King for a Day (The King Trilogy #2)(47)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Thank you, Officer…I didn’t catch your name.”

“Officer Spiros,” he said with a thick accent.

I knew that last name. Spiros. Spiros. “Of Crete? Are we on Crete?”

He glanced at me again through the mirror. “Yes, you are in the city of Heraklion. Why?”

It would be too much of a coincidence. Completely insane, but…but…even that accent sounded familiar. “Do you know Arno? Or…” Crap. What was his full first name? Why was I so bad with names?

“Arsenius?” he said.

“Yes! Arsenius. Do you know him?”

He nodded slowly. “He is my brother. Why do you ask?”

A wave of relief flooded my body. This was why I’d been brought here. King had connections in Crete. But how had he known I’d end up in the right hands?

Does it matter?

No.

I dropped my head. “Thank you, Lord. Oh, thank you.”

Officer Spiros pulled to the side of the street. He turned and faced me. “Who are you?”

I showed him my mark, and his eyes lit up. He said something in Greek that I imagined was a curse or phrase that indicated disbelief. “Where is our king? Why is he not with you?”

“I don’t know where he is, but I know who has him.”

The officer made an unexpected U-turn.

~~

During the drive through the small city—very touristy with lots of hotels, cute restaurants, and nightclubs—I gave Officer Spiros the super-condensed, CliffsNotes version of what had happened and how we’d been taken to Vaughn’s basement. Spiros listened but didn’t say much other than he needed to get me out of sight as quickly as possible, which I assumed meant going to his home.

We made our way down the rocky coast along a winding road. Carved into the hillsides, small farms with neat rows of green overlooked the deep blue ocean shimmering off in the distance. Crete was breathtaking, and I could almost imagine King living here once upon a time when he was a man, a happy man.

The highway cut inland a bit, and then we turned down a long dirt road that headed back toward the ocean.

The car pulled up to a foreboding iron gate with spikes at the top, and Officer Spiros spoke into the intercom. The gate buzzed and hummed as it slid open and we passed. Security cameras atop tall iron posts followed the car until we arrived at a large, brick, circular driveway with an enormous fountain spouting water toward the sky.

“Where are we?” I asked, my teeth chattering.

“This is his home.”

His? “Whose?”

“King, as I believe you call him.”

The enormous home looked like a hotel, not a private residence. Giant white pillars soared to the three-story roof on either side of the home’s entrance—two hand-carved, oversized doors. Bright white plaster and square angles gave the home an ultramodern look.

Off to the right was a tropical garden—lush date trees, fountains, and ponds—and off to the left was a tennis court. Behind that was a sprawling field with a circle in the middle.

And a big honking helicopter.

“King lives here?” I asked.

The officer nodded his head. “Yes. More or less.”

“And you know about…his condition?”

The officer shot me a look as he opened the door and called out for someone. “It is forbidden to speak of his secrets. Our family has sworn an oath to protect those as well as him.”

Okay. So they obviously knew King was a ghost.

I nodded. “So what are we going to do? That psycho Vaughn is after my brother. I need to warn him.” Then, of course, there was King. Thank goodness he was already dead because I had no doubt in my mind that Vaughn would skin him and kill him, too, if given the chance.

Spiros replied, “The family will be here within the hour to discuss it. In the meantime, we will get you fed and cleaned up.”

A plump, older woman in a black dress and headscarf appeared the moment my head nearly swiveled off its hinges in the entryway. The home was a palace—marble sculptures of Greek gods, a wide, circular indoor fountain that flowed into a six-foot pool, enormous indoor palm trees, and high ceilings with murals of celestial beings in white togas, reclining on white, fluffy clouds amid a backwash of blue sky. Light poured in from huge skylights, filling every corner and creating a shimmery effect on the white marble floors.

Officer Spiros spoke to the woman, who looked perfectly at ease until he said a word that sounded like “vasílissa” toward the very end.

“Oh. Oh!” the gray-haired woman covered her mouth and then started to rant.

“What? What’s wrong?” I asked them both.

“Nothing,” he said calmly. “She was not expecting visitors.”

The frantic woman grabbed my hand, making gestures about my body or my horribly short, rapidly drying leather dress.

“Go with her. She will show you to a room and find you something to wear. I will be back in an hour.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To cover your tracks. We don’t want anyone wondering why I did not deliver ‘a suspicious woman’ from the morgue.”

“Do you have a phone I could use?” I had to keep trying to reach Justin.

“No,” he said sternly. “No phone calls. Not until we know it is safe.”

“But I—”

He held out his hand to stop me from speaking. “I understand you are worried, but any rash behavior might make things worse. For everyone. Including my family, who is now responsible for hiding you. So for all of our sakes, please allow us time to discuss the situation before any further action is taken.”

I sighed, seeing the logic in his argument. I certainly didn’t want to do something—like call everyone and their mother, looking for Justin—that might cause suspicion regarding my fate and lead 10 Club here. Enough people were already sailing on this sinking ship.

“Okay,” I said. “I can wait an hour.”

He made a little bow and left.

The woman once again began tugging at my hand to follow her up the staircase. I did as she asked, trying not to feel awkward being in this place, but I simply couldn’t help gawk at its opulence.

She led me down a brightly lit hallway. Little coves with recessed lighting were positioned every four feet or so. Inside were ancient vases and clay pots, some with faded blue dolphins swimming with fish, others with designs resembling squid and other sea creatures. A tapestry of a bull with a border made of blue and white stars hung inside a glass case near the end of the hall beside a large set of double doors, which she pushed open.