Homeport

moment, she pushed the sheet aside.
    “We’ll table the probability list for now. Here I’ve made a time line, from the date the David came into our hands, the length of time it remained in the lab. Without my notes and records, I can only guess at the times and dates of the individual tests, but I believe this is fairly close.”
    “You made graphs and everything.” He leaned closer, admiring the work. “What a woman.”
    “I don’t see the need for sarcasm.”
    “I’m not being sarcastic. This is great. Nice color,” he added. “You put it at two weeks. But you wouldn’t have worked on it seven days at a stretch or twenty-four hours a day.”
    “Here.” She referred him to another chart and felt only a little foolish. “These are approximated times the David was locked in the lab vault. Getting to it would have required a key card, security clearance, a combination, and a second key. Or,” she added, tilting her head, “a very good burglar.”
    His gaze slid over to hers, dark gold and mocking. “I was in Paris during this time.”

    “Were you really?”
    “I have no idea, but in your probability ratio I don’t compute because there would have been no reason for me to steal a copy and get sucked into this mess if I’d already taken the original.”
    Head angled, she smiled sweetly. “Maybe you did it just to get me in bed.”
    He glanced up, grinned. “Now, there’s a thought.”
    “That,” she said primly, “was sarcasm. This is a time line of the work period on The Dark Lady. We have the records on this, and it’s very fresh in my mind, so this is completely accurate. In this case, the search for documentation was still ongoing, and the authentication not yet official.”
    “Project terminated,” Ryan read, and glanced at her. “That was the day you got the ax.”
    “If you prefer to simplify, yes.” It still stung both pride and heart. “The following day, the bronze was transferred to Rome. The switch had to be made in that small window of time, as I’d run tests on it just that afternoon.”
    “Unless it was switched in Rome,” he murmured.
    “How could it have been switched in Rome?”
    “Did anyone from Standjo go along for the transfer?”
    “I don’t know. Someone from security, perhaps my mother. There would have been papers to sign on both ends.”
    “Well, it’s a possibility, but only gives them a few extra hours in any case. They had to be ready, the copy fully prepared. The plumber had it for a week—or so he said. Then the government took it over, another week for them to fiddle with the paperwork and contract Standjo. Your mother contacts you and offers you the job.”
    “She didn’t offer me the job, she ordered me to come to Florence.”
    “Mmm.” He studied her chart. “Why did it take you six days between the phone call and the flight? Your description doesn’t lead me to believe she’s a patient woman.”

    “I was told—and had planned—to leave the following day, two at the most. I was delayed.”
    “How?”
    “I was mugged.”
    “What?”
    “This very large man in a mask came out of nowhere, put a knife to my throat.” Her hand fluttered there as if to see if the thin trickle of blood was indeed only a bad memory.
    Ryan took her fingers to draw them away and look for himself, though he knew there was no mark. Still, he could imagine it. And his eyes went flat.
    “What happened?”
    “I was just coming back from a trip. Got out of the car in front of the house, and there he was. He took my briefcase, my purse. I thought he was going to rape me, and I wondered if I had a chance to fight him off, against that knife. I have a bit of a phobia about knives.”
    When her fingers trembled lightly, he tightened his grip. “Did he cut you?”
    “A little, just. . . just enough to scare me. Then he knocked me down, slashed my tires, and took off.”
    “He knocked you down?”
    She blinked at the cold steel in his voice, at the unbearable tenderness of his fingers as they stroked over her cheek. “Yes.”
    He was blind with fury at the thought of someone holding a knife to her throat, terrorizing her. “How bad were you hurt?”
    “Nothing, just bruises and scrapes.” Because her eyes began to sting, she lowered her gaze. She was afraid that the emotions flooding through her were showing—the wonder and bafflement of her feelings for him. No one but Andrew had ever looked at her with that kind of concern, that kind of