Her Boyfriend's Bones Read online

  It struck Dinah as a kind of irony that the Greeks had also invented the word crisis, varieties of which abounded in this complicated country. She tried to bring the focus back to her own crisis. Thor didn’t believe that Yannis was mixed up in the gun smuggling operation, but he suspected he knew something about the American guns. She said, “Yannis lied about what Fathi tried to sell him. It wasn’t worry beads. It was an old gun. I think you know that.”

  Abruptly, he uncrossed his leg and leaned forward. “Is that what the Inspector told you?”

  She self-censored. “I can draw my own inferences.”

  “What did he tell you about Fathi?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What time did Inspector Ramberg leave the house this morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His eyebrows pinched together over his nose and his voice was freighted with gravity. “Have you spoken with anyone else besides Yannis and Alcina?”

  “No.”

  “No one at all?”

  “No.”

  “You may have said something about the Inspector or his plans without knowing that the person to whom you spoke would feel threatened by him.”

  She couldn’t believe it. The guy was interrogating her. “No.”

  “She didn’t have to talk to anyone,” said K.D., looking up from her texting. “Everybody knows about all of us without our saying anything. Brother Constantine, Mr. Brakus, and you also spoke with a man whose dead wife was about to be exhumed, didn’t you, Dinah?”

  Stavros leaned forward. “Mentor Rodino?”

  Dinah stood up. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Stavros, but I have to be on my way. If Alcina has any additional information, please let me know and if you have any clout with the police or government officials, that would be helpful. The regional governor is a friend of Marilita’s sister. I’m going to ask her to call in a favor and request that he send additional search teams and investigators from other places to expand the search.”

  Stavros’ mouth hardened. “So Zenia still brags about friends in positions of power.”

  “Is she lying?”

  “She has towering flaws, but she doesn’t lie, except to herself.” He stood and fitted his cap over the scar. “Zenia Stephanadis is not someone you should trust. If your friend has fallen into the wrong hands, I may be able to help.”

  The skin on the back of her neck prickled. Wrong hands? Did he know the kidnappers? Was there a ransom demand implicit in that if-maybe overture? “What sort of help?”

  “Where the wolf has been there will be tracks.”

  Dinah scowled. Enigma was another word derived from the Greek language and the Greeks seemed determined to confound her with riddles.

  He said, “I have connections. I can put out antennae.”

  Can, not will. Her throat felt dry. Was this the time to ask the price? It required no effort to sound dumb. “Are your connections in the police force or government administration?”

  “Suffice it to say that they are well-placed.” He shook her hand and then K.D.’s. “Will you be staying on here in the house?”

  “Oh, yes,” said K.D. “We’ll be right here until Thor’s found, won’t we, Dinah?”

  Stavros smiled. “Then I will be in touch. I’m staying at the Sunrise Hotel in Iréon and this is my cell phone number if you need to contact me for any reason.” He handed her a card. “What is your number?”

  K.D. reeled it off and he wrote it down.

  “Thank you. You should not discuss the matter with anyone else until you have heard from me.”

  Dinah balked. If he was a kidnapper, he should cut the tease and lay out his terms, and if he was a Good Samaritan he had no business dictating terms of any kind. She said, “Unless I have a clear reason, I will discuss the matter with anyone I choose.”

  His lip kinked. “If you think Zenia will condescend to help you, by all means ask her.”

  She followed him to the door. “Why don’t you like her? What has she done to you?”

  His forehead crimped and he seemed to cast about for words. When he spoke, his voice was cold and his eyes bitterly sincere. “She has a stone tablet of shalls and shall nots where a heart should be.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nobody had a good word to say about Zenia. Egan had praised Marilita’s allure and Nasos’ charm and Phaedon’s heroism, but said nothing complimentary about Zenia even when she was sitting in the same room with him. Behind her back, he called her malicious. Brakus spread the rumor that she cast the evil eye and Mentor claimed that she poisoned cats, but Stavros’ putdowns were the most poetic and the most damning. Toweringly flawed, a braggart, a snob who wouldn’t condescend to lend a helping hand, a prig with a stone where a heart should be. His criticisms were tempered only by a backhanded retort that she didn’t lie. In Dinah’s book, not lying was a rare virtue. And if “thou shalt not kidnap” and “thou shalt not murder” were also graven on her stone heart, so much the better.

  It wasn’t yet five o’clock in the afternoon on what was turning out to be the longest, most grueling day of her life, but she had to keep moving or go mad. She grubbed through her purse with mounting agitation. Where had she put her car keys?

  “Aren’t you hungry?” K.D. waltzed into her bedroom without knocking. “I’m starving. Do you think the taverna has opened yet?”

  Dinah swore under her breath. K.D. was an albatross. It was too dangerous to leave her behind in the house and too trying to take her along. If only she could be stashed in an airport locker like a piece of baggage and reclaimed when it was convenient.

  “There’s cheese and bread and fruit and yogurt here.”

  “Alcina and I ate most of the cheese and bread for lunch. We have to eat something. We don’t want to show up on Zenia’s doorstep and faint from hunger.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You won’t be going with me.”

