Читать книгу Merrick's Eleventh Hour - Wendy Rosnau - Страница 9

“Kipler has just sent word that the Starina has been spotted, Callia. Your husband is home.”

Cyrus’s long-standing housekeeper, Zeta Poulos, stood in the bedroom doorway, her pretty island features accented by her smile.

The sun was setting. Callia had just showered and slipped on a white caftan. With no time to dress, she tucked her asthma inhaler in the nightstand drawer along with her nebulizer, then stepped out onto the veranda.

The view from the second-story bedroom was picture-perfect. A vision of paradise that would easily sell a dream vacation to Corfu.

Three months ago Cyrus had moved her and Erik into a villa on the island. She was used to being uprooted. Survival came with a price, and that price had required a new address every couple of years.

The cove was normally quiet, but now six guards scrambled toward the dock as the Starina glided into the harbor. Cyrus came ashore quickly. He spoke to Timon Kipler, the man in charge when her husband was away, and the exchange sent Kipler hurrying back to the yacht.

The warm island breeze blew Callia’s black hair into her eyes and she reached up. Holding her hair in place, she watched Cyrus begin the long climb up the stone steps that wrapped the sharp, rocky face where the villa was perched like an eagle’s nest high above the Ionian Sea.

Her movement must have caught his attention, and he stopped and looked up. He was still a hundred yards away, but she knew he was smiling. He gave her a thumbs-up—the signal that all was well, and she waved in relief.

He never spoke about business. It was an old rule that had come into play long ago. A rule she never challenged. As long as he came back, she was content. And he always came back. It was the one constant in her life. That, and Erik.

In the beginning she’d felt only gratitude, indebted to him for saving her life. But over the years her gratitude had slowly turned into love. Not the kind born out of burning passion. This was a safe and secure love bred out of loyalty and trust.

When he disappeared from sight, she remained on the veranda. She heard him speaking to Zeta. The fifty-year-old housekeeper spoke softly in return. Cyrus never let the smallest detail of their lives go unchecked. Whether it had to do with his business affairs or mundane household trivia, he required an accounting from everyone he employed.

She heard his footsteps on the stone tiles that were polished like a mirror. Caught the scent of sweet tobacco, but she didn’t turn around. Then a pair of strong arms captured her around the waist.

He lowered his head, said softly, “Although I have no sympathy for the weaknesses of men, I confess you are mine.”

Callia smiled. “Have you taken to reciting poetry after all these years?”

“Poetry? I know nothing about poetry,” he muttered close to her ears. “Greek mythology, perhaps. Inspired by your goddesslike beauty.”

He hugged her tighter, drew her back against his hard body, and she knew his eyes had drifted shut. Knew that she held some odd power over him, that she was his weakness. And although he had no sympathy for men with such flaws, she had become her husband’s debility.

“It’s hard to believe that you could have grown more beautiful. Have you and Zeta cooked up some fountain of youth potion you’ve neglected to tell me about? Something we could bottle and sell to the islanders?”

Still smiling, Callia turned in his arms. “If you’re trying to get me in bed, you don’t need to use flattery.”

“Is that what I’m doing, trying to get you in bed?”

“That’s usually where you want me when you first come home. A new routine tonight?”

“No. I like the old routine.”

“That’s why you’re staring at my mouth?”

“You always kiss me right about now. Da, I like the old routine. So where is my welcome-home kiss, wife?”

Callia went up on her tiptoes, one hand curling around his neck as she offered him a warm kiss. When she would have pulled away, he slid his hands over her backside and pulled her into him, lengthening the kiss.

She was naked beneath the flimsy caftan. He released a primal moan, then let her go.

“Give me a quick update on Erik so I can concentrate on my wife.”

“He’s still opposing college,” she said, giving way to her disappointment and frustration over her most recent argument with her son. “He wants to work with you.”

“And that frightens you?”

“Shouldn’t it?”

“You know I would never let anything happen to our son.”

“Can you please talk to him.”

“You mean change his mind?”

“Please?”

“I’ll speak to him. I see you’ve already started working your magic on decorating the villa. Not overdoing it are you?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Fine isn’t wonderful. Zeta told me you had an asthma attack a few days ago.”

“Spring pollen,” she said to dismiss the incident that had put her on her back for two days. She still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent—it would take days—but she would deal with it as she always had, without complaint. “So you like what I’m doing with the house?”

