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four, if you count the earrings individually. He couldn’t change out that many separate pieces in a few seconds without someone knowing.”
    “Ah, but there was another disturbance. Remember the ‘accident’ when the worker bumped the display? Perhaps it was no accident? Two interruptions would be plenty of time for him to make the change. None of it—even the earrings were to be displayed hanging. All of it was to rest on the velvet cushions, which would make fast transfers possible. Signor Throckmorton personally arranged for the gems to be displayed in this fashion.”
    Zoe pushed away from the door and hurriedly slipped into her clothes, a pair of white shorts and a lightweight turquoise top. Those accusations were absurd. The idea that someone could switch several pieces of jewelry without anyone noticing was ridiculous. The volume of the voices escalated as she grabbed her towel off the counter to toss it over the towel rack. It caught on her quilted jewelry bag, pulling it off the counter. It hit the tile floor, and her jewelry scattered around her feet.
    As she crouched down to gather up hoop earrings and thin gold chains, she froze, staring at a diamond bracelet that had tumbled from the bag and lay in a sinuous “S” curve on the towel bathmat in front of the shower. The glittering, icy-clear stones sparkled, looking as out of place and foreign as a snake, but still as beautiful and striking as it had last night when she’d looked at it during the exhibit. It was the bracelet from the Flawless Set.
    The tenor voice went up another notch, and Zoe could clearly hear the man say, “Then you won’t object if we have a look around?”
    Zoe scuttled closer to the seam of the door. “Of course not,” Jack said. “But it is ridiculous to even consider that Harrington or Zoe and I could be involved in any way.”
    “And your wife is where?”
    “In the bath. She’ll be out in a moment.”
    A knock on the door caused it to vibrate, and Zoe jumped back, stifling a gasp.
    “Zoe,” Jack said. “We have company. Colonel Alessi from the Carabinieri. There’s been some sort of mix-up.”
    Zoe looked back at the bracelet and licked her lips. “Be right out.” She scrambled around the floor, stuffing her jewelry in the quilted travel bag until the floor was clear except for the diamond bracelet.
    She crawled closer. It couldn’t be the bracelet from the Flawless Set. It just couldn’t. Maybe somehow, someway, an imitation bracelet had gotten in her jewelry bag. She didn’t know how that could happen, but the thought of the bracelet just appearing out of nowhere and now the police were here, talking about missing jewelry…it was just too odd.
    She crouched lower and looked at the bracelet, her nose only inches from the bathmat, and her heart sank. The jewels themselves were dazzling, but it was the clasp that she was fixated on. It was scored and worn and had the ‘ R ’ inside an oval, just like the clasp on the necklace, and the clasp was broken—just like the piece from the exhibit last night.
    Zoe thudded back on her heels. What was she going to do?
    On the other side of the door, she could hear drawers opening and closing. It wouldn’t be long before they’d insist she come out of the bathroom and let them search. Should she take it out there with her, and say she’d just found it?
    Would the Carabinieri believe her? What if they didn’t? Zoe bit her lip. Worst-case scenario, Jack and she would be carted off to a police station and wrapped up in red tape and probably a jail cell for…well, she didn’t know how long. That didn’t sound like a good plan, but what else could she do? Hide it? From the sounds on the other side of the door, the search was thorough. And then what? Return it—somehow—anonymously?
    They definitely needed time to figure out what do to. Maybe they could go to the American Embassy and have the bracelet returned through official channels. Yes, that sounded much better.