antiquity and valuable? That Dana actually
had
unwittingly sent her something looted from the Iraq museum?
    Her throat went dry. Dana’s career could go up in flames like one of the car-bombed armored vehicles she reported about.
    I can’t risk it. If there’d been some horrible mistake, it can be taken care of quietly. Diplomatically. Not tossed in the lap of an NYPD detective on a wild goose chase.
    â€œNo, it’s not valuable at all.” The lie just sprang from her lips. And then it was too late to take it back.
    It’s a very small lie,
Natalie told herself.
If it even is a lie.
It wasn’t as if Henderson needed the truth about the amulet for his investigation. She didn’t even know what the truth
was
yet.
    â€œIt’s just a trinket . . . a souvenir.” Natalie’s throat felt so parched she was surprised her voice didn’t creak.
    â€œSo why did you bother coming all the way back for it?” the detective pressed.
    She sat up straighter in her chair. “Because it’s a gift. One that has sentimental value for me. Believe me, Detective, I never would have come back here tonight had I known there was going to be a break-in.”
    â€œI heard you handled yourself pretty well,” he said slowly. “You described the intruder as a large man, approximately six feet what?—six two, six four? One hundred eighty pounds? And he attacked you. You don’t look much the worse for wear.”
    â€œMy Krav Maga training kicked in.”
    He twitched the cigar from his pocket and began chewing on its tip, his disconcerting eyes never leaving her face. “And just how did you come to be so proficient at an Israeli self-defense technique employed by government agencies and police forces?”
    Natalie stole a furtive glance at her watch: 11:30 P.M . She’d been sitting across from him for nearly two hours. Her head ached, her wrist was already purpling, and she was emotionallydrained. All she wanted was to get home, strip off her work clothes, and