Feta Attraction (20 page)

“Inky, can I borrow your phone? I need to check my phone messages at the Bonaparte House.”

He handed me the device, an expensive iPhone that I was unfamiliar with. “Er, you'll have to show me how to use it too,” I admitted.

“Here, the Bonaparte House is on speed dial.” He deftly pressed some buttons and I connected to the restaurant's voice mail system. There was a call from Sophie, demanding to know why I hadn't called her.

Beep. “Georgie, I'm sorry I was so nasty to you earlier tonight,” Keith's voice said. “What you do is your business. When can I see you again? I'm willing to challenge whoever you were with to a duel if necessary. I'm off to Syracuse to pick up some specialty wood, but I'll be back tomorrow. Call me, okay? I miss you.” My heart gave a little tug.

Beep. “Georgie!” It was Liza. “Would you like to explain, dearest friend, why you haven't called me tonight to let me know you're all right? Also why the Morristown Police Department, all one of them, called about a certain boat registered to me that was found drifting up the St. Lawrence? They have your purse and cell phone, by the way. I don't care about the boat. I own a castle and have scads of money and I can buy a new boat if necessary. I cannot buy a new friend. Well, I suppose it would be easy to buy some new friends, but I cannot buy a new you. If you don't call me by morning, I am going to have to have Chief Moriarty start dragging the river. Call me!”

Aw, that was so sweet. She was worried about me. I could not ask for a better bestie.

No message from the kidnapper, but I hadn't expected one. Jack Conway was most likely still on the island, unless he had come to and called an accomplice to rescue him. Now, that was a scary thought, one that hadn't occurred to me. If he had somebody working with him, I had absolutely no idea who that might be. Hank from Sunshine Acres seemed to be the most logical choice. We'd slowed Hank down, but he could certainly be out by now. He wouldn't have had time to escape from his makeshift prison, put a boat in the water, and retrieve Jack. But he might be on his way.

And now I knew why Keith wasn't answering our knocks. He wasn't even here. So much for that idea. Still, this wasn't a bad place to hide out if necessary.

“You can check your e-mail too, you know. I can't go for more than a few hours without checking my e-mail.” Inky brought me out of my thoughts. “Here, let me connect to the Internet.”

Inky pulled up the touch screen and told me to punch in my username and password. This was so much nicer than my own cell phone. The little machine was not only adorable but useful too. Someday, when I was not so tangled up with kidnappers, extortionists, drug-dealing aged hippies, and men trying to steal my husband, I could shop for a new phone.

Okay, that last was a little excessive. There would be no stealing necessary. I was ready to set Spiro free, and myself in the process. What I would do with my newfound freedom remained to be seen.

I scrolled through the spam until I got to a message from Cal. “I'm fine, Aunt Athena is watching me like a hawk! Heading out to work now. Tell Daddy and Yiayia I love them (U2, of course!). Say hi to Russ and Dolly for me too. Bye bye! (Heart, xxxxxooooooxxxxx) Cal.” She used the Greek word for “grandmother” to refer to Sophie. Fluent in both her parents' languages, Callista could also speak quite good French. I did a quick calculation of the time differential and figured that she had sent it just an hour or so ago. That was a relief.

I stared at the most recent e-mail, the one I had been avoiding by looking at the older stuff first. I took a deep breath. My apprehension must have showed on my face or else Inky was quite perceptive, because he took my arm and asked with concern, “What is it?”

“I don't know yet.”

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU UP TO? YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING INSTRUCTOINS. YOU WERE NOT SUPOSED TO BRING ME A TABLE. I'M FEELING GENERUS SO I'M GIVING YOU A REPREEVE. BUT HE IS GOING TO START LOSING BODY PARTS IF YOU DON'T DELIVER THE GOODS BY NOON TOMOROW.

Best not to tell Inky about the missing body parts. Panic welled up in me. If there'd been anything in my stomach, it would have come up too.

