mention that an anthropologist had been working with Alessandra. Too coincidental for it not to be she. Once again Sydney thought back to the beginning, the night she and Tasha went to dinner, the conversation they’d had.
She recalled thinking that something was off. Tasha had seemed jumpy, had purposefully deflected any personal questions…
Sydney got up, walked to the window, stared out, seeing nothing. With the clarity of hindsight, she realized that Tasha had been worried about something, no doubt this dig she’d gone out on. Tasha probably had no idea the depths to which it ran, or the dangers involved. Nor was she trained to deal with such matters. Griffin, however, did know, and Sydney turned, glared at him. “How could you not tell me?”
“What good would it have done, except make you worry?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Make me trust you a little more from the get-go? What the hell else haven’t you told me?” He simply looked at her, his face unreadable, and that infuriated her even more. She paced the room, tried to think…“How long did you know she was involved with Alessandra’s case?”
“From the beginning.”
She thought of the implications, tried to determine what all this meant. “And yet you let me suggest her name for that drawing?”
He hesitated, looked away a moment, and she wondered what kind of bullshit excuse he was going to give her. “The information was classified. I couldn’t tell you.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Maybe if you’d trusted someone else besides your goddamned self—”
“At least I trust myself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t answer.
Suddenly she wondered if he’d known how much confidence she’d lost in her own judgment ever since her father’s murder investigation. And then she recalled that he’d done a complete background on her, decided he knew exactly what he was saying. “You’re a bastard.”
“You’ve established that on more than one occasion. It doesn’t change the fact I could not tell you.”
“I went to dinner with her, for God’s sake. She was clearly worried about whatever this was. I could have talked to her. Maybe found out something, helped her.”
“It was out of your control, Sydney,” he said, his voice so quiet, she barely heard him. “Just like everything that’s going on right now is out of my control. All we can do is work with what we have right here, right now.”
And he was right. They had one objective right now, and that was to find Tex. “Fine. But when this is over, it’s over. I never want to run into you or anyone from ATLAS again.”
“At least we agree on something.”
They took the early morning train to Naples, and Sydney was glad for the chance to relax, even if only for the next couple hours. Griffin continued to query the professor on this Prince of Sansevero and his missing map, and when that line of questioning was done, he moved on to why she insisted on keeping something like this from him when she knew that Alessandra had been killed over it.
“I don’t expect you to understand.” Francesca sighed, leaning her head against the train window, staring out at the long unbroken series of arches of the Roman aqueduct, with the green cascading plants sprouting from the ancient bricks. “I cannot sit idly by and allow your government to get in the way of something I’ve devoted my life to discovering.”
“And yet you’d risk your life, and the lives of the rest of us around you?” Griffin looked at Sydney. “Watch the professor. I’m going to check the train, then find us some coffee.”
He left, and Francesca leaned back in her seat, seeming resigned to her fate. “I suppose you must think I’m a calloused academic, obsessed with myself and my glorious goal of publish or perish.”
“What I think,” Sydney said, “is that your goal is getting in the way of your common sense. These people who are after whatever this is, they’ll kill you and anyone around you without batting an eye.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. Your friend was murdered, brutally, and then my friend was killed as part of the investigation looking into that murder. We won’t even go into the number of attempts on my and Griffin’s lives as a result, never mind the attempt on your and Dumas’s just, when? Day before yesterday? Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Of course not.” Francesca had the grace to look somewhat humiliated. “But this is my life’s work.”
“And your life’s work won’t mean a thing if you’re dead.”
“But my work will