“Are you telling me you spent all day surrounded by sex so you’d prefer not to get into it at home? When we agreed you should ‘leave your work at the office,’ that’s not the part I meant.”
“Trust me, if you saw what I saw you’d be off sex for a week. I’m just screwed up in the head tonight. But…”
Andreas rolled onto his side and slid his hand down under the sheet to between Lila’s thighs. She squirmed for an instant, but relaxed as his fingers began moving in rhythm to her breathing. He knew where she liked to be touched. Andreas kissed first one, then the other breast, taking care to flick at her nipples with his tongue, all in time with the stroking of his fingers and Lila’s moans. He slid his mouth down along her belly, and when he sensed she could stand no more his lips replaced his fingers between her thighs. She jerked at the sudden shift in pressure, but moaned again and again as he brought her to orgasm.
A minute passed. Andreas had not moved from between Lila’s legs or stopped his caressing.
“How do you always know just what to do to me?”
Andreas slid up onto Lila’s body and kissed her on the lips. “I can ask you the same question.” He spread her legs with his knee and searched between them with his erection until he found where his mouth had just been. He moved his hips to enter her and she pushed hers up to take him. He moved slowly at first, but Lila put her hands upon the cheeks of his ass and pulled at him to move faster. He wrapped an arm around her back, and with his other hand squeezed her ass and pulled her up toward him.
Andreas thrust in pace with Lila’s hands upon at his ass, and when she slid her hands down onto her own thighs, pulling them wider apart while urging him to drive harder and faster, he did until burying his face in her hair and moaning her name in his own release of rushing heat.
Neither moved for several minutes.
“Your account is now current.”
Andreas’ head lay buried in her hair. “Trust me, I’m laughing on the inside. There’s just no energy left to show emotion on the outside.”
Andreas pressed his hand on the mattress and rolled over onto his back. “Thank you for making me forget my day at the office.”
“Any time.” Lila patted his belly. “So what’s with all the porn?”
Andreas had long ago given up keeping secrets from his wife. Initially he’d refused to talk about his cases, arguing that a decision to involve her in one almost cost Lila her life. But with the birth of their son it was clear Lila had no interest in putting both of Tassaki’s parents at risk to bad guys.
And so he told her of his night watching decades of Athens’ most prestigious and influential folks dangle their peccadilloes and other things in every which way and place imaginable.
“Sounds like stuff for an avant garde film festival,” said Lila.
“More like outtakes from that American horror picture, Night of the Living Dead.”
Lila laughed. “Did you find anything that might help you solve Christos’ murder?”
“Anyone who knew what Christos had on them would qualify as a suspect. But there was nothing in the videos or on anything else in the safe that made one any more suspect than any other.
“We’ve got an open and shut case of murder against the now dead girlfriend and her two companions. What we don’t know is whether anyone else was involved and, if so, why? I don’t see how we’ll ever get answers to those questions if we can’t find her companions. And even if we do, I’d be surprised if they could finger anyone other than the dead girl’s Russian boyfriend.”
Andreas flicked his finger at one of Lila’s nipples. She gave a light smack to his hand and pulled the sheet up over her breast.
Andreas kissed her cheek. “If it is someone on the videos, why now? There’s nothing to indicate that Christos was using the videos to blackmail anyone for anything more than the same sort of protection he’d been getting for his business for years. Besides, having Christos killed before guaranteeing you’d get your hands on the incriminating evidence would be taking a hell of a risk.”
“Yes, it might fall into the hands of the police,” said Lila.
“Or worse.”
“There’s worse?”
“I see you’re not quite yet a true ‘cop-wife.’”
Lila shrugged. “Okay, so if what Tassos found in the safe threatened everyone involved to the point where each had a motive for murder, unless we’re talking about some Agatha Christie they-all-did-it mystery, I’d say the likely culprit is someone who would benefit from having all that dirt on all those people.”
Andreas smiled. “Very good. Tassos and I thought the same thing and we talked about interviewing everyone tied into what was in the safe to see if any of them might be that person. But we decided the most likely thing we’d learn from that exercise would be that our careers were over. After all, we’d be grilling the country’s movers and shakers over things outside the apparent scope of solving a murder that has the actual killers virtually caught on video. We’d be hung out to dry if we tried to take it further.”
“But shouldn’t they be warned?”
“Warned of what? That there are videos out there showing them in compromising positions and that if someday someone gets their hands on them they might use them for blackmail? It would sound as if we were the ones looking for a payoff. After all, it’s not as if anyone but us knows what’s on those videos.
“The bottom line is, until whoever wanted what was in the safe makes a move, we have absolutely no idea who it might be. Assuming there is such a person. And the question isn’t who could use all that information to their advantage, it’s who couldn’t?”
“So, what do you plan on doing?”
“Press Europol to find the girl’s two companions and her boyfriend. We might get a different angle on things from one of them.”
“How likely is it they’ll be caught?”
Andreas shrugged. “If I were them, I’d be as far away from Greece and Poland as I could get, and stay there.”
“Sounds like you have some time on your hands.”
Andreas rolled over and turned off the light. “Yep.”
Pause.
“Oh, no, not again…”
Chapter Eight
Sergey looked at his watch. He’d been waiting in the taverna for half an hour. Be cool, he thought to himself. It’s just a test. She was like that. Always testing to see how you reacted under pressure. She couldn’t help herself.
He ordered another coffee and looked just beyond the parking lot in front of the taverna at the section of harbor filled with small pleasure boats and a few larger fishing boats. A pier jutting straight out to sea on his left separated that side of the port from the larger part of the harbor filled with ferry boats waiting to load their cargoes of passengers and vehicles.
She’d told him to come here, to the port of Rafina east of Athens, to catch a high-speed catamaran to Mykonos, saying that she would meet him here thirty minutes ago. He had twenty-five minutes left until his boat left from that pier.
She’s cutting it close, he thought. Relax. She’s the one making everything possible. He’d let her play her games. He’d done all that she’d asked. She said to learn Greek and he was. She said to dispose of Christos and he did. She saw Anna as a problem and he resolved it. There was nothing she’d asked that he hadn’t-
“Sergey. Come here.” It came in a whisper from behind him, in Greek.
He turned and saw a dark-haired woman in mask-size sunglasses nodding at him as she sipped a coffee. She wore a black linen pantsuit and a high-neck, long sleeve, white silk blouse. He picked up his coffee, walked over to her table, and sat down. The woman’s hair drew back in a tight bun and she wore no makeup. Or at least she appeared not to be.
Sergey took the sunglasses as a good sign. Her eyes commanded attention. Fiery and black, they were hard to avoid and when she took off her sunglasses things tended to get serious. “How long have you been here?” he said in Greek.