by Naomi West
She nods slowly. And lifts her hands to gracefully braid her hair back in one long, red rope. "Makes sense."
She's obviously disappointed. I'm relieved that I can give her a silver lining. "But most of the passengers are gonna go off and explore the island for most of the day. We'll have the ship to ourselves. Wanna go swimming?"
Her eyes light up with a hundred different colors and I feel like I've just won the Nobel prize. She flings her arms around my neck and launches herself into my lap. "But I don't have a suit!"
I chuckle, tracing a hand over her back. "I'll buy you one in the shop." I clap my mouth, so I don't say what is on the tip of my tongue. But it comes cascading out anyways. "Nobody does this."
"Does what?"
"Touches me like this."
She raises her eyebrows, and gives me a wry smile. "You seem plenty experienced in touching, Kennedy."
"No, I don't mean sexually. I mean...joyfully."
Comprehension passes through her and again I'm struck at how her scientific brain allows her to understand and not judge. Everything is just information to her. "Because people are scared of you?"
I shrug. "I think so. And even my friends. My closest friends, Dare. Alessia. They're not scared of me, but they're conscious of what I've done. What's on my hands. It gives them maybe just a touch of reservation around me."
She studies me now. Calmly, seriously. Her eyes passing over my face as the wheels turn in her head.
"What?" I ask, after a minute, trying hard not to squirm.
"Nothing," she says. "Just forming a hypothesis."
I’m not sure I like the sound of that. "Care to share?"
She shakes her head. "No self-respecting scientist would postulate without all the information.”
I shake my head at her and lift her off my lap, trying to tamp down my smile. I can’t let her know how charmed I am by this shit. At this rate I’m gonna be eating out of her hand any minute. “Sit tight. I’ll go get you a bathing suit.”
I zip to the boat shop and back and I’m pleased to see that most of the passengers have already gathered on the main deck, watching as the shore line of Mykonos approaches. Row and I will be two of the only passengers left behind from the look of things.
I cruise the store. I’m not a picky shopper, but I am looking for something in particular. The smallest fucking bathing suit I can find. Oh. And a burner phone. I didn’t want to get her all worked up, but Dare should be finding her father on that ferry boat any second now.
I buy the swimsuit and the phone and run up to one of the emptier decks to make the phone call. Dare answers on the second ring.
“I’ve got him,” he says without even a greeting. “But the guy’s a straight-up asshole.”
I can’t stop the relieved bark of laughter that bursts out of me. Our plan was the best we could come up with on short notice. But that baby had a lot of holes. The fact that the first part has gone ok is a tremendous relief.
“You found him in the back of the red Mazda?”
“Yup, thirsty and hungry and demanding to see his daughter. Your note didn’t do much to assuage his mania.”
I wince. “Yeah, well, the guy loves her. And he’s been knocked out for a day and half. The last thing he knew everything was fine. The only thing he and his daughter had to worry about was too much dust on their dig site. And then he wakes up to this nightmare. Jesus. I think he’s earned the right to raise a little hell.”
“Well, that may be,” Dare growls. “But there’s no fucking way I’m taking him back to your mom and sister raving like a loony. He’s gonna scare the crap out of them.”
“I don’t care if he strips down and does the hokey pokey, you’ve gotta take him to your place. It’s the only place he’ll be safe. And Row’s gonna lose her mind if he’s not safe.”
There’s hearty pause on the other end of the line. And then Dare’s voice, a curiosity threaded through. “You got the hots for this chick?”
“Yeah, she’s really hot.”
“No, I mean like the serious hots. Like a crush.”
“You make me sound like I’m in seventh fucking grade.”
“Holy shit you do!” There’s an obnoxious amount of glee in his voice. “Kennedy fuckin Squire, feeling the feels. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Just put her father on the phone so I can reassure him, and all this will move a little faster alright?” He doesn’t stop laughing. “You dick.”
Then there’s a scuffling on the phone and Dare’s laughter gets more distant.
“Hello? Hello?” I hear Professor Rourke’s voice.
“I’m here, Rourke.”
“Where’s my daughter? What have you done with my daughter?” The true panic has a soft spot appearing for him. I’m apparently made of soft spots these days.
“She’s alright. She’s safe.”
“I don’t believe you. Let me talk to her.”
I sigh and start heading back to the room. “Look. She’s safer with me than she was with you in Greece. I won’t let him get to her. No matter what.”
There’s a heavy pause. “Him? You mean Esposito?”
“Yeah.”
There’s a hitch in his breath. “He found us.”
