The Forty Column Castle by Marjorie Thelen Page B

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