CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE – THE STOLEN PAINTING

Jasmine whirled around to see Diego standing in dramatic silhouette before the supply closet, jaw agape in abject horror. "Sacré bleu!" he bellowed, both hands clutching dramatically at his gaudy beret. "It cannot be! Someone has committed the most unforgivable desecration!" Exchanging bewildered looks with her equally baffled students, Jasmine took a tentative step forward. "Diego? What's going on?" "Going on?" His anguished tone was rife with melodramatic flourish as he flung one arm up, gesturing wildly at the open supply closet behind him. "Only the most heinous, unpardonable crime imaginable - my latest magnum opus has been stolen!" With that proclamation, he crumpled to his knees before the doorway in a paroxysm of theatrical woe, flinging his head back and wailing to the heavens. Thoroughly nonplussed, the rest of them could only gape as he thrashed about. "Oh, the betrayal! The profound agony of this loss!" Diego's shrieks spiraled up to a fever pitch, ending on a piteous