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

a neighboring village that shares its Cretan roots.”

“May I ask the name of Zagori’s village?”

“Filoti.”

Andreas stared at him. “I think I know the place. We spent most of last night there.” With Honeyman’s beehives.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was interesting and, when food started coming out of the kitchen, tasty as well, but Andreas’s thoughts focused on Honeyman. In less than twenty-four hours of poking into the background of this seemingly simple local grifter, Spyros had been exposed as central to a high-end antiquities-smuggling operation, the island’s front man for a host of clandestine real estate ventures and a broker for contract killings. How could an experienced investigative reporter like Nikoletta not have discovered at least some of those same things? Perhaps she had, possibly much more. All of which kept leading Andreas back to the same question. Why didn’t she put any of this into her notebooks?

Andreas excused himself from the table and went back to the SUV. From there he called Dimitri and asked him for the Athens address of Honeyman’s wife and daughter. If Honeyman was there, they’d arrest him on the spot. If not, they’d keep an eye on his family until they found him. Attempted cop killers earned that kind of attention. Besides, characters this dirty could be involved in anything, and with Honeyman’s fellow villager and contract killer Peter Zagori’s body turning up at the scene of Nikoletta’s disappearance, Andreas had no doubt Honeyman was somehow tied into whatever happened to the reporter.

By the time he returned to the taverna, Andreas had heard back from Dimitri with the address and passed it along, together with instructions, to the GADA officers he wanted to make the arrest. All they needed now was luck. Inside, the meeting was breaking up. Andreas joined in thanking everyone for coming and offered his help should the day ever come that one of them might need it.

Artist hugged Lila. “Please do stop by my studio in Halki. I’d love to introduce you to some of the other board members of our environmental organization. I sense we share the same sensibilities.”

“That’s very flattering,” smiled Lila.

“And she’s speaking for both of us,” said Farmer.

“You’re on the same board?” said Andreas.

“Of course, why else would I let her speak to me the way she does? It livens up our meetings.”

“Don’t believe it. She’s a royal pain in the ass,” said Artist, taking Farmer by the arm and tugging her toward the door.

Lila smiled. “It still will be my pleasure.”

“I hope we helped,” said Bookseller.

“You certainly did. Thank you,” said Andreas.

“I want you to catch the bastards who did this,” Shepherd told Yianni.

“You can count on it, if only for Popi’s sake.”

Shepherd shook Yianni’s hand, nodded to Andreas, bowed to the women, and followed Bookseller out the door.

Andreas turned to Chef and smiled. “I really owe you a big-time favor. We couldn’t have accomplished this without you.”

“It was the right thing to do. You were vouched for by a man we all respect, and we agreed before you got here that since we’d shown up, we had to follow through and do what we could to help, even if some of us were less than thrilled at the notion of helping the police.”

“Understood,” said Andreas. “But I meant what I said: If there ever comes a day when you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Well, now that you mention it, there is one thing.”

So soon? Andreas wondered what was coming.

Chef handed a paper to Andreas. “You can pay the lunch bill.”

* * *

Once in the SUV and headed back to the house, Andreas brought Tassos and Yianni up to speed on his efforts to track down Honeyman.

“I’m sort of getting used to driving this road,” said Andreas, glancing off to his left.

“Too bad you don’t get to see the scenery,” said Lila. “It’s amazing just watching the shadows play off against the hills and valleys. So many shades of color.”

“My favorite part,” said Toni, “is that elevated stretch of road bound by a long line of eucalyptus trees framing everything between us and the sea.”

“My favorite part is the food,” said Tassos.

“That explains why you were so quiet during our meeting,” said Andreas.

“I thought you handled it quite well and saw no reason to speak.”

“That generally means we both missed something.”

“Speaking of missing something…” said Yianni.

“What’s that?” asked Andreas.

“With all these folks talking to Nikoletta about foreign efforts to buy up beachfront property, why’s there no mention of any of that in her notebooks?”

“That bothers me too,” said Andreas.

“What do you mean?” asked Toni.

“Just that,” said Yianni. “There’s not a word about any of that in her notebooks.”

“That can’t be true,” said Toni, leaning forward.

“I’ve read them all and, believe me, there’s no mention.”

Toni shook her head. “While Andreas was outside and the rest of you were chatting among yourselves, I was talking to Artist and Farmer. Artist said she noticed that none of us was taking notes. I said I hadn’t noticed. She asked me if we were recording the meeting, and I said not that I knew of. She said that was good, because she wouldn’t want what she’d said to Farmer recorded on audio for posterity. All of us laughed. That’s when Farmer said how impressed she was at the reporter’s thoroughness as a note-taker, taking down almost every word.”

“We already knew that,” said Yianni.

Toni bristled. “Well, then you probably already know this too, Detective. The artist said Nikoletta was not only thorough but organized. She brought two notebooks with her, and when she started asking questions about the efforts to buy up property, she switched to the second notebook. When she’d finished asking those questions, she went back to her first notebook. And while Artist was telling me all of that, Detective, Farmer was nodding in agreement.”

“Another notebook?” said Andreas.

“I never saw a sixth notebook,” said Yianni. “Where the hell could it be?”

“I don’t know,” said Andreas, “but I’m going to have Dimitri leave us a