I didn't use my turn signal, giving them as little advance warning as possible, and shot down the exit ramp. Sabrina kept an eye out for them. I was turning at the bottom of the ramp when I heard honking.

"They saw us too late and missed the exit," she said in an excited voice "They tried to slow down, but that didn't go over well with the other drivers, as I'm sure you could hear. By the time they get off the next exit, we'll be at the Hertz office. We shook them!"

I wished that I could share Sabrina's enthusiasm, but it was beginning to hit me just how dogged these people were in their quest for the treasure. Did they know something about it that we didn't—like, what it was? Had Mario's great-grandfather passed down some information as to the nature of the treasure, and all they needed were the clues in Izzy's possession?

I was beginning to think that we were in way over our heads.

Chapter 12

I said as much to Sabrina once we were outfitted in our new vehicle and again on our way.

"You think they know more than we do?" she asked.

"No, I think they know different information than we do. It's like having a puzzle in two pieces. Each piece is worthless without the other. But put them together and you have the solution. I think we have the means to find the treasure, and I think they know what the treasure is."

"And your reasoning?"

"We're looking for it mostly out of curiosity. We want to know why it got Izzy killed. We want to know how our families are connected. We're just looking for answers. If things get too hot, we can turn it over to the police and walk away. No harm, no foul. Izzy is the reason I think they know what it is."

"Izzy?"

"You don't kill someone because you are trying to satisfy your curiosity. You kill someone because they have information you need and either won't give to you or you extracted it from them and don't need them anymore. Mario—assuming it's Mario—knows what the treasure is, but until Izzy came along, it was just the stuff of legend. All traces of the map—or painting—had disappeared. Now he's presented with a way to get it. You think he's not going to take advantage of that?"

"But obviously she didn't give him the information he was looking for, so wouldn't he be better off keeping her alive?"

"He probably got everything he could from her—including my name. Remember, he had already met with her in Chicago. At this point she became an adversary. She had to go. So now he's still looking for the missing piece."

Sabrina was quiet for a minute. "If that's so," she finally said, "we're all in the same boat. In fact, we're actually in a bigger boat. In better shape than them. Wouldn't you rather know how to get the treasure and then find out what it is, than to know what the treasure is, but have no way of finding it?"