“Fine. What did you find?”
“Here. Look,” she said, pulling the sale paper out of her pocket and handing it to him.
Theo unfolded the crumpled paper, turning it over, looking for an explanation. “You’re kidding, right?” he said.
“No, look here,” she said, pointing to the μ.
“And?”
“And I’ve seen this before!”
Theo furrowed his brow. “Of course, you have. Right here,” he said, pulling the chain around his neck from under his shirt and showing her the pendant. There, etched into the gold, was the same μ and eye symbol.
Oh, sothat’swhy it had looked familiar when she’d first seen it at the museum. She hadn’t noticed last night when they were in the pool.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“What do you mean, ‘What does it mean’? It was my papou’s. Something he’d had since he was in his early twenties, that’s all. I don’t think itmeansanything.”
“Do you know where he got it?”
“I have no idea. He left it to me in his will, but it didn’t say why.”
“Well, I saw this symbol in the museum yesterday. In a painting on a clay pot of a man holding the Minotaur’s head. He had this on a medallion around his neck.”
Theo ticked his head to the side and blinked a few times.
Okay. Now they were getting somewhere. “What if this symbol has something to do with it?” she asked.
“A symbol…on a bottle of olive oil?”
So that’s what it was. Olive oil.
She twisted her mouth. Of course, now that Theo was saying it out loud, she had to admit—it sounded a little ridiculous.
“And on your necklace!” she proclaimed, hoping that counted for something. “Don’t you think that’s an odd coincidence?”
“A coincidence? So that’s what you’re calling it now? Because a second ago you were only relying on a piece of paper you ‘found’ in the bathroom,” he said, using air quotes.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? Theo, the symbol that’s on your necklace was on a vase from the second century BC. How can you be so easily dismissing this?” She couldn’t conceal the exasperation in her voice. This was so unlike him.
He tossed back his head and groaned, dragging his hands over his face. “Yes, it’s an intriguing coincidence, but we’re focusing on the wrong thing at the moment. Jeez, Juicy. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t stick with the plan,” he said, clearly frustrated and exhausted.
“Oh, I’m sorry that I didn’t want to leave you here toactuallydie. Sorry that I thought you needed help.”
“Help? How is this helping me? Now we’re both in trouble.”
“Yeah, no thanks to you.”
“Me?” he said, pointing at his chest with the sale paper still in his hand.
“Yeah, you. If you hadn’t gone and told them I was your fiancée—”
“Well, ifyouhadn’t been snooping around Knossos—”
“And ifyouhadn’t abandoned us in Michigan—”
“Abandoned you? Oh that’s rich, coming from you,” he said, laughing as if he found her comment doubtful.
