A Deadly Twist by Jeffrey Siger (free novel reading sites .txt) 📕

“Phones ringing six times have a habit of doing that to me.”

“I didn’t expect you to leave it on.”

“When I sleep alone, I leave it on vibrate. And don’t bother to ask why unless you’re prepared to handle the answer.”

Yianni laughed. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Can’t wait until the weekend.”

Yianni swallowed. “Me too. I was just leaving you a message that I’ll be tied up into the night reading documents.”

“What sort of a case has you cloistered away reading documents? I thought all you big-time cops did was break heads and beat confessions out of bad guys.”

Yianni grinned. “That’s the fun part, but we can’t beat on them until we find them. Which is what has me standing outside a monster medieval mansion atop old town Naxos.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“It is. The local police chief arranged for me to have a key to the place so that I could do my reading undisturbed. But now I’m all alone, about to be surrounded by antiquities dating back to the fifth millennium B.C.E., and who knows what ancient spirits, so I decided to call you for company.”

“Is it someone’s home?”

“No, it used to be the School of Commerce for Boys, but now it’s the Naxos Archaeological Museum.”

“I think I’m supposed to respond, ‘How sweet of you to think of me,’ though my instinct is to say, ‘You sound horny.’”

“So much for the moment.”

Toni chuckled. “I’ve never been to Naxos. I hear it’s wonderful. Maybe we could go there together someday.”

Yianni bit at his lip. “Yeah, why not?”

“Well, try not to have too much fun among the artifacts while I labor on among the sinners.”

“One man’s sin is another’s wished-for prayer.”

“You sound more like a philosopher than a cop.”

Yianni laughed. “On that note, I’ll say goodbye, get to work on my reading, and let you get back to sleep.”

“Little chance of that now, my love, but bye-bye.” She signed off with a kiss.

Yianni lingered for a moment, holding the phone to his ear. Toni was unlike any woman he’d ever known. She could read a bar audience with wildly different musical tastes and come up with the perfect tune to please them all.

He wondered if that same intuitive gift had her somehow sensing that their weekend plans were in jeopardy. By suggesting they “someday” visit Naxos, did she want him to know that she was okay with that? Yianni shook his head and smiled, put his phone away, and stepped inside the museum.

He put the notebooks down on a small table just inside the entrance, picked up a brochure from the same table, and wandered for ten minutes through the museum’s warren of rooms, halls, terraces, and staircases. According to the brochure, one of Yianni’s favorite authors, Nikos Kazantzakis of Zorba the Greek fame, had attended the school that once inhabited this building. Yianni also read that an upper floor of the school had once housed a library full of artifacts and other valuable treasures, but occupying German and Italian forces destroyed them in World War II.

Yianni could easily spend a day in here wandering among antiquities. He decided the best place for him to do his reading would be as far away as possible from those distractions. So, he planted himself and Nikoletta’s notebooks at the desk where visitors stood in line to buy their tickets.

Yianni drew in and let out a deep breath, picked up the notebook containing the reporter’s earliest entries, and muttered to himself, “In the beginning…”

* * *

Toni turned onto her left side and stared at a blank wall next to the lone window in her bedroom. There was nothing there for her to see, but she wasn’t looking, she was concentrating her thoughts. Since their last weekend together, all Yianni had talked about were his plans for them in Athens. What they’d see, what they’d do, who they’d meet. Now, not a peep.

Something’s happened. I hope it’s only work.

She rolled onto her back, stretching and yawning as she did. She lived in a hotel close by the sea. It was more of a big house with bedrooms, but its owner called it a hotel and the Tourist Board allowed him to do so, thereby entitling him to charge higher rates for his rooms. Toni had no complaint about the price because as a year-round resident she had a special deal. More importantly, the owner and his wife treated her like family. That meant a lot to Toni, because her mother had died a few years back, and her father’s subsequent depression led him to give up his overseas position with the U.S. State Department and move back to New York City, the place of their marriage and Toni’s birth.

She’d grown up as a diplomat’s child, bouncing from one foreign American school to another. Music was her only constant during those early expat years. Straight out of high school, she skipped college and took off on her own, bumming around Europe, dreaming of setting the world on fire with her music. Ultimately, she landed on Mykonos.

She swung her legs out of bed, faced the bathroom doorway, and shifted her eyes to the mirror to its right. “Good evening, Toni, how nice to see you looking so fine and chipper. Another late night in store for you, I presume? Now don’t start complaining, Dearie. After all, you’re the one who wanted to be a piano player. In other words, get your ass out of bed.”

Toni shut her eyes and shook her head. “I must be crazy talking to a mirror.”

She looked back at the mirror. “No, Dearie, you just miss your boyfriend.”

* * *

The more of the reporter’s notebooks Yianni read, the more certain he was that his weekend plans were toast. As unhappy as that made him, he saw no alternative. From what Nikoletta had written, there could be any number of reasons why she’d disappeared, several of them fatal.

Her notes of her conversation with the hacker went into details not revealed in the newspaper article.