CHAPTER 17: JAMESON

In transit to and arriving at Avery’s Tuscan villa, Jameson drifts between wakefulness and a memory of bantering with Avery, underscoring his need to keep moving. With Xander, he notes the hedges and interior as potential search targets and recalls that two years earlier he found a small triangular mirror hidden in the fireplace.

Jameson contacts Alisa to discretely ship that mirror to Tuscany, believing it to be part of a Hawthorne puzzle Tobias left for “Alice.” He and Xander commit to a full, meticulous sweep of the villa—“for Avery”—pulling paintings, probing seams, and checking rafters and windows in room after room.

After an exhaustive interior search yields nothing, they move to the terrace. While Xander examines the vine-covered rafters, Jameson inspects the arched doorway’s aged copper bell. He notices a seam in the bell’s clapper, removes it, and hands it to Xander, who opens it to reveal coiled copper wires.

Uncoiled, the wires form a circle. Jameson pairs this new find with the remembered triangular mirror, recognizing the pattern—linked pieces of Tobias’s love-letter game for Alice. The discovery sharpens Jameson’s determination; he suppresses thoughts of Avery’s absence, focusing instead on how these objects might connect and lead him closer to her.