“I like whatever you like. The villa is adequate. Soon to be beautiful. Whatever you want.”

“You spoil me.”

“I have an ulterior motive. A spoilt wife is happy and content.” He cupped her face and kissed her again. “A man would have to be crazy not to give you whatever you wanted, just to be in the company of that smile. Now then, what were you saying about our routine?”

He liked it when she made the first move. Dutifully, she reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt. Three buttons open and she spotted an angry red scar that hadn’t yet healed completely. “What happened?”

“A minor accident. A careless mistake.”

“You’re never careless.” She stepped away from him, reluctant to ask him what had happened, but needing some kind of assurance that nothing had changed. That they were still safe. “Who did that to you?”

She saw his eyebrows furrow. “You know the rules, and you know by now that I’m indestructible.”

He left her standing on the veranda and walked back into the bedroom. He removed his shirt, and she saw more scars overlapping the old ones that had ravaged his body years ago. Some horrible injustice—a betrayal before they had met—is how he’d explained what had to have been a near death experience.

Callia understood betrayal. Her own had left her scarred, and although the wounds weren’t visible, she’d been cut deeply and forever changed.

She stepped into the bedroom, still watching him. Naked, he tossed the gold coverlet off the bed and stretched out on the blue satin sheets.

“Show me, Callia. Show your husband how beautiful you are. I want to feast my eyes on every inch of you. I’ve thought of nothing else the entire time I’ve been away.”

She slid the caftan off her slender shoulders and let it fall to the floor. For a woman in her forties, she was still trim, her breasts high and firm, her curvy body and slender legs toned like an athlete from years of long walks on the guarded beaches of Greece.

His eyes moved slowly over her as she came to him and curled up beside him. She knew he liked to be touched, and again she made the first move, gliding her fingers gently over his bare chest. Then lower.

A moan of pleasure made his eyes drift shut. “That’s it, work your magic.”

“You’re tired. You should sleep.”

When his eyes remained closed and he didn’t answer, she attempted to leave the bed, but his hand snaked out and gripped her wrist. Eyes open, he said, “Straddle me, Callia. I’ll sleep later.”

With Merrick’s duties at Onyxx left in Sly McEwen’s capable hands, and Harry Pendleton’s blessing, he prepared to leave for Greece. He made a quick trip back to the country house to pack, then arrived at the airport early in the afternoon. Before he boarded the plane he called Sully Paxton to apprise him of the recent turn of events.

“I’m flying to Rome. I don’t want to give Cyrus a heads-up, so I intend to avoid the airport in Athens. He’s probably got it staked out. We both know why he wants me back in Greece. He’s expecting me to lead him to you and Melita.”

“You know he’s left someone behind in Washington to follow you.”

“They won’t be on my ass for long. I want to talk to Melita when I get there.”

“The report I sent you was complete. She answered every one of your questions about Cyrus to the best of her knowledge. Remember, Melita grew up in a bubble. One that Cyrus built around her. He kept her in the dark on his business affairs, and virtually a prisoner at Lesvago until he moved her to Despotiko. We know more about the bastard than his own daughter does.”

“I’d still like to talk to her. Maybe a few new questions might spark a memory that could help us find him. It’s all we have right now.” Merrick gave Sully some last-minute instructions. “Send your man Hector to Crete with a boat. Tell him to leave it in Iráklion for me.”

“It’ll be there. Have a safe trip.”

The flight left on schedule. Merrick forced himself to sleep on the plane knowing that when he arrived in Greece his days and nights would be rolled into one. He reached Rome after a rough trip over the ocean. Three people on the plane from Washington took the same flight to Iráklion on the island of Crete. Two businessmen and one woman.

Merrick rented a room at a resort hotel, changed clothes and waited for the cover of night. Leaning on a cane, dressed as if he were years older, he shuffled his feet toward a taxi and instructed the driver to take him to the harbor.

As Sully Paxton had promised, Hector had left a sixty-foot sport cruiser christened Aldora—winged gift—for him. Hector had been a guard at Despotiko during Melita and Sully’s incarceration. More loyal to Melita than Cyrus, Hector had been an integral part in her escape with Sully months ago. Since then he had remained with them on Amorgós.

