“All right, so we have a three days tops, right?”
“You’re forgetting,” Enzo said as he took a sip of his drink. “He probably has people watching us. So, he’s going to know that we’re not coming to Mallorca, that we’re looking for the treasure.”
Kathleen made a dismissive sound. “You and I know there are ways around that. I’m quite sure you can find a way to make him think we’re on the way to Mallorca or still here. You seem to have lots of resources. You said this is your turf. I believe you. I think you can make that happen. And then we can look for the treasure.”
Enzo took another sip of scotch. She was not wrong. It was the right play, but damn if he wanted her involved. It was just too dangerous. He couldn’t have anything happen to her. Jamie would kill him, but that wasn’t the real reason for his hesitance.
His mind flicked back to the kiss.
Kissing Kathleen was a stupid thing to do, but that connection of their lips had been like a drug, and now he was an addict. He wanted her more than he’d wanted any woman in a long time. He needed her away from danger becauseshewasclouding his judgment. She was the one making him think crazy thoughts. Most of them pertained to taking her to bed.
“Supposing I agree with you,” he said finally. “Where do we look?”
Kathleen sipped her drink. He knew it was the one question she didn’t have an answer for. He didn’t either, and that was a major problem.
“I don’t know. You said the map looks slightly familiar. Any ideas on it?”
He shook his head.
She leaned forward, “Maybe we can use AI for this?”
“AI?”
“If we feed the map in, can’t we ask an artificial intelligence program to tell us what it is a map of?”
He shook his head. “It’s a novel idea, but there aren’t identifiable markings on it. I’m quite sure AI could come up with fifty million different places on this earth that would fit it, or close to it. We wouldn’t have that kind of time.”
Kathleen sighed.
“AI,” Enzo said, “much like all computing, is only as good as what you give it. Garbage in, garbage out.”
Kathleen nodded. “That’s true. So maybe we ask someone else.”
“And who do you think we should ask?”
“Maybe we could call Carlotta back. It was her father. Maybe she knows something, even if she doesn’t realize she knows it. Maybe he had favorite places or something like that.”
“Maybe,” Enzo conceded, “but the more information we give her, the more likely she is to be involved or get more involved. If she tells her brother, her cousin?—”
“Well, I don’t think she’s going to tell her cousin. She didn’t seem too keen on him.”
“Yeah, but in situations like this, you’re talking about treasure, you have no idea what alliances people will make.”
“Possibly. But what choice do we have? We need to identify where it is first, and then we have to search for it.” She took another sip and swallowed. “And that’s another thing. We have no idea what the treasure is, so we can’t guess as to where he’d hide it. I mean, if it’s gold bars, then he would need a huge space. If it’s diamonds, then he could have hidden them just about anywhere. That means the map could be an overview of a huge space, like a city, or a small one.”
“What do you mean by a small one?”
Kathleen licked her lips, and Enzo immediately felt a tug below his belt.
“What if it’s not a map of a town or a city but a map of a backyard or a garden, something like that?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Garden,” he said. There was something about a garden. A faint bell rang in the back of his mind. Did the map have something to do with a garden?
Kathleen raised her eyebrow. “What about a garden?” she prompted.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “When you said… It’s like a little flash. A little ding. A recognition. Something to do with the map. But I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “It’s gone.”
“Okay, well… in the meantime?—”
