Evan grabbed the receiver and banged it back into the cradle. He gripped the edges of his desk as though he could wring a confession of Daria’s whereabouts from the inanimate beast. The weight of his bleak life started to press down around him. “Enough, I’m through!”
He scrambled to reach the door and startled his secretary when he burst through to the outer offices. “The only call I want is Daria’s. When that happens, put her through to my cell immediately.”
Not listening for a reply, Evan waded through the tangle of the rest of his offices and staff. Several employees approached him but he brusquely waved them away. He decided he’d rather not waste the minutes it would take to summon the elevator and he certainly didn’t want to get trapped by anybody in an inane conversation. Pushing his athletic abilities into maximum drive, he pounded through a fire exit and raced down thirty-three flights of concrete stairs.
Barely out of breath, Evan reached the parking garage and fumbled for his car keys. He remembered watching Daria hide the spare entry key to her apartment. He stood still, and a flood of certainty pulsed through his veins. Somewhere, inside that apartment, was the clue he needed to find her.
Climbing the stairs to Daria’s alcove, Evan was determined to find something that would indicate her destination. Once assured of her safety, he would be able to consider his next step.
The key was exactly where he thought it would be, but as he opened the front door, a feeling of unease settled over him. It was the first time he had ever been in Daria’s home when she was not there. To Evan, her absence felt like an unfinished song.
He reached for a nearby lamp and switched on the light. The room was bathed in a soft glow. Although Evan considered the space small, the decor spoke of the artistic nature of its missing occupant. Watercolors by local artists hung on several walls, and her bookshelves bulged with everything from the latest paperbacks to the works of literary heavyweights. Her furniture was overstuffed, rich with texture and shaded in moss greens, deep scarlets, dark blues and golds. Tables of subtle earth tones held different varieties of flowering plants, and jewel-toned candles completed a picture of warmth, relaxation and serenity.
Evan didn’t quite know where to start; a cursory glance told him nothing was out of place. Daria wasn’t compulsive about neatness, but she had always kept her surroundings clean and tidy. He remembered an inadvertent remark he had made. “Everything has a place, and every place has a thing.” Daria had just laughed, thrown a pillow at him and initiated a wrestling match. The lovemaking that followed had been wondrous, at least for him.
He shook his head at the remembrance and the sudden pain it caused and jerked his thoughts to another tack. Evan crossed the living area and entered the study. He hoped to find something that would reveal her plans.
The room, too, was free of clutter. The antique desk she had been so excited to refinish was in order. No note pads by the phone with hastily scratched flight numbers, no crumpled papers in the trash, nothing. Even the light on the answering machine mocked him with its red, unblinking stare. Patience strung tighter than piano wire, Evan flexed his hands, momentarily overcome with the desire to destroy that mute machine. He turned to search the kitchen before he started tearing the place apart.
The kitchen yielded more of the same until he had no choice but to make his way to the bedroom, a room he had wanted to avoid. Too many memories of their nights together assaulted him as he entered.
Daria had designed a sanctuary that evoked her love of the tropics. She had draped netting in long, loose waves over and around a woven frame and she had piled the bed with pillows of every size and color imaginable. A ceiling fan stirred a gentle breeze, and plants of exotic beauty completed a scene of sensual delight. Evan could still smell the scent of her perfume and thought he would be unable to continue when he spotted an unusual book on her nightstand.
It was a World Atlas. He had not seen it before, and suspected that she had kept it in the bookcase by the living room window, until now. He crossed the floor, and time shifted into slow motion. He inched the book from the side table and felt the strength leak from his body. Filled with a terrible lethargy, Evan lowered himself onto the bed. A marker hung from the pages, and by imperceptible degrees, his fingers crept over the cover. Foreboding such as he had never known flooded through him as the book fell open to the page she had marked.
Evan bent in half and covered his face with his hands. A groan escaped his lips. He intoned the one word that made his stomach clench.
