Remi, exhausted, had immediately fallen asleep. Sam, however, had lain awake most of the night, thinking about her. Her emotions had to be running the gamut.
The following morning, she was quiet, but she appeared well rested, not like she’d been the morning after their escape from the Kyrils’ island. She even seemed close to her normal self when t
hey walked into town to meet Nikos, Dimitris, and Zoe for breakfast at Skavos’s café.
At ten, they met Sergeant Kompouras at the port, Nikos taking the Asteri, since the Lazy Krab was out of commission after the helicopter attack. Once everyone was aboard, Remi braced herself against the railing as the boat took off. Sam moved beside her, the two simply sharing the space in what he hoped was companionable silence. About midway there, when Remi made no move to speak, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“. . . Are we okay?”
“I’ll be glad to get home.”
Which wasn’t an answer at all. Sam decided not to press the matter. “The sergeant said that if everything works out, you may actually get to leave as early as tomorrow.”
“Not you?”
“Not for a while. He was thinking a week or more.”
She stared out toward the water, her gaze on the islet as they approached. “I really have to think about all of this . . . us . . .”
The finality of her words caught him by surprise. “If it helps, I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.”
She drew in a deep breath, reached over, and put her hand on his. “I know. I think that’s what makes this all so bearable.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Sam, and they remained there, side by side, as Nikos motored into the quiet inlet. Within minutes, they were hiking up the rocky hillside to the top. As before, they heard the bells tinkling from the small herd of goats that lived on the island, a few watching warily as they neared the crest, then approached the wreckage. While the bodies were gone, the crumpled remains of the helicopter’s fuselage was a stark reminder of their narrow escape from certain death.
Sergeant Kompouras pulled his small notebook from his pocket. “Where, exactly, is this cave?”
Dimitris walked over, standing on the rubble. “Beneath this rock.”
Kompouras moved beside him, then looked at Sam. “This is what fell when the helicopter hit?”
“It was. Remi and I were just inside when they attacked.”
“And how was it that all of you escaped?”
“Remi found a tunnel leading out,” Sam said. “It opens up on the north side. We climbed to the top and then . . .” He glanced in the direction of where he’d killed the lone gunman. “This way. I’ll show you.”
Kompouras followed him to the cliff’s edge, overlooking the Aegean and Fourni in the distance.
“You see the crevice about twenty yards down? That’s where we came out,” he said, pointing to the rocks on their left.
“You’re telling me that you scaled that cliff all the way over there?”
“We did.”
“I’m not sure I would have dared it.”
“We didn’t have much choice.”
Dimitris moved beside them. “What’s really sad is that we may have actually found evidence that the treasure called Poseidon’s Trident exists. Now it’s buried under a couple of tons of stone.”
The sergeant crouched at the cliff’s edge, using his phone to take a few photos. “What puzzles me is why Minerva Kyril would have been here. You were looking for some mythical treasure. She was allegedly trying to protect her drug empire.” He glanced over at Sam. “If I had to guess, her son’s obsession with Poseidon’s Trident brought too much unwanted attention to the family business. Especially when the four of you ended up on the Kyrils’ island.”
“Not that we found much there,” Sam said, “other than a few trigger-happy guards.”
He looked up from his phone. “But you did mention the glass vials you saw in the warehouse. I meant to ask you about that. By the time my team arrived on the island to investigate the shooting, the glass vials were gone.”