Sure no one had followed him, Merrick boarded the Aldora and sped away into the night in the gutsy twelve-hundred-horsepower yacht. She had a lean underbelly, an enclosed cockpit, one stateroom, a bathroom and galley—everything a man would need to survive months at sea.

An hour before dawn, Merrick reached Amorgós. He spotted the villa on the southeast coast. When he reached the hidden cove, he saw Sully’s wicked speed-demon cruiser moored in the harbor. He studied the villa on the top of a rugged hillside. Sully had chosen the spot with strategy in mind. No one could enter the cove without being seen. Already Sully Paxton was heading down the hillside, that silly little goat of Melita’s trailing him in the moonlight.

Merrick leaned into the dock railing as Sully came toward him.

“Were you followed from D.C.?” Sully asked.

“All the way to Crete. No problem after that. They weren’t looking for an old man with arthritis.”

They shared a grin.

“Did you tell Melita I wanted to talk to her?”

“I did. But like I said, I don’t think you’re going to learn much that we don’t already know. She lived at Lesvago with Simon when she was growing up. They were raised by maids and housekeepers. Cyrus popped in now and then. She says she spent one week once every other year with Cyrus and his wife and her half brother, but the visits were always on a different island.”

The look on Sully’s face made his dark Irish expression even more foreboding than usual. Melita’s life as Cyrus’s daughter had been no life at all. A virtual prisoner since he had killed her mother and taken her and Simon to Lesvago on the island of Mykonos. She’d been eight at the time.

Sully said, “I’ve been combing the islands for weeks, and I don’t have one damn lead on Cyrus’s current hideout.”

Cyrus’s corrupt activities had made him a wealthy man and allowed him to set up a maze of compounds throughout Greece. From a strategist’s standpoint, the islands were the perfect mecca for a criminal to hide and never be found.

“When can I talk to Melita?”

“She’s sleeping. Why don’t you catch a few hours yourself? You look beat. I’ll bring her to you when she wakes up.”

Merrick returned to the Aldora, but he never slept. He unpacked his duffel bag, tossed his shaving kit in the bathroom and his clothes in the drawers beneath the double-wide berth. All the comforts of home, he thought. Sully had even stocked the galley.

He never went anywhere without the picture of Johanna in the garden at the country house, and he pulled it from his duffel and laid it on the table as he entered the galley. He’d snapped the picture in the backyard a few months before her death. Johanna was standing among the roses wearing jeans on her narrow hips and a lavender silk blouse. She was smelling the roses, her hand holding back her long hair from her face.

Feeling like a caged animal, he headed up the companionway and left the Aldora to stroll the beach. He’d been traveling nonstop and was dog-ass tired, but his adrenalin was pumping. For some unexplained reason he felt he was about to learn something crucial that would put him back on the scent of his enemy.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but he’d always felt as though Melita was the key to finding Cyrus. She knew something, even if she wasn’t aware of it.

With the scent of his wife lingering on his body, Cyrus rose early. He grabbed his black robe off the chair and pulled it on. Callia was stilled curled up on the bed after he’d had her every way imaginable. The smile he wore as he left the room was that of a prevailing conqueror. The sex had been carnal, fueled by a rapturous hunger that would never be quenched.

Sated temporarily, he focused on his game of cat-and-mouse with Merrick. Soon his old buddy would return to Greece and lead him to Sully and Melita.

Melita’s latest escapade of rebellion had damn near cost him his life. His daughter had to know that he wouldn’t rest until he’d been compensated for that.

Downstairs he phoned Holic Reznik. “Give me an update. Is Merrick on his way yet?”

“He flew to Rome.”

“Why Rome and not Athens?”

“I don’t know. From Rome he took a flight to Crete.”

“And?”

There was a long pause.

“Don’t tell me you lost him. Did he make you on the plane?”

“I don’t know how he got out of that hotel in Iráklion without us seeing him.”

“Idiots. He’s a damn master of disguises, that’s how. I warned you to expect anything, and overlook nothing.”

“He never made me on the plane. I look damn good as a woman, better than I expected. I did find out that a boat was waiting for him in the harbor.”

“How do you know that?”

“I always find a way to make people talk, you know that. Before the fisherman choked on his own blood he told me a man left the harbor around midnight in an expensive little speed-demon cruiser.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“The fisherman said the old man was wobbling on a cane with two left feet, but that he had no need for the cane or the limp when he leapt on board and sent the cruiser out of the harbor at full throttle.”

