Page 103 of Homeport

“So, look around,” he suggested, and began to do so by tipping forward the backs of paintings. “Here it is, behind this very nice Renoir print. I’ll deal with this, you go through the desk.”

She hesitated. Even as a child she’d known better than to enter any room of her mother’s without permission. She would never have strolled in and borrowed earrings or copped a spritz of perfume. And she certainly would never have touched the contents of her mother’s desk.

It appeared she was about to make up for lost time.

She shoved aside the conditioning of a lifetime and dived in, with a great deal more enthusiasm than she’d ever admit.

“There are a lot of files here,” she told Ryan while she flipped through. “Most seem to be personal. Insurance, receipts, correspondence.”

“Keep looking.”

She sat in the desk chair—another first—and pawed through another drawer. Excitement was bubbling in her belly now, guilty, shameful excitement.

“Copies of contracts,” she murmured, “and reports. I guess she does some work here. Oh.” Her fingers froze. “The Fiesole Bronze. She has a file.”

“Take it. We’ll look through it later.” He listened to the last tumbler click into place. “Now I have you, my little beauty. Very nice, very nice,” he whispered, opening a velvet case and examining a double rope of pearls. “Heirlooms—they’d suit you.”

“Put those back.”

“I’m not stealing them. I don’t do jewelry.” But he opened another box and hmmed at the glitter of diamonds. “Very classy earrings, about three carats each, square-cut, looks like Russian whites, probably first water.”

“I thought you didn’t do jewelry.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t have an interest. These would be killers with your ring.”

“It’s not my ring,” she said primly, but her gaze shifted to the diamond winking on her finger. “It’s window dressing.”

“Right. Look at this.” He pulled out a thin plastic holder. “Look familiar?”

“The X rays.” She was away from the desk and grabbing for them in two thumping heartbeats. “The computer printouts. Look, look at them. It’s there. You can see it. The corrosion level. Just look. It’s there. It’s real.”

Suddenly swamped with emotion, she pressed the heel of her hand to her brow and squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s there. I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t make a mistake.”

“I never thought you did.”

She opened her eyes again, smiled. “Liar. You broke into my bedroom and threatened to strangle me.”

“I said I could strangle you.” He circled her throat with his hands again. “And that was before I knew you. Tidy up, honey. We’ve got enough to keep us busy for a while.”

They spent the next several hours in the hotel suite, with Miranda going over the copies of her reports line by line and Ryan huddled at his computer.

“It’s all here. Everything I did, stage by stage. Every test, every result. Admittedly, it’s light on documentation, but it stands. Why didn’t she see that?”

“Take a look at this and see if I’ve got it right.”

“What?”

“I’ve done a cross-check.” He motioned her over. “These are the names I come up with. People who had access to both bronzes. There’s probably more, but these are the key players.”

She rose and read over his shoulder. She only set her teeth when she noted her name topped the list. Her mother was there, as was her father, Andrew, Giovanni, Elise, Carter, Hawthorne, Vincente.

“Andrew didn’t have access to The Dark Lady.”

A tendril of the hair she’d pinned up fell and tickled his cheek. The immediate tightening of his loins had him letting out a long quiet breath. If nothing else, he thought, her hair was going to drive him to drink before they were done.

“He’s connected to you, your mother, and Elise. Close enough.”

She sniffed and shoved her glasses more securely on her nose. “That’s insulting.”

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