If this nebulous treasure was not a priceless antique table, what the hell was it? Even if I did manage to figure it out, the bonehead had not told me where to bring the thing. My panic was replaced with anger. I was done. Exhausted, hungry, and done. The e-mail had been sent more than an hour ago. Jack Conway wouldn't have been able to send this message—unless he hadn't been unconscious for long and had a smartphone like the one I was now using. He hadn't said anything about having been clocked by Sophie. Maybe he had big clumsy fingers and wasn't good with the little keyboard, so he had to keep his messages short.

I had to get back to the Bonaparte House and try to figure this out. Walking through the streets of the Bay to get there was out of the question. There were only about a dozen streets in the whole village and I couldn't anticipate where Detective Hawthorne might be. Even worse, he might have been able to rouse another Trooper or one of the Bay's tiny police force to come and join in the search. He would almost certainly have found my car by now. I'd purposely left it unlocked so that he could search the inside, thinking that would buy us some time to get to Keith's. It was probably illegal for him to do so, but I was counting on the idea that he wouldn't be able to resist. Not that he'd find anything other than an empty doughnut shop bag and some spare change in the center console.

Once I got inside the Bonaparte House, I should be okay. I just wouldn't answer the door. Which I hoped he wouldn't break down. Without getting a judge out of bed he probably couldn't get a search warrant before morning, but it was possible. A lump that seemed to be the size of a small eggplant formed in my throat. I was piling one bad decision on top of another and it was only a matter of time before they all came crashing down around me.

“Inky, we have to get back to the restaurant. We can't go on foot. Do you know how to drive a boat?”

He looked at me as though I had two heads. “Are you kidding? Of course I know how to drive a boat. I've lived my entire life on the river.”

I had lived my entire life on the river, and I had never driven a boat until a few hours ago. “I think we should take one of these boats, preferably one that isn't broken, and go around to the docks by the boat tour office. But we won't get out there. We'll go a little bit farther up the shore and go ashore over by the Taj Mahal Motel. Then we can sneak through the back alley and go in the side door. If the cops are watching anywhere, they'll be watching the front and back entrances.” I only hoped that was true.

“What about Spiro?” he demanded. “You said we were going to get him back tonight.”

“I'm working on it.” I had no idea what I would do once I got back to the restaurant, but I knew I couldn't stay here.

Inky took the little flashlight I offered and examined the boats tied up at the docks. “This one looks like our best bet. It's small and won't make a lot of engine noise, and we won't need the deep water at the docks to land it.”

“Is there a key?” I could not imagine that Keith would leave the keys in the ignition when the front of this boathouse was open to the water and anyone could walk in. Like me.

“Honey, I don't need a key. I'm a Bassport boy, remember?” Oh right, his childhood training had apparently included petty crime, or at least he had learned the skills for it. “Let's see here.” He opened the engine hatch and shined the flashlight inside. “Oh, this will be easy. A piece of baklava, as my Greek god would say.” I felt a little twinge of nostalgia. I'd called Spiro that a long, long time ago. I didn't miss the man, but I missed the feeling.

“What are you doing? Don't you have to crack open the steering column or something?” I'd seen that on TV and in movies.

“No! That's why this is so easy. See, in a car, the key also unlocks the steering column. On a boat the key just activates an electrical switch. So all I have to do is disconnect these wires back here and splice into them. Any Bassport kid can do this by the time he's ten.”

I was intrigued by this mechanical skill Inky possessed. He was going to be a valuable addition to the family. Now I wouldn't have to rely on Russ all the time when stuff broke around the house. “See if you can find me a pair of wire strippers, will you?”

Wire strippers? I did not have the foggiest idea what wire strippers were. “Uh,” I faltered. “What do they look like?”

“They're like a pair of flat pliers—oh, never mind,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny red Swiss Army Knife and fiddled with something in the engine compartment. In less than a minute the engine turned over. “Okay, grab a couple of life jackets and let's get this show on the road.”

We found vests and put them on. I climbed into the boat and took a seat. Inky sat in the captain's chair and put the engine into reverse, backing us expertly out of the boathouse. He turned us around and we headed out to the main channel. Despite my newfound skill with watercraft, I was happy to leave this particular trip to someone with more experience. It was one thing for me to wreck Liza's boat, but it would be quite another to damage one belonging to one of Keith's clients. I felt incredibly guilty at having borrowed this one, but I saw no alternative.