  “But Alcina went to the farmhouse to spend the night with Yannis. You’re not going to leave me here by myself, are you?”

  Dinah pondered her options. She could drop her off at the taverna for the duration of the evening, ask Mentor if he would babysit, or duct tape her mouth closed and take her along. She said, “Let’s see if we can scrounge up something here.”

  Downstairs, she opened the refrigerator and shifted various cartons around. She hadn’t eaten all day, but she didn’t think she could choke down a bite. Her throat felt tight and the ticking of the clock weighed on her. It would be dark in another three hours and the thought of Thor in the wrong hands roiled her stomach.

  She could scramble some eggs and somewhere in the cupboard was a package of Greek doughnut holes drizzled with honey, which Thor had bought to satisfy her sweet tooth. Absent-mindedly, she buttered a sauté pan and started cracking eggs in a bowl.

  K.D. found a chunk of cheese and grated it into the eggs, and sat down at the table with a bowl of grapes. “It’s strange the house doesn’t have a real dining room. Do you think Marilita cooked in here?”

  Dinah looked up from her egg-beating. “Yes, I do. It’s a lovely room and she had a lot of friends.”

  The kitchen was large and airy. The heavy oak dining table had an aged patina and the floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the vineyard. She pictured Marilita sitting across from Nasos, flirting and laughing in that abandoned way of hers. Phaedon and Zenia would probably have been frequent guests along with Galen Stavros and Egan Vercuni and a succession of disreputable artists or actors Marilita invited to annoy Zenia. Aries Brakus may have come to cook his specialties for her, a culinary expression of his Platonic love and, at some point in time, the man whose face she saw in the painting of the Spanish knight must have dined here.

  Dinah scrambled and plated the eggs and went hunting in the cupboard for the doughnut holes. She reached for the package and her hand froze. Propped in f
ront was an envelope with her name on it. Her insides did a somersault. Thor had left her a message after all.

  “What’s wrong?” asked K.D.

  “Nothing.” She stuck the note inside her shirt and put the doughnut holes on the table. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She started back to her room, but her knees buckled midway up the stairs. She sat down and tore open the envelope.

  Dinah,

  I was wrong to mislead you. It was selfish to think I could have my pleasure and also do my duty. But my country has sent me to thwart a possible terrorist attack and that must come first. I’m sorry for what I said last night about your senators wanting me to die. It was a stupid thing to say. I don’t know why I was chosen for this job except that I love my country and, if I lack craft and experience, perhaps my strength is that I know how to hang on one minute longer. For now, I must be like Rick in the movie Casablanca, walking away from love to do the right thing. If I disappoint you, forgive me and don’t worry. I have an ally on Samos.

  She choked up. How like him to see the world in terms of a movie—“Casablanca,” for crying out loud. She hated that movie. It made no sense to her that Rick couldn’t simultaneously do the right thing and hang onto Ilsa, the woman he loved. Love and duty weren’t mutually exclusive. And if Ilsa loved Rick, she shouldn’t have let him hand her over to Viktor like a tarnished consolation prize. In real life, she would have made Viktor miserable, forever yearning for the love that got away.

  Dinah’s phone rang and she flinched. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. Neesha. Of all the hairballs she couldn’t handle at the moment, Neesha topped the list. She stalked back to the kitchen and tossed the phone to K.D. “It’s your mother.”

  “Shit. Do I have to talk to her?”

  “Yes.”

  K.D. rolled her eyes. Dinah rolled hers and wandered out to the veranda. The late afternoon sky was a fierce blue and the green leaves of the repotted plants shone like phosphorous. The colors of Greece exaggerated reality, heightened her sense of foreboding and her sense of guilt. If she’d been more understanding and willing to listen to Thor, if she’d been less self-centered and dismissive, she would know where he was going and who he planned to meet when he left the house this morning. She’d at least have an inkling of the kind of danger he was facing. She didn’t know whether she loved him deeply or seriously. She might. But guilt had to be the worst possible reason to decide that she did, and deciding after he’d been snatched by kidnappers was hands down the worst possible time.

  The good news was that Thor had an ally. That note was written after he knew he’d been betrayed, so there was someone on the island he could count on. If only she knew who that person was. If only she could go to him now and join forces. What would an ally be doing at this moment? Was he pursuing leads among the police or searching the gorge floor or…?

  Her thoughts hit a snag. Did this ally even know that Thor had disappeared and that he may have been abducted? The air of Samos contained more gossip than nitrogen or oxygen. Surely he knew. But what if the bad guys had attacked him, too? What if he and Thor were roped together in some horrible dungeon? What if that bloody shoe belonged not to Thor, but to his ally?

  She had to get a grip. Conjuring up dire possibilities didn’t accomplish anything. She had had her catharsis, vowed to be brave and determined, and here she was backsliding into despair. She needed to proceed step by step. Tonight, she would enlist Zenia’s help and the help of her friend, the governor. Tomorrow, she would follow up with the Norwegian Embassy and N.C.I.S. She would pay a visit to Papas’ superiors and find out who Galen Stavros was and what his talk of well-placed connections was all about.

