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sixty-eight kilograms. A female nude. It gives test results on said bronze, dating it late fifteenth century in the style of Michelangelo.”
    He watched her cheeks drain of color and her eyes go glassy, then held out the coffee until she’d wrapped both hands around the cup. “The date of the first test is at nineteen hundred hours, on the date The Dark Lady was accepted and signed for at Standjo. I imagine the lab’s closed at eight most nights.”
    “He ran tests on it, on his own.”
    “It lists them, step by step, giving times and results. Two solid nights’ work, and it adds several points of research. The documentation. He found something you didn’t, and he didn’t tell you about. An old baptismal record from the Convent of Mercy, written out by the abbess on a male child, infant. The mother’s name was recorded as Giulietta Buonadoni.”
    “She had a child. I’d read there was a child, possibly the illegitimate son of one of the Medicis. She sent him away, most likely for his own protection as there was political tension during that period.”
    “The child was baptized Michelangelo.” He saw when the idea struck home. “One might speculate, after his papa.”
    “Michelangelo never fathered a child. He was, by all accounts, homosexual.”
    “That doesn’t make him incapable of conceiving a child.” But he shrugged. “Doesn’t mean the kid was his either, but it does make the theory that they had a close personal relationship highly possible, and if they did . . .”
    “It helps support the likelihood that he would have used her as a model.”
    “Exactly. Hawthorne thought it was important enough to record it in his little book—and to keep the information from you. If they were lovers, even once, or if they had a close enough platonic relationship that she would name her only child after him, it goes a long way toward concluding that he created the bronze of her.”
    “It wouldn’t be proof, but yes, it would add weight. It makes it less and less likely that he’d never used her, and we have no documentation of any other sculpture or painting of Michelangelo’s that uses Giulietta as a model. Oh, it’s good,” she murmured, shutting her eyes. “If nothing else, as a springboard to keep looking.”
    “He didn’t want you to look.”
    “No, and I stepped in line in that area. I left nearly all of the research in his hands. What I did came primarily from sources he gave me. He recognized it, exactly as I did. Probably the minute he saw it.”
    “I’d say that’s an accurate assumption, Dr. Jones.”
    She could see the sense of it now, the logic and the steps. “Richard stole the bronze and copied it. And the David, he had to have taken that as well.” Her fisted hand pressed against her midriff. “He killed Giovanni.”
    “It wouldn’t be proof,” Ryan said, laying the book on her desk. “But it would add weight.”
    “We need to take this to the police.”
    “Not yet.” He laid his hand on the book before she could grab it. “I’d feel a lot more . . . confident of the outcome if we had the bronzes in hand before we talk to cops. I’ll go to Florence tomorrow, check out his garage. If they’re not there, they’ll be in his apartment, or the record of where they are will be. Once we’ve got them, we’ll work out what to tell the cops.”
    “He has to pay for Giovanni.”
    “He will. He’ll pay for it all. Give me forty-eight hours, Miranda. We’ve come this far.”
    She pressed her lips together. “I haven’t lost sight of what this can do for my career, or what it can mean to the art world. And I know we made a deal. But I’m asking you now to agree, to promise, that justice for Giovanni will come first.”
    “If Hawthorne’s responsible for Giovanni, he’ll pay. I’ll promise you that.”
    “All right. We’ll wait until you’re back from Florence to go to the police. But tonight. How can we possibly go through with tonight? He’ll be there. He’s here now.”
    “Tonight goes as scheduled. You have hundreds of people coming,” he went on before she could object. “It’s all in place. You just ride the current. The Institute, and my galleries, are too far into it to pull out. You’re too far in. And we don’t know if he acted alone.”
    She ran her hands up and down her arms. “It could still be my mother. It could be any of them.”
    There was nothing he could do about the haunted look in her eyes. “You have to handle it,