We ran at a slow speed so as to keep the noise down, with just the smallest possible light illuminating the black water ahead of us. It was close to dawn.

We passed the docks, scaring a seagull from its roost atop the giant paddle wheel affixed to the back of the
Lady Liberty II
tour boat. Inky cut the engine. We drifted into the shore near the Taj Mahal Motel and Inky stepped out into the cold water, rope in hand. He found a small upright post to serve as a cleat and tied off the boat. Then he came back and offered me a hand. Mechanically inclined and a gentleman too. I moved to the front of the boat and stepped over, a bit awkwardly, onto dry land.

Seeing no observers, we made our way the short distance to the motel. We cut under the motel's carport and past the pink-painted office, keeping close to the unlit back of the building. From the end unit it was only a few yards to the Bonaparte House. I glanced involuntarily up at the windows, looking for any signs of activity, human or supernatural, but everything looked normal. We arrived at the emergency exit, which fronted on a strip of lawn facing the adjacent ice cream shop. If we ever had an evacuation-worthy emergency, there would be quite a traffic jam in this narrow alley.

My hand reached for the window in an attempt to raise the sash from outside so we could crawl in. Inky waved his hand at me and pointed to a rock to the left of the flat, irregular-sided slab of reddish sandstone that served as a stoop. He bent down and turned over the rock, producing a key, with which he swiftly and silently opened the door. Once inside, he turned to me and whispered, “Spiro put this there for me.” Didn't take a genius to realize he'd used it more than once.

I decided not to comment. “Come with me,” I said, my voice low.

“Can I get something to eat?” he whined. “I'm starving!”

I was hungry too. “Sorry, but that would mean turning on a light in the kitchen. If that cop is watching the parking lot waiting for us to try to come in that way, we'll be seen through the door.”

I could feel his pout in the dark. “What are we going to do, then?”

“Come on.” I led him past the restrooms and through the front dining room. The sun had not yet breached the horizon, but the sky was lightening in preparation, and the room was dimly lit. Napoleon gazed down at us, incarcerated in his heavy gilt frame.

“That picture gives me the creeps,” Inky said.

Funny, it had never bothered me, but I took another look and could see the faint menace in the hard thin line of that mouth. A frisson went through me and I shuddered.

We passed my office and headed toward the kitchen. I felt bad to be leading Inky toward the makings of a nice sandwich and a cup of tea without delivering, but it couldn't be helped. I opened a door and switched on the light.

“What are you doing?” he cried.

The sudden illumination after so long in the dark made me squint. “Don't worry,” I said as we descended the unpainted wooden stairs down into the damp cool of the basement. “There are no outside windows or doors down here, so we're safe to turn on the light. The walls are solid rock, eighteen inches thick, so sound is not going to carry outside. Remember, this house was built for Napoleon to hide out from the monarchists and the revolutionaries, and as far as I know it's solid as a fortress.”

“Well, okay, then. Anything to eat down here?” He looked around at the boxes of canned goods and pasta and extra china and glassware we stored in a rough semicircle around the outer walls. His gaze landed on a door. “What's in there?”

“Oh, that's where we store the expensive wine.” He made a beeline for the door and flung it open.

“Ooh, I wondered where Spiro was coming up with this stuff. This is a good one!” He held up a bottle of expensive French champagne. “Let's have a glass!”

The idea was tempting, even at five o'clock in the morning, but I needed to keep a clear head, and so did Inky. “Let's wait until we find Spiro, okay?”

His face fell, but then brightened. “A welcome-home party! That is such a good idea! We can make some horse doovers to go with it.” I thought he was making a joke, but he did grow up in Bassport and I couldn't be sure. “How are we going to find him?”

No clue. He handed me the bottle and I replaced it on the shelves in the large closet. I felt a little draft of air as I did so. Air? How could there be a draft of air when there were no openings to the outside? We'd never had problems with water seeping in. As far as I knew every stone in the rough-cut foundation was sealed with mortar. I had made sure the cellar door was closed behind Inky.