He listened for a moment, then said, “Better we don’t tell you where we are.”
Poor Yannis. I know he was thinking the worst. He had warned me about Zach, but for the wrong reasons. I wanted to snatch the phone away and pour out the whole long, pitiful story to Yannis, but Zach had the cell phone firmly in his grip.
“We need to do some investigating of our own. Can you give me the address of Mrs. Crawford, the English widow you went to see?” He patted his pocket. “Got a pen?” he said to me.
I rummaged in my purse and came up with a bright purple one. He scribbled on his napkin. “You don’t happen to have the address of the Italian, what’s his name? Bellomo? Okay, thanks. You have the number here. Sure, call anytime.”
He clicked off without letting me talk again and stuffed the cell phone back in his pocket.
“The police may have tapped his phone. Let’s hope they don’t have a GPS that can locate the position of the phone signal. I’m not surprised you’re on a bulletin.”
“Doesn’t that make me a criminal?” I asked.
“Not exactly. You haven’t been convicted of anything. Yet.” He smirked at me, like it was only a matter of time. He sounded so pleasant.
“More investigating today?”
“You bet. We’ll find the car rental place and see if we can track down the Maruti. Then we’ll call on the Crawford widow, see what she knows.”
That sounded okay to me. “This won’t involve any bullets, will it? What about burying your friends?”
“No bullets. None planned anyway. I didn’t wear my vest today.”
He pulled his shirt up so I could see his tight abs. Was he doing that on purpose? I could have been wrong, but he seemed conflicted about our relationship. I could see it in his eyes. Maybe that was why he was so irritable. He wanted the bait but he didn’t like the barb that came with it. The irony was that the barb was of his making. I wasn’t a thief.
He dropped his shirt. “Max and Irene are being taken care of. Don’t worry. You ready?”
He paid the check, and we walked toward the Land Rover. I put my hand on his arm to stop him. He looked at my hand, then into my eyes.
“What’s going on?” I said. “I feel like a prisoner. Is that a correct reading?”
“No, it is not. I have you under my protection.”
“I’m not sure that’s a comfort. What about Yannis?”
“What about him?”
“You aren’t thinking he is in this, are you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m keeping an open mind.”
That sounded like a yes to me.
Then he did something unexpected. He put his hand on my neck and stroked my cheek with his thumb. His touch sent shivers through me like the touch of Dracula, sexy but with the potential for a lethal bite. I forced myself to focus on our conversation and pulled his hand away.
“Yannis is an upstanding citizen. He would never do anything like this.”
“Yannis has access to crucial information with his job in the antiquities department.”
“So you ran a background check on him, too?”
Zach nodded.
I searched his eyes for some clue that this was all a joke, but I only found dead serious in the dark shadows.
“Look,” I said, “I promise I won’t try to get away, if you promise to keep an open mind. We’re both trying to find out who did this to my aunt, so why don’t we cooperate?”
“I like that.”
“We’re a team.”
“It’s a deal… Princess.”
His using Yannis’s term of affection gave me pause. I searched his eyes looking for any sign that there was a decent human being inside. The moment passed, and I turned away without an answer.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“For a morning swim until the car rental agency opens. You up for it?”
A morning swim sounded cold but all right with me, as long as it didn’t involve bullets. Where was that blue Maruti and whoever was shooting at us back at the safe house?
“Okay,” I said, “as long as it’s an isolated beach. I need to stay out of the limelight and away from people who have TVs and radios.”
We headed out of town on the road going south toward Pafos.
“The beaches along Lara Bay are isolated,” Zach said, “and they’re on the way. We’ll go there.”
I knew where he meant but was surprised he knew about the Lara beaches. They were not on the usual tourist routes. This man knew more about the island than he let on. I didn’t think my asking how he knew so much would give me a straight answer. But I wondered about it just the same.
The car rental agency was on the north side of Pafos. We were making a giant circle of the West end of the island and would end up back where we started yesterday, a yesterday that had happened centuries ago. There were so many questions not answered. I took deep breaths of the cool morning air flowing in the open windows of the car and tried to stay calm. I was running on adrenaline.
We turned west onto a badly maintained gravel track with rocks the size of footballs in the middle. Zach dodged them with skill but the effort produced a wrenching that made my head nearly hit the ceiling several times. The road wound along a cliff with spectacular views. Zach stopped so we could admire the vast expanse of blue sea sparkling with precious gems.”
I loved Cyprus. I watched the sun play over the water, the wind shoving it into waves. I loved its beauty and its peace and calm and the people, and I hated that I had gotten into this mess. Smuggling didn’t go with the beauty and tranquility of the island. When I found out who the culprits were, I was going to make them pay, if I had any say in the matter.
We stopped at a small cove at the bottom of the cliff. There wasn’t a soul around, not even a lizard in sight. I jumped down from the Rover to have a look. The sand was coarse and heating up. I could tell by the light blue of the water the cove was shallow. I had never been here, and I thought I knew all the coves along Lara Bay. From our position I judged it to be above the turtle hatchery, a popular tourist spot along the west coast of the island north of Coral Bay.
I didn’t happen to be wearing my bikini briefs so I pulled open the back door to get my pack and rummaged around for my bottoms. Zach did the same. Our eyes met over the back seat.
“Going topless today?”
Did I catch a gleam of hope in those big brown eyes?
“I never bring tops to Cyprus.” I pulled my shirt up over my head. I hadn’t bothered with a bra this morning. The actress in me was in overdrive. I had missed my calling. I could have sworn I heard a loud suck of breath as my arms went over my head, and it wasn’t from my mouth. I unzipped my shorts and looked over to see if Zach was still watching.
He was.
I dropped them. “You going to hang in for the finale?” I hooked my fingers through my thong ready to strip.
He half smiled and pulled his shirt over his head. I chickened out and turned my back, slipping off my thong and pulling on my bikini. He won that round.
Nude bathing was not unheard of around the island and not infrequently I had been on beaches where whole families bathed in the nude, usually the Scandinavians, certainly not the Cypriots. But I found some amount of modesty can be sexy so I elected for bottoms for this swim.
Zach did not. He wore not a stitch.
I watched the real attractive end of him head into the water ahead of me. I had a weakness for nice buns. These were exceptional.
I waded in, gasping at the chilly temperature of the Mediterranean in May, scanned the water for undesirable sea creatures like nettles then swam out toward the deep blue water.
Zach swam ahead of me with long powerful strokes like he had a destination. I followed slower then rolled on my back and floated, my hair fanning out around me in the water, the sun warm on my breasts. What a way to live. If I didn’t end up in a Cypriot prison with my aunt, I’d move to this lovely island. I certainly could manage the mutual fund from here.