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you’re okay.”
    “I’m okay. And I haven’t talked to Trevor since that night he left Naples four years ago.”
    “I thought you might have run into him on one of those excavations.”
    “He wouldn’t be on his knees spooning dirt with college kids. He knows where those scrolls are buried, blast him.” Trevor had been involved in the smuggling of ancient Roman artifacts when he was contacted by a less than legitimate professor of antiquities and his son, Aldo. They’d discovered a library in a tunnel leading from the villa of Julius Precebio, one of the ancient town’s leading citizens. The library had proved to contain a number of bronze tubes holding priceless scrolls, which had escaped the lava flow that destroyed the villa. Many of the scrolls had been devoted to describing Julius’s mistress, Cira, who had been a bright star in the theater at Herculaneum. Aldo and his father had blown the tunnel to kill everyone who had knowledge of its location, including Trevor. But he’d managed to escape. “Trevor’s the one who camouflaged the site after the cave-in. He doesn’t want anyone to find that tunnel before he can go back and get that chest of gold Julius mentioned in the scrolls.”
    “Maybe he’s already found it.”
    “Maybe.” Jane had often wondered that same thing, but she had still kept searching. “But I have a feeling . . . I don’t know. I have to keep looking. Dammit, I should be the one to find those scrolls. I deserve it. I’m the one who had that crazy after me trying to slice off my face because I looked like Cira.”
    “Then why didn’t you tackle Trevor and get him to tell you where they were?”
    “Persuading Trevor to do anything is never an option. He wants the gold, and he believes he deserves it after he lost his friend Pietro in that tunnel. Besides, how was I supposed to find him when Interpol couldn’t keep track of him?”
    “I rather thought he might have contacted you when you were over there.”
    “No.” On Jane’s first expedition she had fought that irrational thought for the entire time she was in Herculaneum. She had found herself looking over her shoulder, remembering Trevor’s voice, fighting the feeling that he was around the corner, in the next room, somewhere—near. “It’s not likely that he’d stay in touch. I was only seventeen and he thought I was too young to be interesting.”
    “Seventeen going on thirty,” Eve said. “And Trevor was no fool.”
    “You’d be surprised.”
    “Nothing Trevor would do would surprise me. He was one of a kind.”
    Eve’s tone was almost affectionate, Jane realized. “You liked him.”
    “He saved my life. He saved Joe. He saved you. It’s hard to dislike a man who’s stacked up that kind of credit. That doesn’t mean I approve of him. His intelligence may be off the charts, and he definitely has a way about him. But he’s a smuggler, a con man, and God knows what else.”
    “What else indeed? He’s had four years to get into all kinds of nefarious pursuits.”
    “At least you’re not defending him.”
    “No way. He’s probably the most brilliant man I’ve ever met and could coax the birds from the trees. Other than that, he’s an enigma, he’s proficient in all manner of violence, and he has an addiction to walking a tightrope. None of those qualities tend to endear themselves to a hardheaded, practical woman like me.”
    “Woman . . .” Eve sadly shook her head. “I still think of you as a girl.”
    “Then that’s what I’ll stay.” Jane leaned her head against Eve’s shoulder. “Whatever you want me to be. You name it.”
    “I just want you to be happy.” She brushed her lips against Jane’s forehead. “And not waste your life chasing after a woman who’s been dead two thousand years.”
    “I won’t waste my life. I just have to have my questions answered before I can walk away.”
    Eve was silent a moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was wrong to want to bury the past.