The mutual fund.
I hadn’t thought about it in over twenty-four hours, and I was to have called Lena yesterday. Geez, it wasn’t any big deal, because Lena could handle the fund without me for a few days. She might be worried, but I was sure that Yannis would have filled her in if she had called his house. I couldn’t believe I had totally forgotten.
I did some surface dives, looking around the rocky sea bottom for ancient treasures someone may have missed, then remembered why I was here, and the allure of antiquities dimmed.
I surfaced, swiped the hair from my eyes, and came face to face with Mr. NYPD.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
My breath caught in my throat.
His hair was slicked back from his forehead accentuating the breadth and strength of his brow. Drops of water glistened in his eyelashes, and the sun reflecting on the water made his eyes bright and his tan deeper. His face could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. The lines were clean and strong.
“Yes, you?”
“Yeah, but I’m heading in.” He turned and swam to shore with those long, determined strokes. On the beach he stood to dry off, and I got a glimpse of all of him. Breathtaking.
I stumbled out of the water, sweeping the hair from my face. He caught my elbow and pulled me against him. My lord, he felt good. I discovered I wanted him as bad as he wanted me. Right then and there we satisfied our desire for each other, standing on that deserted beach with the heat of the sun beating on us, the waves lapping at our feet.
What a swim.
Eight
“What about you and Yannis?” Zach asked.
I blinked out of my post-coital haze. We were on the highway, speeding south toward to Pafos.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t you two have something going?” Zach stared straight ahead, eyes on the road.
“No. He’s a dear friend, and our relationship has stayed that way all these years. He gets jealous, but it doesn’t mean anything. He has plenty of women to comfort him.”
Zach was silent. We were testing new ground after the interlude on the beach at Lara Bay. I hoped I wasn’t getting into one of those sicko arrangements where nice girl falls for kidnapper. I never bought those stupid stories, but I might be living one now.
“Will you pull over at that tourist store up ahead?” I asked.
He glanced over with a puzzled look.
“I need a disguise like a big hat, bigger sunglasses, long pants, loud shirt. After all, the police are looking for me. Probably wouldn’t hurt if you looked more like a tourist, too.”
He cracked a grin and swung into the dusty parking lot.
The Park ‘N’ Buy was like hundreds of little tourist stores all over Cyprus. You could buy anything from drinks to snacks to T-shirts to reproduction pottery with ancient Greeks doing obscene things around the sides. Everything was open air. Hanging shirts and purses were blowing in the warm breeze.
I picked out white Capri pants and a pink blouse with Pafos scrolled across the pocket. A floppy black straw hat caught my eye with Cyprus written across the band in red italics. I found big black rimmed sunglasses with black lenses and a cheap gold chain necklace with Saint Christopher medallion that appealed to me. I needed all the help Saint Christopher could give.
Zach picked out boat shoes, tan Bermuda shorts, multi-hue floral shirt, and a panama style straw hat with a black band. His day’s growth of dark brown beard with sun streaked brown hair gave him a trendy look.
The feeling between us had changed. I wasn’t sure who he was or what would happen, but I was enjoying today better than yesterday.
I changed in the car as we drove down the highway with Zach exhibiting an extraordinary amount of interest as I pulled off my top, replacing it with the blouse and shimmying down my shorts and pulling on the longer pants.
“Nice legs,” he said. “Nice breasts. You ever been a model?”
“Not yet, but it might be my next career if I ever get out of the fix I’m in.”
He grinned and pulled out a cigar. A long, fat cigar.
“You don’t smoke cigars,” I said.
He shrugged. “It goes with my tourist image.” He glanced at me. “I won’t light it. Just chew on it,” he said and grinned maliciously.
“Are you really NYPD?” I asked. Something I couldn’t put my finger on made me ask that question.
He nodded. “Really am.”
“Where’s your badge?”
He fished in his pocket and pulled out the pile of loose cards he carried, flipped through them while alternately watching the road, and passed one over.
The man looking back at me from the badge had a beard, dark hair, looked thirty pounds heavier and wore no uniform. But it had New York Police Department on it and his name, Zachariah Bronsen Lamont. It wasn’t a police badge. It was one more like tech geeks wore around their necks.
“This doesn’t look like you.”
He shrugged and chewed on the cigar. “I’m in disguise, and I was a little heavier then.”
He flashed me another grin.
The man in the photo resembled Zach, but the thought occurred to me that he said he had three brothers and what if one looked a lot like him and was NYPD. A niggling doubt. The man in this photo might not be Zach Lamont, although the name said it was. Forgers could remedy that. I handed it back.
We hit the outskirts of Pafos and more tourist stores. Hotels and restaurants increased in number and intensity. Most buildings were two story stucco types, white with archways, some with balconies, a style found all over the world in countries with warm climates.
Zach turned into the car rental agency. It was just opening. “Wait here. Even though you have your disguise on, we don’t want to arouse anymore suspicion than necessary.”
I nodded. I had fixed my hair into a knot on top my head and with the floppy hat, my hair and forehead were totally covered. The big sunglasses hid a good part of the rest of my face.
Zach went in to the small building that served as an office. The cars on the lot were in various stages of disrepair. This was not Hertz. The blue Maruti looked like it could have come from here. He came back out with a barrel-shaped man sporting a bushy black mustache who pointed like he was giving Zach directions. Zach nodded and they talked, the man making a waving gesture over his collection of cars. Zach pointed to one of the Honda SUVs on the lot, a muted green color with hardly any dents. They shook hands, and the mustachioed man went inside.
Zach came over to my side of the car and leaned in. “Get your stuff together and put it in the Honda over there. We’re changing cars.”
I sighed. I rather liked this luxurious Land Rover, but I guess a fugitive had to be more careful than comfortable. Zach came back out with keys and moved his stuff and the supplies in the back that included a heavy duffle bag.
I didn’t want to know what was in it.
As we pulled out, he said, “The man says the American couple have rented the Maruti for a month and gave me directions how to find the address they listed on the rental agreement. We’ll pay them a visit. He also said the police had been here and asked him about the same Maruti.”
I stared at him. “The police? Geez, Yannis must have told them about the Maruti.” The thought that the police were closing in gave me an attack of claustrophobia.
The house we sought was at the end of a dead end street. Zach made a U-turn at the end and parked on the opposite side of the street a few houses away. He pulled down both sun visors.