“Santorini.”
Evan hurtled out of Daria’s front door. He grabbed his cell and punched the number for his office. The phone rang and he raced to his car. As soon as his secretary picked up her end, he barked out his orders. “Book me the first flight available to Athens, Greece. Then book the fastest route to an island by the name of Santorini. I don’t care if you have to charter something, just get me to that island as fast as humanly possible.”
He yanked the car door open, and as he slid into the leather seat, revved the engine while he finished talking. “Cancel my appointments until you’ve heard from me. I’m on my way home, then I’m headed to the airport. Call me when you have the flight information. Oh, and call every hotel on that island and find out where Daria is staying!”
He tossed the phone onto the passenger side, threw the car into reverse and backed out. He ground the gears into first, and smoke filled the air as the tires spun, looking for purchase. When they finally bit asphalt, Evan laid down a perfect set of tracks. His car screeched out of the parking lot.
The flight was interminable. He had never felt so confined. As the engines droned over the Atlantic, Evan forced himself to some semblance of calm. He tried to grasp the implications of what had transpired.
Of all the places, how had Daria chosen Santorini? When she said she wanted time away, it had never entered his mind that she would leave Massachusetts, much less the United States. Evan banged his fist on the armrest. Time away was a weekend, not a jaunt halfway around the world!
He was afraid to imagine just how Travlor would react to this news. He had not contacted the man. Evan would know more once he reached Santorini. If he reached Daria in time, Travlor would never need to know.
He closed his eyes and leaned back into the seat. The drone of the engines finally lulled him into a fitful sleep.
When Evan cleared Greek Customs he was approached by a dark youth.
“Dr. Gaddes, yes? Please, this way.” The boy gestured toward a shiny black limousine.
Evan sprinted toward the vehicle and threw his luggage into the open trunk. He slammed the lid down and had the passenger door open before the chauffeur had moved from behind the wheel. Evan ducked into the spacious interior and banged the door shut. “Do you know where to go?”
The driver nodded and started the car. Driven to an area of the airport where his charter waited, Evan climbed in, brushed past the assembled crew and buckled himself into his seat. The small jet was in the air within minutes, but to Evan the flight was another anxious consumption of time that kept slipping away. He drummed his fingers on the armrest, willing the plane to go faster.
Cradled in an early-morning cocoon, Daria Caiden sat and reveled in the feel of the soft down pillows against her back. With the covers strewn about the bed and her legs freed, she felt the first traces of a gentle breeze as it slipped through the open doors of her veranda. She watched the sheer curtains flare in a sinuous dance, then closed her eyes. She inhaled the aroma of the strong Greek coffee and blew across the top of her cup. She took a tentative sip. Replacing the cup to saucer with a soft chime, she smiled and nestled deeper into the pillows.
The salt-scented air teased her with hints of honeyed jasmine and ripe olive trees, and her tired mind relaxed in the profound comfort with which she was surrounded. The compulsion (and where had that come from?) that had driven her to this tiny island no longer held her in its grasp and she reflected on the reasons that had impelled her to this p
articular place at this particular time. Sipping her coffee, she let the memories come.
Evan Gaddes had invaded her life three months ago. He had pursued her with single-minded devotion, and though she had been somewhat flattered, she had tried to keep her distance. When she finally accepted his offer of dinner, she found that she quite liked him. Her heart ached when she learned that like her, he had spent a solitary and parentless childhood. His mother had died during his birth. His father had not cared enough to ever seek him out, and the man had never been found.
Evan had been entrusted to an old, ineffectual aunt and uncle who had been unequipped to cope with a child whose brilliance surpassed their own simple understanding. They had never understood the hunger that drove him. And though they loved him in their way, he never let them get close. Daria doubted that he had ever contacted them after he left their home. She shook her head, “What a lonely existence.” She gazed out at the lovely scene from her hotel veranda and continued her review.