“That doesn’t help me now.”

“I have the name of the cruiser.”

“Did the fisherman say if someone picked him up? Paxton?”

“No. The Aldora was empty when Merrick sailed her out of port.”

“Find the cruiser, and find Merrick. I didn’t fly to Washington for nothing. Do it, Holic. I hold you responsible for my daughter’s escape from Despotiko. Redeem yourself, or I’ll have no reason to keep you around. You’ve been a disappointment lately, and you know what I do to men who disappoint me.”

“Father?”

Cyrus slid his phone into his pocket, then turned around to see his son wearing sweat-soaked fatigues and a muscle shirt. “Where have you been, Erik?”

“I took a morning run.”

“Your mother asked me to talk to you. She’s still asleep. Perhaps this would be a good time.”

“She’s on the college kick again?”

“If she asks, tell her we’ve talked and you’re considering it. Now come and fill me in on your progress.”

His son followed him onto the veranda. Once they were seated, Cyrus studied Erik. The workouts over the past year were paying off. It was even more than he’d hoped for. It appeared Erik was putting his heart and soul into his work.

“I looked over the file Kipler’s been keeping on you. It’s impressive.”

“Kip says I’m a natural. I can nail my target eighteen out of twenty now.”

Erik flexed his muscles, and Cyrus could see that Kipler had made good on his promise to turn his son into a fighting machine.

Erik was staring at the fresh scars on his father’s chest. “What happened?”

“An encounter with Merrick.”

“Did you kill him?”

Cyrus had shared certain secrets with Erik. One of those secrets had been his life as a betrayed Onyxx agent left for dead in Prague. “No. He’s as good as I am at cheating death. But the opportunity will come again. That’s why you need to continue to keep up with your training. I don’t want you vulnerable should he show up someday unannounced.”

That would never happen. He’d made sure of that, but Erik needed to stay focused.

He didn’t intend to tell Erik about Melita’s defection. He would eventually have to if he didn’t get her back in a timely manner, but for now Callia and his son would believe Melita was safe at Lesvago with Simon.

Simon…He’d shared his eldest son’s death with Erik some time ago—a little fuel to ignite his hatred of Merrick, but there was no reason for Callia to know. Erik had proven his loyalty by keeping the secret. His son was a pleasant surprise, and Cyrus was rarely surprised by anything.

Simon had been weak, a burden from the moment he’d been born. His headstrong daughter and albino son with a frail immune system had been blessed curses from the beginning.

Weak, ungrateful children were a father’s worst nightmare. But Erik was loyal to the bone, and when the time came Erik would follow his father into hell without even blinking an eye. If only he had another just like him. Several. Still, one loyal son was better than none.

He reached over and squeezed Erik’s shoulder. “I’d like to see for myself how well you’re honing your survival skills. We leave for the island day after tomorrow.”

Erik’s eyes lit up. “What will we tell Mother?”

“That we’re going fishing.”

They shared a grin.

The sun was up when Merrick returned to the Aldora. He went below deck, and to his surprise he found Melita waiting for him. She looked up on hearing him come down the companionway. Johanna’s picture was in her hand, and the question she asked a second later was as confusing as the look on her face.

“Sully never mentioned that you knew Callia. How do you know my stepmother?”

Merrick frowned. “Stepmother?”

“You knew my father remarried after he killed my real mother. I don’t see Callia often, but I do think of her as my stepmother. She’s very—”

“You’re mistaken. That’s a picture of Johanna.”

“Your wife, Johanna?”

“That’s the only Johanna I know. Yes, my wife.”

“Sully told me that she died.”

“Cyrus killed her,” Merrick clarified. “She was twenty-six in that picture. It was taken a month before her death. Are you telling me there’s a strong resemblance between Callia and my wife?”

Melita looked at the picture again. “No. This is my stepmother.”

Merrick tried to make sense out of what she was saying. “You know your father had extensive plastic surgery on his face. If there’s a close resemblance, then Callia must have had reconstructive surgery.”

It was too bizarre to believe, but then he knew what Cyrus was capable of. After all, he’d had plastic surgery to clone Paavo Creon, their comrade. He’d gone so far as to have one of his fingers amputated to match Paavo’s hand. Nothing was beyond Cyrus’s twisted mind. It was an extreme concept, but Cyrus was an extremist in every facet of his life.

