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“Tell me.”
“Why should I? It won’t change anything. Those vases had nothing to do with the murders. It must’ve been a weird coincidence.” He took a sip of his drink.
“It wasn’t,” she insisted.
“The vase was given to the museum in 1962 by Luigi Bonetti. The other three vases vanished centuries ago. How in the hell could this have anything to do with the vases?”
Caroline barely listened to the rest of Ryland’s mumblings. Her attention was completely caught. Her mind spun out asLuigi Bonettiechoed in her mind.
“Ryland,” she said, interrupting him, “shut up for a second.”
He arched a brow at her. His eyes bore into hers as he took a slow and long drink from his glass. Caroline wanted to explain, but her mouth wasn’t working. She breathlessly stood there, staring back at Ryland, unable to move or breathe.
“Well?” his voice was slow and low. Rough and full of …
Caroline shook out the thought.Ryland Wolverton doesnotwant me, and I sure as hell don’t wanthim,either.
“Bonetti. That last name.” She returned to the office without any other explanation, with Ryland hot on her heels.
“Are you gonna finish that thought?”
She pulled up a search engine and typed inBonetti.Soon, the screen was full of results. “See? The Bonetti family-owned olive grove farms in Italy. They were the world’s biggest importer of olive oil. They were richer than god.”
“Bonetti. Right, I think we had some of those bottles when we were kids,” he pointed to an image of rich green bottles.
“Well, one of the men who was murdered, the one in Rome? He was related to the Bonettis.” She clicked on the picture of a man. “Dino Fiore.”
“How is he related to the Bonettis?”
“Dino’s mother was a Bonetti.”
“This is starting to sound like this woman had two of the six vases,” Ryland mumbled.
Caroline nodded. “It’s starting to look like that, yeah.”
“Is there any connection between the Rome victim and the Paris victim?”
Caroline shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen, but I didn’t know there was a connection between the Fiore vase and the museum vase, which we should just call the Bonetti vase at this point.”
“Good call.”
“Maybe I need to take a deeper look at the other murder victim. See if he had any links to the olive oil business.”
Ryland shook his head. “You? No. Not a chance. You’re going to a safe house. You’re not gonna have anything to do with this.”
She pursed her lips and stood from the computer. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t know there’s a connection between the Bonetti vase and the Fiore vase.”
“I would’ve figured it out eventually.”
“I’ve been investigating these vases for almost six months now. You’d be wasting time trying to figure out what I already know, and during that time, who knows? Someone could rob the museum, or someone else could die. You need me.”
Ryland stiffened at her words. His nostrils flared as he breathed too fast. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why he was so angry with her.
“It’s a very sensible solution,” she added with a shrug.
“Yeah? And what about the man in black? You were threatened! You can’t be anywhere near this.”
“This is too important to me. I need this.”