Evan received a doctorate in genetics with an emphasis in gerontology in his early twenties, and by thirty-five, he had amassed enormous wealth. He owned several patents on some of his most important discoveries, and the company he had built employed some of the best minds in the world. Evan had told her that it was just a matter of time before he and his team unlocked the genetic code linked to aging.
He had been justifiably proud of his accomplishments, but Daria knew that because of his dedication to clinical research, Evan had experienced emotions with her that he had never shared with anyone.
On a night with too much wine, Evan had uttered a statement that still haunted her. “I think every boy wants his father’s approval at some time in his life.”
She had tried to question him further, but Evan had changed the subject and refused any more discussion. Though he never talked about his father, Daria suspected he harbored a deep-seated need to know his sire.
Daria cared deeply for Evan, however, she wasn’t “in love” and neither, she suspected, was he. She knew that even though they enjoyed each other’s company, their innermost hearts still remained locked tight, barriers erect. So, his proposal during a tender, romantic moment had shaken her foundations.
Daria didn’t think that being “in like” was enough reason to get married. So, she had turned him down. Soon their time together had turned into a tug of war, and the emotional turmoil and fights mushroomed. Bombarded by Evan’s arguments as to why they should marry, Daria had been just as adamant that they should leave well enough alone. Pressured for a commitment she was unwilling to give, she had become desperate to end the fighting.
One Evanless night, she had wracked her brain for an escape and had ripped an old Atlas from her bookshelves. As she turned to reach a table, the book had flown out of her hands as though she had thrown it. Landing on the wooden floor, page side up, the book’s hard thud resonated in her body. She bent to retrieve it and her eyes involuntarily shifted. Riveted by the sight of one small island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, Daria shuddered when she read the name. Santorini.
Seized by a sudden impulse, she booked the first flight out of the States and prayed that Evan would understand.
He didn’t. “You’re leaving? For what reason? If you need space, Christ, I’ll give you space. You don’t have to leave to get away from me!”
The ricochet of the slammed door accentuated his anger and his hurt, but Daria hadn’t gone after him. He had never asked where she was going. How could she have explained the incomprehensible compulsion that drove her toward Santorini?
Daria sighed with relief, release and gratitude for the blessed peace, and she savored the last swallow of coffee. She placed the cup and saucer on the bedside table and a vague feeling of need swept over her. She frowned, slipped from the sun-warmed covers and donned a simple shift. The compulsion that had driven her to this small island in the middle of nowhere suddenly surged through her again.
Helpless against the driving force that exerted such a raw obsession over her, Daria hurried outside. Her body ached with a desperate need to be by the ocean. Her bare feet sank into soft, warm earth and she almost moaned with pleasure. Her steps quickened while her gaze played with the riotous summer beauty of Santorini.
The butter-soft yellow of early light washed the island in the golden daydream of an impressionist painting. Sounds of a nearby brook created delicate harmonies with the mourning doves as they sang the sun higher into a cloudless, azure sky. But even as Daria wished to stop and enjoy the scenery, her stride lengthened. It seemed that the more ground she covered, the more her pace increased.
She crested a small rise and caught her first glimpse of the Aegean Sea. It sparkled with such an intense sapphire blue that she had to shield her eyes. Mesmerized, heart pounding, she broke into a run. As she skimmed over the dark earth a stiff sea breeze pushed against her skin. She thought that if she lifted her feet a little faster, a little higher, she would take flight, and as she soared, her hair would leave a wake of golden contrails.
Daria neared the sun-bleached cliffs and a panorama opened before her that was primeval in its wild beauty. In her headlong rush to the cliff’s edge, Daria suddenly stopped as though she had crashed into a glass wall.
Immobilized, barely able to breathe, a halo of light flickered over her body. She was blinded by the rainbow colors. As if in a dream, her dazed mind watched her hands reach to her shift and remove the clothing. Trance-like, she picked her way to the rocky cliffs. Standing on the brink of the precipice, and against her will, she raised her arms to the sea almost as if in praise.
