Boniface sat alone in the dining room of the house he lived in with his adoptive parents, Ida Spavento and Victor Getz. Ida and Victor were out on another one of their post-retirement vacations to somewhere-or-other. Scipio was out running the detective business he'd inherited from Victor. Mosca was out sailing somewhere. Bo's brother, Prosper, was in college with his girlfriend, Caterina, or Hornet, and their friend Riccio.
Bo was on his laptop, working on a genealogy project he felt like starting a few months beforehand. He wanted to look up the family histories of himself and his brother, and those of his friends.
Since Scip was a detective now, he sometimes helped Bo when he wasn't on a case. "Genealogy is a bit like detective work," he'd told Bo. "Maybe if you like, you could be my assistant one day." Detective work, sure. I guess I could do that, Bo thought. Better than being a thief.
Bo temporarily stopped working on his and Prop's family history after finding their late mother's family, mostly because he didn't know who their father was. He was then working on Scip's family.
He put Scip's parents' names and birth dates into the spaces provided on the website. Scip didn't tell Bo any of his other known family members, so Bo clicked "Continue" with what he had.
When the results loaded, Bo was shocked to see what came up. Instead of just one branch for Scip under Dottore and Signora Massimo, there were three: Scipio, the oldest; Prosper, the middle child; and Boniface, the baby. All three had birth dates that matched those of Bo, Prop, and Scip.
So, that's why mom always talked about Venice, he thought.
Just then, his cell phone rang. It was Scipio. Bo answered it.
"Hello?" he said.
"Hey, Bo. I was just checking in on you, like Victor asked. How's your project? Are you finding anything interesting?"
"Nope. Not really," Bo lied to his formerly long-lost brother. He didn't think he could face telling Scipio or Prosper what he'd found.
"All right. I'll talk to you later."
Both hung up.