“I found you for him. But I’m not going to let him get Row. Or you, ok?” I’m weaving through the hallways of the cruise ship. “Dare is taking you to a safe house in Corfu. My mother and sister are there. All of you are going to stay low and stay the hell out of his radar.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I talk to my daughter.”
Luckily I’m outside of our cabin door now. I unlock the door and push it open. I almost crush the phone in my grip when I push into the room and see what’s waiting for me. Row spread out on the bed. Her dress billows out all around her. Her hair is in a messy fan over the pillow and she’s reading some of the boat literature they leave in every cabin. She looks s fucking beautiful.
I make a mental note to at least pick up some paperbacks for her the next chance I get. The poor brainiac has been reduced to reading sponsored cruise literature.
She pops her head up when I walk in, her brow furrowing when she sees me on the phone.
“Your pops,” I say, tossing the phone to her. I’ll never forget the look on her face. Pure, unadulterated joy. And peace. And relief.
“Daddy?” she says, clutching the phone with both hands.
She glances at me and blushes a little bit. “Yes, he’s a very good man. Yes, he’s treating me well.”
She listens for a minute. “Daddy, actually it makes complete sense to be with him instead of on our own. Who better to know Esposito’s moves than someone who has worked for him? He’s one step ahead, which is more than I can say for the two of us. Sitting ducks at the dig site.”
She listens again, her face calm, although her shoulders are tight. “One: Because I have good instincts. Just like Mom. And you know that’s true. And two: Because his mother and sister are proof. He’s housing you in the same place as the two most important people in his life. Who he put in danger, by the way, because he decided to help us. And now you’re there with them, being protected.”
She paused again and for the first time I see something dark cross her face. Something that looks like regret. Sadness. The smallest touch of shame.
“I found him. But we didn’t have time.” She listens. “Re-buried.”
Crap. She must be talking about Iairos. My stomach plummets. I don’t know if I could feel like more of a dick about that one.
“The whole site. We tagged and bagged everything we could and made the rest of it look like there was nothing left. It was the best we could do.”
Her voice rises and so does the color in her face. “Because there was a literal sniper shooting at us, Daddy!”
I step forward, hold my hand out for the phone. She stares at it blankly for a second, like she doesn’t understand what I’m asking for. She doesn’t understand that I’m not asking. I harden my
expression. The way I do when we’re having sex. The full-on bossy thing that gets her going so well.
Her stare narrows but her mouth opens the tiniest bit. She hands over the phone to me. I can hear her father still talking on the line, but I take the phone from her hand and immediately snap it closed.
Her father heard that she’s safe. Dare can take it from there. He knows that the next part of the plan is to wait there until Row and I come for them. I feel like a dick making him be away from his kids, but he knew how important this was to me. He knew this process could take weeks while I make sure this world is safe for Row.
Row is still staring at the now-dead phone.
“Why did you do that?” she asks.
“Hang up on your father? Because he knew everything he needed to hear right now and he was making you feel bad. Making you feel bad when you tried your hardest and did better under terrifying circumstances than anyone in the world should have done.”
She looks at the phone but then up at me. “You think I did a good job? The best I could with the site?”
“You did better than your father could have done. Because you didn’t go down with the ship. You’re living to see another day. So that you can bring some redemption for Iairos some day.”
I shove the bag with the bathing suit in it toward her.
“Now let’s go swimming.”
Chapter Thirteen
Row
Kennedy’s house in Santorini is not what I expected it to be at all. When he said it had a lot of security measures, for some reason I got it in my head that we were headed to some kind of modern glass monstrosity, up on a cliff overlooking the ocean. But that isn’t it at all.
Kennedy’s house is small. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a small living room. It’s built into the side of the cliff the way that all the houses there are. Thick whitewashed walls and terra cotta tile floors. The windows overlook a breathtaking view of the ocean and the house is sandwiched in between neighbors on all sides. Actually, all the houses are like one sprawling unit climbing the mountain. The walls are thick, which makes for privacy.
“Wow,” I say, turning a circle in his small living room. I can hear the wind whip up off the ocean and a mule drawn cart on the stone street outside.
“You-uh-like it?” he asks, setting his bag down.
I throw my hands out as I discover the stained glass window in the kitchen, sun slants in and throws juicy ruby-colored shadows over the driftwood breakfast table. I realize that there’s views of the ocean from every room. The bedrooms sit atop the rooms we’re currently in, in a cozy two story. The back wall of the house is a little crooked, pushed-in in places. And I realize this is because the house is built right into the side of the cliff.
“Kennedy, it’s incredible,” I breathe. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been someplace more beautiful.” And I’m telling the truth. We left the cruise boat an hour ago and the sun has just started to set behind the mountain that rises out of the sea in the middle of the ocean view. “Look,” I say. “The sun looks like a crown over the top of the mountain.”