“I never considered that.” Melita laid the photo on the table. “I can’t imagine why anyone would agree to that, but knowing my father, she probably didn’t have a choice. The likeness is uncanny. Sorry, if I—” She stopped in midsentence, then spun the picture toward Merrick and pointed to Johanna’s raised hand, holding her hair back from her face. “See this scar. Callia has one just like it. She told me how she got it. She was rescuing her cat.”

Melita’s claim hit Merrick in the solar plexus like a sledgehammer.

“His name was something like Jasper or…”

“Jinx?”

“That’s it.”

Merrick sat down at the table before his knees buckled. “Tell me the story, Melita.”

She relayed the tale while Merrick’s memory followed along. Johanna had needed eighteen stitches to close the wound. He’d wanted to kill that damn cat, but the silver Siamese wasn’t just Johanna’s pet. She had loved Jinx like a mother loves a child.

A glass of water materialized in front of him. The sound of his name and a hand on his arm jerked Merrick back.

“Should I get Sully?”

“No. Sit down.”

She sat across from him, and they stared at each other for several seconds. Finally, she said, “Callia and Johanna are the same person, aren’t they?”

“I saw her die.”

“You were there?”

“No. I watched it on my computer in my office at Onyxx headquarters.”

“Could it have been someone else?”

“No. It was Johanna.” It wasn’t possible that she could have survived the explosion, but as that thought came to him, so did another. “Cyrus is an explosives expert. The warehouse was leveled.” He thought a minute. “Time delay. He rigged the explosion on a timer. She wasn’t in the warehouse when it blew.”

“Did you find a body?”

“No. The explosion was double-charged. After searching through the rubble, we found nothing.”

“Then why did you think she was inside?”

“She was in that warehouse. I saw her strapped to a bed with C4. The warehouse was one of ours. I’d been there many times. I found her car abandoned at the shopping mall where she told me she was going that day. She was gone.” Merrick pointed to the picture. “That photo is almost twenty years old. You said Callia looks like this now?”

“Pretty close. A little older, but not much.”

“Johanna would be forty-six now. How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

Merrick knew that Cyrus had remarried, but they had never been able to uncover any data on the woman. It was obvious now why that was. He said, “You’ve spent time with her. How is she?”

“Not much time. Every other year I was allowed a visit with Simon.”

“And how did she seem?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking?”

“You know Cyrus, Melita. If he has my wife, then she’s living with him against her will.”

“I don’t think so. He treats her like a queen. Like he…”

“Like he what?”

“Loves her.”

Merrick snorted. “You of all people know he’s incapable of that.”

“I know, but he’s different with her and Erik.”

“Erik. Their son.”

“Yes. My half brother.”

Merrick also knew that Cyrus had another child. A boy. He could not wrap his mind around the idea that Johanna had given Cyrus a son. Not willingly, anyway. Not his Johanna.

“How does she treat him? Is she afraid of him.”

“No. She seems…happy.”

“Happy?” The words tasted like poison in his mouth.

“She told me once that my father gave her a reason to live again. That he was the center of her and Erik’s world.”

“And you never told her that your life as his daughter was a living hell?”

“No, and she never knew anything about my situation at Despotiko, either. Or any of the other horrible things. I knew the rules, and I played the game. We both know what happens when my father is crossed.”

Melita had seen far more tragedy than anyone should at age twenty-four. Her brother Simon was dead because of Cyrus, and she had witnessed the man she once loved beaten to death on her father’s orders. The guilt over Nemo’s death had caused Melita to slit her wrists. Luckily, she hadn’t died.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He wanted to say, Get my wife back, but that was ego and wounded pride talking. It sounded as if Johanna was exactly where she wanted to be. Which meant she’d been in on Cyrus’s scheme to stage her death. There was no other explanation that made any sense.

“What else can you tell me about my wi—her? When did you see her last?”

“In Naxos about three months ago. She wasn’t feeling well the day I arrived. She’d had another asthma attack and—”

“Asthma? She’s ill?”

“She has acute asthma.”

“Can you take me to the house in Naxos?”

“Yes. But they’re not there anymore. The week I visited, Zeta was packing up the house.”

“Who’s Zeta?”

“The housekeeper. That’s her title, but she’s a nurse by trade. She looks after Callia when my father is away. Zeta and her daughter, Sonya, have lived with them for as long as I can remember. Although I didn’t see Sonya when I visited last.”

