“But it’s not particularly special. Apart from belonging to your mother, I mean,” Luca adds.
“Don’t worry about pissing me off, honey. Just tell me what’s so amazing about this particular rosary.”
He checks several of the round beads and then each flat one, frowning. Then he looks closely at the crucifix again, the back of it, the little figure on the front, and the sign above its head that, even to my untrained eye, reads INRI just like every other Catholic cross I’ve ever seen.
“I thought there might be some inscription,” Luca sighs at last. “Here—you have a look. Maybe you’ll see something I missed. She was your mother, after all.”
She might have been my mother, but I’m starting to wonder if I ever knew the real her. But I take the rosary, look it over closely, even bite down on the beads, then the end of the cross, like it might tell me anything.
Nada. It has no effect but to make me spit a little because it’s not very tasty. “Bleh,” I say, and then run a finger over my tongue to get the taste off. “What’s the crucifix made out of?”
“Clay, I think,” Luca says, looking it over. “Hard-fired and glazed. I’m not sure why you felt the need to chew on it.”
“Therapist’s wet dream, huh? Me chomping on a crucifix. Very Freudian.”
“Mm.”
Luca’s still staring at the cross, turning it over in his hands. I poke him. “Whatcha thinking?”
“I’m thinking there might be something inside it. Baked into it.”
“Um…wouldn’t whatever it was get burned up in there during the kiln firing?”
“Not necessarily. It would depend on what it was. Anything paper or wood, yes. Probably the same for copper or gold or anything with a lower melting point. But if it was steel…or iron…maybe even bone…”
I stare at him. “Since when did you become an expert on the melting point of—ofthings?”
“Since we had a house fire,” he says wryly. “Before we got the list of salvage, I wanted to know what to expect was lost versus what might have survived.” In response to my cocked eyebrow, he says, “Yes, alright, I was wondering about my platinum Armani cufflinks. They made it through.”
“Praise Jesus,” I say, holding up the crucifix. “Seriously, Luca, this all sounds a little hardcore for my Mom. Baking spy stuff into a cross? She wasn’t a hobbyist potter or anything, to my knowledge, so she would’ve had to get it made specially.”
“Well, there’s one way to check if there’s anything in it.”
It takes me a second to figure it out. “We arenotsmashing open the crucifix on a hunch, husband. Róisín would kill me.Tarawould kill me. Hell, I’d feel shitty about it myself, especially if we end up with dust and there’s nothing inside.”
Luca thinks it over for a while, and then puts a hand on my knee. “There might be another way.”
I look down again at the crucifix, weighing up my options. “Maybe…maybe weshouldjust smash it. We came all this way; we might as well see if it was a waste of time.”
Luca takes the rosary back from me and puts it on the coffee table. “No,” he says softly. “You were right the first time. If we can preserve it, we should. And besides, we might be missing something. Let me follow up on my idea first. If we run out of options, we can crack it back in New York.” He cups my face. “I thought we did well today. We were a team.”
Brightening, I smile at him. “Yeah. We were.”
“Except that part where you left the obelisk.”
Damn it, I should have seen that coming. “Fair cop, guv,” I try, but even my terrible cockney accent isn’t going to get him laughing.
“I mean it, angel. If I can’t trust you to have my back—”
“It wasn’t like that,” I protest, but I’m taken by the way he put things. “Wait…have your back?”
“Well, yeah.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I was counting on you to watch out for me, just as much as I was watching out for you. I need to know I can depend on you when I’m in a tight spot.”
Like, I’m not sure if I really, a hundred percentbelievehim? But it does make me melt, so I’ll allow it. “I’m sorry. Next time, I promise—I’ll sit and stay like a good puppy.”
“I hope so. Maybe we should practice a little.” He boops my nose with a fingertip and a smile lifts his lips.
My eyebrows shoot up. “Well, honey, you know I can never resist a little experimentation. And believe me, there’s nothing I’d love more than playing your bitch right now. But, uh, my ass is still recovering from that alley.”
