Mac, Jo and Don arrived at the museum and went inside. There were security guards there of course. Mac showed them his badge and so did Jo and Don. "I am Detective Mac Taylor. We need to see the museum curator."

"No one can see him right now," the security guard said. "He's busy."

"He has my evidence in there and I need to talk to him about it."

"I'll see if he will see you."

"No, you will tell him that we are going to see him. Don't make me get a warrant."

The guard frowned at Mac and then called the curator's office. "He'll be with you in a moment," he said after the call.

Soon, a short man came from the back of the museum. He almost looked like Albert Einstein. His thin, brown hair was unkempt and he had glasses sitting on the end of his nose, and he looked like he was very nervous. "Come with me, Detectives," he said.

Mac, Jo and Don followed the man to the back of the museum and into a large back room that had several tables that were now covered with the treasures that they had discovered. The man closed the door hurriedly and locked it. He leaned on the door and looked at Mac. "I am glad you're here," the man said. "I'm Ivan Denisov. I have never had something like this in this museum. I'm afraid for my life. Do you realize we are in the room with billions of dollars of treasure?"

Mac looked around them. "Yes, I realize it," he said. "Are you telling me that all of this is real?"

"Real? Are you kidding? Yes, it's real! Treasures that were supposed to be lost!" Denisov walked over to one of the tables and picked up what looked like an Easter egg, but it was not. "Just look at that!"

Mac took the egg and looked at it. "Do you see that detail?" Denisov asked. "It is one of the lost Faberge eggs!"

"I've read about those," Mac said. "They're worth millions. How many are here?"

"Five! It is hard to believe that he had these and no one knew it."

"Someone found out." Mac put the egg back on the table. "Do you have a list of all this?"

"I've been comprising one." Denisov went over to the computer and printed out a long list for Mac. He gave Mac the list. "Billions of dollars," he said in an almost secretive way.

Mac looked at him thinking the man was too nervous to be responsible for all this treasure. "Why don't we have this moved to our vault at the lab?" he asked. "Would that make you feel better? You could come to the lab to analyze it."

Denisov looked relieved. "That would be wonderful!" he said. "You never know when someone will try to steal it! What if people found out this was here? They would…"

"Don't worry, we're keeping this quiet," Mac said.

"That's good."

Mac looked at Jo and Don who were looking a little amused at the exchange. "Don Flack will stay here with you until we can get it moved," Mac said. "How's that?"

"Oh, thank you!" Denisov said. "I would really appreciate that!"

"He likes to bicker so if he tries to argue with you, don't get mad at him."

Jo almost laughed. She looked at Don and tried not to smile. Don folded his arms. "Ha, ha, ha," he said sarcastically.

Mac slapped Don on the back. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to this stuff now, would we?" he asked.

"You're just punishing me, aren't you?" Don asked.

Mac smiled. "Everybody has to endure a little punishment sometimes." He looked at Denisov and then at Don. "Besides, you might learn something."

Don rolled his eyes as Mac and Jo walked back to the door. "See you later," Mac said, and chuckled as he went out the door.

Don looked at Denisov. "So, this treasure trove is worth billions, huh?" he asked.

"Oh yes!" Denisov replied. "Many billions!"

"Many?"

"Yes. You realize this was lost treasure?"

"Well, I guess all of it is lost at some point, right?"

"Let me just tell you…"

Don thought it would be a long evening. He hoped Mac would not leave him there too long…

Jo was laughing as she and Mac got into the Avalanche. "I can't believe you did that to him," Jo said.

"Did what?" Mac asked. "The guy was clearly a nervous wreck. He needed someone to relieve him of some of that stress."

"Are you kidding? You did that because of that little argument you and Don had earlier. You're something else, Mac Taylor."

"Well, he might learn something."

"Learn not to bicker with you?"

"Maybe."

They went back to the lab and found that Adam had gotten a list of the sales that had gone on in the city over the last three months. "Good work," Mac said. He and Jo took the list into the conference room and sat down at the table.

Mac gave Jo a page of the list and he took another. "We need to look for Manicotti's name on here, and we need to look for anything that might have been part of these other treasures that could have been sold," Mac said. "We need to look for Eddie Waddle's name and Arnold Watts."

They began searching the list. Danny came into the conference room. "The bullets that killed the maid and butler were the same as the one that killed the chef," he said and gave Mac a readout. "Also, the maid and butler died before the chef. They were killed probably two or three hours before the chef."

Mac nodded as he looked at the papers. "So, they already thought the treasures were not in the house before they went to the restaurant," he said. "Then where was Manicotti when all that was going on?"

