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

“Because when I turned to see what she was looking at, I saw a blinking light coming at us from the dark.”

“How do you know it was aimed at you?”

“Aimed at her.” He exhaled. “When I turned to her, she was running for the front door. I looked back at the light and it stopped blinking right after I heard the wind slam the front door shut.”

“And she never came back?”

“Correct.” He let the smoke drift out of his nose.

“Didn’t that seem odd to you?”

Anargyros stared at Yianni. “Are you serious? This is a holiday island. A woman staggers back to the hotel at three in the morning after too much to drink, and an hour later comes down from her room looking to hook up with some guy who’d just called her, and you expect me to wonder why she didn’t come back before my shift was over at seven?”

Yianni nodded, “Good point. But how do you know someone had just called her?”

“I don’t. I just assumed it.”

“Could the call have come through the switchboard?”

He shrugged. “I’d have had to put it through, and none came in for her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Calls at four in the morning are rare. And if one came in, the caller would have had to convince me to put it through. There were no calls.”

Over the next hour, Yianni and Dimitri plumbed Anargyros’s memory for every detail of Nikoletta’s appearance, words, and behavior that night, but his story and recollections remained the same.

“Well, what do you think?” said Yianni to Dimitri after they’d sent Anargyros on his way.

“I think he’s telling the truth. He’s a bright guy seduced by a bad meth habit, but he’s done a pretty good job of kicking it. I don’t see an angle in this for him.”

“Well, let’s take a look at her room,” said Yianni. “There’s got to be a clue somewhere.”

“You always were an optimist.”

* * *

Nikoletta’s room reflected the new minimalist trend in beach accommodations. Tastefully done in pale-gray and white, with marble floors and light-oak wooden shelving and furniture, it perfectly stated what it was: a modern place for a holiday stay.

Yianni stood in the doorway, studying the room before stepping inside. “Have your guys gone through this?”

“Every millimeter, but they left things right where they found them.”

“What did they turn up?”

“Fingerprints, likely from housekeepers, workmen, and past guests.”

“Anything else relevant to us?”

Dimitri pointed to a pile of notebooks on the nightstand. “Four of them contain the reporter’s notes on interviews for her tourism story. The fifth covers her interview with the mysterious cybercriminal.”

“What about the mobile phone?”

“It’s locked. We assume it’s hers.”

“Did you try opening it?”

“I thought about asking my five-year-old son to take a crack at it. He always seems to know how to get into my phone, but I decided to leave that challenge to your tech wizzes back in Athens.”

“Good decision,” said Yianni. “Let’s get it couriered to Athens right away.”

He carefully made his way over to the nightstand. “I assume the notebooks have been examined for fingerprints?”

“Yes. Only hers turned up.”

Yianni sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the top notebook, and opened it. On the first page was a notation handwritten in Greek and English.

IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO NIKOLETTA ELIA, followed by a Greek mobile telephone number and the word REWARD underlined and circled.

On the next page was a neatly printed name, location, date, and beginning and ending time, followed by pages of notes and long bodies of text, presumably recording the words of the subject of her interview. Sections were arranged similarly for each person she’d interviewed.

Yianni looked up at Dimitri standing by the bed. “Have you read these?”

“Not carefully. I glanced at them, but as you can see there’s a lot to read.”

Yianni held the notebook open to the page he’d been looking at. “Who’s the person named here?”

Dimitri leaned in to read the name. “That would be our mayor. I understand he was the first person she interviewed for her story.”

“I’ll need your help in identifying who she met with. The list my office received from her editor isn’t complete.”

“No problem.”

“She had five notebooks?”

“That’s all we found.”

“That’s a lot to read.”

Dimitri nodded. “And steps to retrace.”

Yianni shut his eyes and sighed. “No way I’ll be able to complete all of this by the weekend.”

“Like I said, the offer of a place for you and Toni to stay remains open.”

“Thanks.” Yianni slapped his free hand on his thigh and stood up. “Well, let’s get started. First thing I need is a place to read these notebooks cover-to-cover, undisturbed. I want to finish reading them by tonight so that I can begin retracing her steps first thing in the morning.”

“I know the perfect place for you.”

“Not the police station. I’ll be inundated with gossipers who won’t take no for an answer.”

“Don’t worry, no one will disturb you where I have in mind.”

“Good.”

“There’s only one hitch.”

“Being?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Chapter Three

Yianni called Andreas to report on what he’d found, or rather not found, and said he’d call again after he’d read through the reporter’s notebooks. He pondered whether to call Toni, but she might be sleeping. Her job as a piano player in one of Mykonos’s iconic clubs kept her up until four in the morning. She rarely stirred before noon, and then it was off to her day job playing finder of stolen goods for tourists and locals preyed upon by opportunistic thieves. Her late afternoon nap was sacrosanct, but he decided to risk leaving a message on her mobile.

He leaned against a wall as he patiently waited for the sixth ring to send him into voicemail. “Hi, my love. I’m just calling to let you know I’m on Naxos and will be incommunicado for the rest of the day and likely much of the night, reading documents. I didn’t want you wondering why you hadn’t heard from me, and—”

Ring, ring.

Yianni looked at his phone. It was Toni. He switched over to take her