“What’s Zeta’s last name?”

“Poulos.”

There was a noise overhead, then Sully came down the companionway. He glanced at Melita, then Merrick. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong,” Merrick said, “is that I’ve been a blind fool. Johanna’s alive.” He pointed to the picture on the table, then stood. “Melita tells me that’s Callia. That my wife is Mrs. Cyrus Krizova. I’ll let her explain. I need some air.”

Merrick didn’t know how long he stood staring out to sea on the Aldora’s deck. Time…He’d spent years living in a time warp. That place where Johanna had kept him sane. He didn’t feel sane right now.

He pulled his phone from his pocket to call Sly McEwen.

“Are you in Amorgos with Sully?” Sly asked.

“I’m here. Listen, I just…” Merrick still couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “I just…”

“Merrick?”

“I’ve learned something.”

“Have you located Cyrus?”

“No. But…Johanna is alive, Sly.”

There was dead air on the line, then Sly said, “Are you sure? Do you have proof? You know how Krizova likes to torment you. Maybe—”

“It didn’t come from Cyrus. It came from Melita. I’m checking in, like I told you I would once I got here. I’ll tell Sully to give you a call later.”

“If Johanna’s alive, I should rally the men and—”

“If I need you, I know where to find you.”

“You all right?”

“I can’t talk right now, Sly. Sully will call.”

Merrick slipped the phone in his pocket. Johanna was alive. Alive all this time, living in Greece as Cyrus’s wife. Happily, Melita had said, with her husband and son. Cyrus’s son.

Merrick closed his eyes as that fateful day surfaced in his mind. They had made love that morning in the shower, and then he’d gone to work. She’d told him she was going shopping, and hours later in his office at headquarters, he’d gotten the e-mail. I have a picture you’ll want to see.

It was an odd e-mail, but he’d been curious. When he retrieved the picture, he saw Johanna on a bed of steel with a charge of C4 strapped around her body. He’d had no idea that the minute the picture materialized on the screen by his own hand he had automatically started the timed explosives.

For three minutes he had stared at Johanna’s terrified face before the screen went black. Then came the report that an explosion had leveled one of their warehouses in Crystal City, ten miles south of Onyxx headquarters.

“Merrick?”

He felt Sully’s hand on his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. I don’t know what to say.”

“Cyrus faked her death.”

“It looks that way.”

“Twenty years of believing she was dead, and now…” Merrick cleared his throat. “I called Sly. I told him you’d call him later and fill him in.”

“Whatever you want. Ask it and it’s yours. The men can be here in—”

“No. That would be a waste of manpower right now. We don’t have any leads on where Cyrus is.”

Minutes of silence dragged by. Finally, Sully said, “There could be a reasonable explanation for why she’s with Cyrus.”

“Reasonable?” Merrick expelled a cold laugh. “What would that be, Sully?”

“She could be a victim. One more in a long list.”

“A happy victim? A victim who gives her abductor a son? No. She went with him willingly, and there’s only one reason why she’d do that.”

“You think she was having an affair with Krizova in Washington?”

“After he survived Prague, he resurfaced with a new face. He wanted revenge on me because I was the one who had left him for dead. What better way than to take my wife. Yes, I think he set his sights on Johanna. We used to talk about our wives. He knew how I felt about her.”

“You think he approached her and they started seeing each other.”

“Johanna was acting secretive about something for weeks before she died. Make that disappeared. Now I know why.” Merrick pulled the envelope from his pocket and shook out the ring and the small white card. “Cyrus left these with Sarah Finny to give to me. Sarah is—”

“The woman from the flower shop.”

“Cyrus put roses on Johanna’s grave before he left Washington, along with this note.” He handed it to Sully.

“Game on. Your move.” Sully looked up. “He really is a sick bastard.”

“That note was meant to bring me back to Greece so I would lead him to Melita. He never expected me to learn the truth about Johanna. But now I know something he doesn’t.”

“So, now what? Where do we go from here?”

“There’s no we. You’re staying here with Melita. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Where are you going?”

“To clear my head. I’ll be in touch.”

Merrick left the cove with no destination in mind. Every beautiful memory of Johanna was now tainted by lies. As soon as he faced that ugly truth, he decided, he’d be thinking more clearly.