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

I don’t know who’s pounding down your front door over this, but it’s been only a little more than a day since we learned the reporter might be missing.” Andreas switched the phone from his right hand to his left, picked up a pencil with his free hand, and began tapping the eraser end on his desktop.

“Detective Kouros is on Naxos conducting an investigation alongside the local police, and I’ll be joining him tomorrow. If we do what you say you’re being pushed to do and announce to the world that we believe she’s been abducted, it will most certainly draw a lot of media attention, but as I’ve said before—and it deserves repeating—that sort of attention could cause her abductor to panic and kill her. Let’s not forget there’s been no ransom demand, so if there’s been a kidnapping, her captor’s motive is something other than ransom. If we can determine what that motive might be, it could be the lead we need to find her.”

Andreas listened to the minister.

“Minister, I’m not questioning your motives or the sincerity of your concern for the reporter’s safety. If I’m questioning anything, it’s the agenda of whoever is pounding on you to do something that we both know is premature at best and fatal for the victim at worst.”

He listened more.

“Of course there comes a time that alerting the media could be beneficial to a search, but we’re not there yet.”

And listened still more.

“By Sunday evening? That’s virtually impossible.”

Andreas and the minister argued back and forth on the date, but the most the minister would agree to was Monday at noon.

The minister hadn’t revealed who was pressuring him to go public, but Andreas felt certain it was Nikoletta’s publisher. What bothered Andreas was why her publisher was pushing so hard. Genuine concern for his reporter’s fate? A sincere belief in the power of the media to help police generate leads? Or to sell newspapers and promote his paper’s follow-up series on Nikoletta’s reporting.

Whatever the reason, Andreas had until Monday to find Nikoletta. After that, the story of her disappearance would be all over the media, along with a slew of finger pointing at his unit for not finding her.

The sooner I get to Naxos the better. Andreas sighed—and snapped the pencil in half.

* * *

Yianni made it through the culvert, cursing all the way.

“That’s certainly a novel way of clearing away critters,” said Popi.

“It’s the last time I’m doing something like that.”

“Sorry to tell you, but that’s the only way I know back to the truck.”

“You can’t be serious.” He waved his hand in the direction of three men on a terrace below them. “Just get me over there.”

They followed the sluiceway’s flagstone bed beneath a canopy of fig trees and climbed up onto a path running by a group of tumbledown homes.

“What’s that?” said Yianni, pointing at a dark pit.

“My guess is that’s where they once stomped grapes to make wine. They still grow grapes here,” she pointed at some vines, “but it doesn’t look like there’s much stomping going on anymore.”

As they approached, the three men stopped their work, stood up tall, and watched the visitors approach. All three appeared lean and fit, dressed in similar jeans, work boots, and long-sleeved cotton shirts. Their difference lay in their choice of hats. One wore a broad-brimmed straw, another a Greek fisherman’s hat, and the third an American-style ball cap bearing the symbol of an Asian tractor company.

Yianni waved as he stepped onto the terrace and approached the men. “Yiasas.”

The men did not return his wave or hello.

Yianni kept coming, smiling all the way. As he drew closer he noticed significant age differences in the men, accentuated by the varying years spent earning farmer tans on their faces, necks, and sinewy forearms.

He stopped in front of the man in the fisherman’s hat, clearly the oldest of the three. “Good afternoon, sir. My name is Yianni Kouros. I’m a detective, and this is my colleague Officer—”

“We know Popi,” said the man in the ball cap. “And don’t waste your time talking to my father; he’s not quite all there. Let him get back to his fieldwork before he gets upset and we have a hell of a time getting him home. He doesn’t take well to changes in his routine.”

Yianni looked at the one in the straw hat and nodded toward the old man. “Is he your grandfather?”

Straw hat looked at ball cap.

Ball cap nodded. “Answer the man, son.”

“Yeah, we’re all family.”

The old man wandered away, and no one tried to stop him.

“He’ll be okay,” said ball cap. “He’s like an old burro. Knows every inch of his land blindfolded.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt your work,” said Yianni, “but if you could spare us a few minutes of your time, I’d appreciate it.”

“The police chief said you wanted to know about that reporter who was nosing about here a few days ago.”

“That’s right.”

“Why do you want to know about her?”

“She wrote a newspaper article about a man she met in Chora, and we’re following up on that.”

“You mean the computer guy?” said the son.

Yianni nodded. “We’re looking for leads on who he might be.”

That was the best cover story he could think of to hold off speculation over why cops were running all around the island asking questions about the reporter.

“Why don’t you ask her?” said the son.

Yianni liked it better when the son was quiet. “Reporters like to protect their sources, so we have to go at it differently. I’m sure you aren’t interested in protecting a criminal.”

“What do you want to know?” said the father.

“What you talked about with her.”

“How’s that going help you find your man?” the son asked.

The kid was getting on Yianni’s nerves.

Popi put her arm around the son. “Come, let’s go find your grandfather and let your father and the detective talk.”

He seemed reluctant to leave, but his father nodded, and he went with Popi.

“The reporter came here looking for dirt on how we felt about the