  She raised her chin and sailed back into the kitchen. K.D. stood at the end of the table holding a meat fork in the air. A large black pistol hung by the trigger guard from one tine.

  “Looky what I found in the cupboard.”

  “Mother of God! Put it down. Gently! Gently!”

  “Don’t have a cow.” She set it on the table with a clunk. “I used the fork so I wouldn’t mess up the fingerprints.”

  Dinah walked around for a closer look. Had Yannis lied about not taking Fathi’s gun or was this a different one? She nudged it with the meat fork. Zigana. Not an American make. Forensics would be able to ascertain whether it was the gun that fired the bullet that killed Fathi. The question was, whether to trust Sergeant Papas and the Greek police and hand it over or trust no one and hide it until Thor and his ally could take charge. Or maybe she should stick it in her purse for her own protection.

  She didn’t know anything about Greek law, but they probably had something on the books equivalent to what U.S. lawyers referred to as “chain of custody.” If the chain of possession was broken, the gun would be useless as evidence in court. The smart thing was to hide it here in the house. As events developed, she’d know better what to do. One thing seemed both smart and necessary. She said, “Get your things together, K.D. I’m taking you to Pythagório tonight. You’ll be safe in a hotel and tomorrow morning, I’ll pick you up and take you to the airport.”

  “I can’t go home.”

  “Yes, you can. Go pack.”

  “My mother left Atlanta. That’s what she called to tell me. She’s taken my brother to a shrink in Switzerland. He went off his meds and dumped a bag of dead rats on our neighbor’s lawn. It’s total pandemonium. She said she’d text me when and where she wants me to meet her.”

  “Did you tell her what’s going on here?”

  “I told her Greece was the most glorious place in the world and we were having a fabulous time.”

  “And she believed you?”

  “She wouldn’t believe me if I’d told her the bad stuff. She doesn’t want to know anything about me that will add to the heartache of motherhood.” K.D. flipped her long auburn hair with a practiced show of indifference. “She said to thank you for being such an angel and could you wire her eight thousand dollars for Thad’s new shrink?”

  Dinah didn’t know who she felt sorriest for—the disaffected daughter, the deranged son, the overmatched mother, or the dead rats. She picked up the gun with the meat fork. “Where did this come from?”

  K.D. pointed. Dinah went to the opposite side of the cupboard and hid the gun behind a jug of olive oil and a sack of chickpea flour. She closed the door and tried to regenerate a little of the spunk and determination she’d walked in with.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dinah parked the Picanto in front of Zenia’s house and marshaled her thoughts. Egan’s car was gone and that cheered her up. She hoped Zenia was at home. She had her emotions sewn up tight, but a long wait might unravel them again.

  She said, “I need you to stay quiet, K.D. This is about getting Zenia to call in a favor to help find Thor. Nothing else. Don’t say anything about Galen Stavros or Yannis or Alcina or anything at all. Is that clear?”

  “I know when to keep my mouth shut.”

  “If you do, you’ve acquired the knowledge since running off at the mouth to Galen Stavros.”

  “I didn’t run off at the mouth. And anyway, he’s elegant and cultured and soulful. I trust him.”

  “Fine. If you want me to trust you, don’t talk.”

  K.D. rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  They got out of the car and Dinah charged up the curving steps to the front door. There was no bell and no knocker. She hammered on the door with her fist. The house was solid as a fortress and Zenia was partially deaf. She cantilevered herself over the handrail and clonked her fist against the window. “Zenia! Zenia, are you in there?”

  She tried to open the door, but it was locked. There was no point walking around to the back. From what she’d seen on her last visit, the only entrance was from the garage through an underground passageway. She pummeled both fists against the door and shouted.

  Ze
nia must be in Pythagório at one of her rehearsals. She turned away in frustration, but stopped halfway down the steps. What if the same people who vandalized Marilita’s house had brought their campaign of terror to the woman who had introduced an outsider with the title of “Inspector” into their insular little world? What if Zenia were cowering in a closet, afraid to come to the door, or worse, what if she’d been hurt?

  She went back to the door and gave it another hard wham. “Zenia! Please! Open the door!”

  And it opened.

  “Easy peasy,” said K.D., rubbing her hands on her jeans. “There was an orange tree right under the kitchen and an open window over the sink.”

  Dinah blew out her cheeks. She so hadn’t planned to add breaking and entering to her list of problems. “Is Zenia at home?”

  “I haven’t checked every room. Come on in. We may as well look around since we’re here.”

  Corrupted again, thought Dinah, and walked into the living room. “Let’s make sure she hasn’t fallen and broken a hip or something.” She walked down the hall, reconnoitering the bedrooms and calling Zenia’s name. Satisfied that she wasn’t in the house, Dinah returned to the living room.

  K.D. was browsing the book shelves. She said, “I think we should search the house.”

  “I think we should go back to the car and wait for her to come home.”

  “You trust her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t trust anybody else. How can you be sure that Zenia had nothing to do with Thor’s accident?”

  “She’s eighty-five,” snapped Dinah, but the idea jarred. Zenia’s reasons for putting the word out about Thor being a policeman puzzled her. She said, “I suppose we could just walk around the house. Don’t touch anything.”

  “What should we look for?”