“Volcano,” he says, looking where I’m pointing. “That’s actually a volcano.”
My mouth goes dry with excitement. “You’re kidding me!” I rush to the window. “Active? Is there a geological station here? When was the date of the last eruption?” I gasp when I see a large twist of Obsidian on a small table under one of the windows. I rush over, jam my hands in my pockets and immediately start making observations. “Is this volcanic glass from the volcano?”
He doesn’t say anything, so I straighten up and turn around, thinking maybe he left the room. But I’m surprised to see him sitting on the royal blue sofa couch, his forehead in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my stomach plummeting. He almost looks ill.
“Nothing. Let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you, Oia.”
For the first time since all of this began, I’m a hundred percent certain that he’s lying. There is definitely something wrong.
“Kennedy.”
“We’re gonna have to do something with your hair though. It’s too recognizable.” He stands and jogs up the whitewashed stone stairs to one of the bedrooms and calls down to me. “Not dye it, of course. No. I’d rather cut my arm off than change what you’ve got going on. But I might have something up here that could cover it.”
“Kennedy.”
He jogs back down the stairs and comes to stand in front of me. He’s avoiding my eyes like the plague. There’s an ornate silk in his hand, orange poppies over a field of blue. “Here, I’ll tie it over your hair. And I’ll wear a cap too. We can pick up some clothes in town. There’s mostly tourist shops, so everything will probably be a little more vacation-y than you might like but-”
“Kennedy!”
He stills behind me for just a moment, and then his hands finish tying my hair back in the scarf. “What?”
“You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, of course. You’re your own person.” I try to turn and face him, but he holds my shoulders so I have to stay still. I look out at the ocean instead. “But don’t lie to me about it. Don’t make it seem like what I can see with my own eyes isn’t real.”
“Fine. I’m not ok. I’m frustrated and off-kilter. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Alright,” I shrug my shoulders. Interesting. His whole reaction is interesting. I’ve been postulating a theory on it since the cruise ship and I’m about to test it out. “Let’s go see Oia.”
He hesitates, like he expected me to push the issue, but then he leads me out of the house.
“Clinton!” An older man, gnarled and leathery brown from the sun steps out of the house next to ours. His Greek accent is as thick as the whitewashed wall he leans over to clasp hands with Kennedy. “We didn’t know you’d be here. Who is lady?”
“This is Laura.” He pauses and then slides an arm around my shoulders. “She’s from the states too.”
“Welcome, pretty Laura,” the older man says and then stands tall as he can, thumping a hand on his chest. “My name is Spiros. You need anything at all you come here, and I will feed you. Good Greek food. Good for the body.”
I can’t help but grin at him. “Thank you, Spiros.”
Kennedy immediately lasers his eyes right onto the side of my face. I’ve changed my accent intentionally. Every lick of my Cajun tongue has disappeared. I could be from Michigan or Wisconsin from the way I just sounded.
“I’m gonna give her a quick tour while we still have a little light, Spiros,” Kennedy says and leads me by the shoulder.
Spiros waves after us, watching us start the trek up the steep hill that is the street.
“You didn’t tell me you could change your accent like that,” he says in a low, almost irritated voice as we walk side by side. As soon as we get out of Spiros’s line of sight he drops his arm from my shoulders. Interesting.
I turn a rye eye on him. “There’s a lot we don’t know about one another…Clinton.”
He gives me a little bit of a chagrined smile. “From one liberal president to the next, I guess.” But then he’s immediately distant again. Whatever is chewing on him has really got ahold of him.
The sun has fully set now and the light that’s draping over the small town of Oia is almost teal. The lights that line the street are a buttery gold. I laugh in delight as two children kiss their father and then chase after his motorbike as he pulls away. Their mother chastises them in Greek but there’s a smile on her face.
Two stray cats flirt in one of the small, whitewashed alley ways as we hike up the steep hills. The streets are narrow and ancient. Laundry hangs out on a second floor line strung clear across the street. I can smell something savory and mouthwatering coming from one of the homes we pass.
I can’t help but crane my head up to look at almost every blue-domed roof that we pass. I’m utterly charmed by the island. I’ve been to mainland Greece many times, but I’ve never been
to the Isles before.
“God, it’s so beautiful,” I murmur and Kennedy looks up at me as if he’s just remembered I’m there. He absently laces his hand in mine as he looks out over the ocean. He’s lost in his thoughts.
Well. Experiment time.
“Have you ever brought your family here?” I ask. “Your mother and Mara?”
He nods. “Once a year or so, in the off season.”
“They don’t think it’s weird that you don’t go by your real name here?”
