Treasured Lies by Kendall Talbot

this for years, he deserves the recognition. I want the world to know …’ He swallowed hard. ‘Babe, we’re this close.’ He held his thumb and finger slightly apart. ‘Once we’ve brought it all up. That’s it. The end. I’ll take you home. I promise.’
    Before she could answer, he clutched her to his chest. As he listened to her ragged breathing, he silently wondered if it would ever end.
    ***
    After a quick shower, they returned to the saloon and Archer pulled out a chair at the dining table for Rosalina to sit. She smelt divine, all citrus and vanilla. She was addicted to that soap and he was pleased she was. When they were separated for those torturous eight months, her beautiful scent was just one of the many things he missed.
    When Archer looked up, his mother walked into the room. It was rare to see her so early in the day and Archer raced over to help her. ‘Hi, Mum, lovely of you to join us.’
    She nodded her head but it was impossible to tell if she’d understood a word he’d said. Archer led her to the table as Rosalina rushed to set another place for her. It would be a nice treat to have his mother sitting with them for lunch, she’d only done it a couple of times since she’d moved permanently onto Evangeline recently.
    Ginger had made a couscous salad and sweet potato fries to go with the left over Thai fish cakes Rosalina made last night. As the dishes were handed around, the conversation was stilted. In fact, there was barely any conversation at all. It could be they were just tired and hungry but then it occurred to him that maybe no-one wanted to mention what happened this morning in front of his Mum. It probably wasn’t a bad idea.
    Archer placed a fish cake on Helen’s plate. ‘So, Alex, how about you tell us your new theory?’
    The Italian put the food already loaded up on his fork into his mouth and chewed quickly. ‘ Grande idea . ’ He placed his cutlery down and when Alessandro rubbed his hands together, Archer knew they were in for one of his dreaded lectures, and as a university professor, he was an expert at dragging out the details. Even so Archer was sure the lecture would be worth it. Without Alessandro’s help in Florence they would never have found the ancient diary that led to the treasure in the first place.
    â€˜I thought a visual display would explain my theory better.’ Alessandro stood up and walked towards the portable white board that he must’ve dragged from the office. He spun it around to reveal a series of A4 sheets of paper taped to the board.
    â€˜So, here are duplicates of the pages in the diary that detail each piece of the Calimala treasure. There are forty-eight pages with a total of 892 items.’
    â€˜Holy shit, Archer, you didn’t tell me there were that many pieces.’ Jimmy’s eyes lit up like flashing dollar signs.
    â€˜Actually I hadn’t realised there were that many either.’ All Archer could do was stare at the pages and pages of listed treasure. Could there really be that much? His mind flipped to a mental picture of what that amount of treasure would look like. He’d found treasure before, small, insignificant finds, especially in comparison to what they were onto now. But this was the treasure that’d been haunting him since he was eleven years old. He reached for the pendant around his neck. This one piece started the hunt for it. His Dad died chasing it. Now it was Archer’s job to finish it. And no fool in a helicopter was going to stop him.
    Alessandro cleared his throat, attracting Archer’s attention again and re-establishing his professor mode. ‘I have placed the pages in the same order they are in the diary. The first page is here.’ He pointed to the page taped at the top left-hand corner. ‘Then second and third.’ He pointed at each page, going left to right. ‘The final page is