"Maybe he had been working late at the restaurant," Jo said. "Maybe he was cleaning or something. There's a lot that goes into a restaurant."

"You could be right. It's hard to believe that they wouldn't have called him at the restaurant and told him that they had his maid and butler and that they wanted him there to show them where the treasure was."

"They may not have wanted him to know who they were, and then when they didn't find it, they went after him."

"And the mushrooms were just a hoax or something. They must have brought them there just to get in."

"Doesn't make sense," Danny said.

"None of this makes sense," Mac replied. "It doesn't make sense that he had all that treasure in there hiding it, and it doesn't make sense that they didn't make him tell them where it was before they murdered him."

"Maybe he sent them on a wild goose chase," Jo suggested.

"That could be."

"Maybe he just sold one occasionally to keep people from knowing that he had all that stuff there."

"That could be right too."

They continued looking through the lists. Danny sat down and began studying one too. Mac wrote down all the matches that he found which was only three, and Jo and Danny found some as well. "He sold one of those Faberge eggs," Mac said.

"And he sold a priceless necklace in that," Jo said. "It must have come from those crown jewels."

"Priceless stuff. I also found the names of Eddie Waddle and Arnold Watts on this. Watts was selling a painting and Waddle was selling a jewelry set. They must have seen that egg and realized that it had brothers and sisters."

"Would they kill for it though?"

"We're going to find out."

"How? It will be hard to get a warrant for them."

"We don't need a warrant yet. We're going to just ask them some questions right now." Mac looked at Jo. "You stay here and supervise that treasure when it's brought in. Danny and I will go and visit these men. Make sure every piece of that treasure is documented and where it is put in the vault. Have Lindsay help you so she can back you up."

"Got it," Jo said. "We'll get it done right."

"Good."

Mac and Danny headed out to the Avalanche. "What do you think the chief will say when he finds out we rattled the cages of these rich men?" Danny asked.

"I don't care what he says," Mac replied. "We have to question them. Their fingerprints were on those treasures…one in particular was on one of those eggs, and the other was on one of those crown jewels, so that really puts some suspicion on them."

"Question is: how did their fingerprints get on them?"

"Maybe Manicotti showed them to them and they were going to name a price for them."

"That would be crazy. He should have known they might try to steal them."

"He might have thought they were honestly wanting to buy them."

Danny nodded. "Have you ever found anything worth a lot of money?" he asked.

"No…although I did find a gold nugget when I was in the war," Mac said. "Of course, it wasn't something I could keep."

"Why not?"

"Because I was on foreign soil."

"Hmmm. What about all these places in this country where you can find treasures? You ever been to any of them?"

"No. Never have had much time for stuff like that."

"I went out to that diamond field once when I was on vacation and dug for two days and didn't find anything. Made me wonder if I really knew what I was looking for."

"Diamonds? I've never tried to look for something like that. It's not much of a chance and it would be disappointing not to find anything at all."

"Aw, come on, Mac. Don't you like to have a little adventure?"

"Not much anymore."

Mac had to admit, he had not been very adventurous since Claire died. When they were young, she had even talked him into going over to the West and climbing a mountain. That had been fun until he got into the Poison Ivy. Not only had it itched, but it had hurt too. He had not known he had touched it until his leg had turned red and swelled up. By that time, he had scratched it some and had gotten it to other parts of his body from his hands. It turned into a miserable time. He had not wanted to go to the wilderness anymore after that unless he wore long pants.

"Who are we going to see first?" Danny asked.

"I think we will visit Eddie Waddle first," Mac replied. "His prints were on the egg. Manicotti sold that egg in that auction and Waddle purchased it. Maybe he wanted the others and Manicotti had met him and showed them to him in another place besides his treasure trove."

"Right," Danny agreed. "I'm sure he would never have taken anyone in there. You think he met the man at the restaurant?"

"Could have," Mac replied. "But as far as we know, none of the treasure is missing…although there were eight of those eggs and there were only five in the treasure. That would mean that two are missing besides the one that he sold."

"Maybe that was what he was doing at the restaurant and they took what he had with him since they didn't find anything else. Maybe they thought that was all he had."

Mac shook his head. "That doesn't explain the mushrooms," he said.

"Maybe he was just hungry."

"Well, that's possible but why would he eat those?"

"Maybe he liked them."

"Maybe."

Mac had to admit, the mushrooms might not have had anything to do with the case. He wanted to know if Manicotti had anything documented about what he did with those other two eggs, and he wanted to see what Waddle did with the one he bought…