Hidden Threads — David Ciambrone

A friend of Virginia Davies Clark, Dr. Gail Knight, a retired professor of computer science at the University of California at Irvine, where Virginia was a student, purchased an old ranch called the Circle A near Georgetown, Texas, and is renovating it to live there. Dr. Knight bought the ranch from a relative of First Lieutenant Robert Cumo of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, a veteran of the battle for Rome during World War II. The relative lived there since Lt. Cumo died and sold it due to financial problems and issues with the ghosts.

     Virginia visits her friend's ranch, where Gail gives Virginia a unique quilt dating from the late 1940s that she found in the attic of the ranch house. Her friend tells Virginia about subtle rumors of a treasure, supposedly stolen from the Vatican in WWII, and ghosts at the old ranch. Virginia is intrigued by the idea of a treasure and specters of a WWII soldier and a Roman gladiator skulking around Gail's ranch; but Virginia does NOT believe in ghosts.

     Did First Lieutenant Robert Cumo leave Rome in 1945 with a little... souvenir... like the missing Vatican treasure? Only one thing is for sure: someone thinks he did. Virginia and her friends, think the clues to the possible hidden treasure and the reason for the violence lie within in her newly acquired, and unusual, quilt. Virginia, along with her colleagues, is determined to figure out who is behind all this and locate the treasure. She must switch her attention from quilting to killers and to the romantic but deadly city of Rome and its ancient catacombs. While few can still remember the war personally, there's a killer who refuses to forget... with a vengeance.