All thought was silenced. Only movement remained. She stared in horrified fascination as her legs stepped to the very edge of the earth. Her toes gripped rock, and she tried with every fiber of her being to turn her body from the chasm. The attempt was futile. She felt caught in the relentless grasp of something otherworldly, as flames of electric light darted over her skin and her vision narrowed to a pinpoint. Fear was cast aside. Thought was suspended. And she took one last breath.
Protected from the immense height by the web of energy that imprisoned her, Daria was forced from the jagged cliffs. Diving headlong toward the Aegean, she squeezed her eyes shut as she plummeted into the restless sea. The ripples that bespoke her passage faded, and she was enfolded in space and flight and womb-like silence. Arms of sapphire water wrapped around her naked body with more intimacy than any lover, and down she swam. Pulled by currents of will and water, Daria descended until she could no longer see her hands. Her ears ached from the pressure and her lungs burned for air that was not there. Her body became sluggish and her strength evaporated until she could no longer continue.
Suspended in midnight quiet, she felt her hair settle, like seaweed, around her face and neck. Unable to move, Daria drifted. Darkness poured into her mind, and she waited to die.
Evan deplaned on Santorini, paid cash for a rental car and with directions from the agent, careened out of the airport parking lot and punched the accelerator.
He flew by lazy towns and recklessly passed slower vehicles that moved with less purpose, all the while repeating his mantra. “Daria will be fine, I have to keep her safe. Daria will be fine, I have to keep her safe.” His heart pounded in time with the words. He blocked out any other thought. His sole concern lay in finding Daria. His only hope was that he accomplish that mission.
In the tiny town of Oia, he took a wrong turn and roared a curse. He wound through the twisted residential area with as much speed as the turns would allow.
At last, Evan sighted the hotel that Daria had chosen. The retreat seemed to flout the gods as it dared to cling to the side of a plunging three-hundred-foot cliff. Sunlight glinted off whitewashed stucco cabanas while scarlet bougainvillea crept skyward with haphazard abandon. Far below, the brilliant blue Aegean undulated with restless passion, and colors collided in riotous counterpoint.
The car skidded to a stop and Evan admonished himself to stay calm. Nevertheless,
he tumbled out of the car and hurried to the reception desk. Exhausted with the effort of the last twenty-four hours, he pounded the reception bell as though his life depended upon the very sound.
A young assistant peeked out of a hotel office and cleared his throat. He was bold enough to stride forth, but before he could get a word out, Evan voiced his demand. “The room number for Daria Caiden.”
The young man replied in the time-honored tradition. “Sir, we are not allowed to give out that information. However, I would be glad to ring her for you and the young lady can tell you herself.”
Evan gave a curt nod and sighed with relief. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. Daria’s room was rung. An old wall clock marked the passage of time with ominous ticks of the second hand.
The youth re-cradled the handset and grimaced. “There is no answer, sir; apparently she has stepped out. She could be at breakfast or possibly she has taken a walk. We have a very nice path that…”
Evan felt his neck tighten with the first stirrings of a supersized headache. He rifled through his pockets and flashed a fifty-dollar bill. “Show me where she went.”
Tired and strung out from his recent ordeal, Evan hit the path running at a fierce speed. He knew she would be there. He reached the crown of a hill and scanned rapidly for any sign of Daria. The strong Greek sun blinded him and his eyes watered. He blinked to clear his vision and as he did, he caught a sudden flash of light. Screaming Daria’s name, he cut from the path.
Evan fought his way to the cliffs. He brushed past olive trees and leapt over dense underbrush. At last, he crashed into the open. He glimpsed Daria as she stood transfixed, arms raised to the sky, golden hair flying around her. He opened his mouth to yell, but another blinding flash pierced the sunlight and he watched as she simply disappeared!
Tides of Change (The Atlantis Chronicles Book 2) Page 2
