Louelle grimaced. “No thanks. If it’s all the same, I don’t want to remember this place. My grandmother used to say that buildings took on the minds of the people who lived in them. And this place gives me the shudders.”
I took in my surroundings again—the murky tones, angled walls, metronomes and strangeness, and I could see what she meant.
Gazing down at the table, I ran my fingertips over the Warcraft bracelet—my link back to Gray.
Outside the arched windows, the rain was like a second skin over the monastery, maybe not drowning us but slowly and surely sealing us in.
Just one more day.
51. Gray
I STUDIED THE SCENE OUTSIDE THE Acropolis Museum, using a pair of binoculars I’d bought. One minute, it seemed like crazy overkill to be taking precautions like this. But the next minute it hit home that I was a criminal who had won himself the attention of Interpol.
Early today, I’d paid a couple of truck drivers to take me from France to this country. If they recognised me from a news story, I hoped the money would keep them quiet.
Constance was standing alone, wearing white.
I focused on the people around her. Was anyone watching her? Was anyone alone and loitering?
She walked a short distance then stopped, looking nervous. I scanned the crowd, trying to spot anyone who was specifically turning to keep an eye on her. If anyone was watching her, they were doing a good job of hiding it. Unless they had better binoculars than me.
Putting the binoculars away, I cut through the crowd, ready to run if anyone besides Constance moved towards me.
I walked up on her blind side.
Constance startled when she caught sight of me. As soon as she recognised me, she grabbed me in a hug then shrank back quickly. “I’m sorry, that was probably wrong of me. I’m just so glad to see you.”
“Good to see you, too.”
Her face brightened in relief. “You look different. If I didn’t see your face close up, I wouldn’t have known it was you. Gosh. Here we are. Greece. Crazy, right?”
“Yeah, crazy. I passed the Acropolis on the taxi ride here. It just popped up out of nowhere.”
“I hope you can come back here with your lovely little family one day. Under better circumstances.”
“I didn’t hurt my wife.” The words slipped out unintentionally. The mention of my family released something deep inside. I guessed I needed to speak the words out loud. I loved Evie and the girls. But right now, almost no one knew that but me.
“I know you didn’t hurt her,” she said.
I turned away for a brief moment, trying to cancel everything out—all the noise inside my head and around me. “Constance, I want you to tell me everything your P.I. told you and anything else you know. So that we’re both on the same page. And I’ll tell you what I know.”
She eyed me in surprise, but she nodded. “Let’s go for a walk. And I’ll explain what’s been happening.”
She went over everything in detail. About meeting Rosemary in a café and how she died and their phone conversations. She told me about the bracelet again.
Evie was here. Within reach. I just had to find her.
Constance’s voice turned brittle. “I’ve been trying to do as Rosemary would do. And doing a terrible job at it. I need to get better at it, because my daughter needs me to be. I did manage to follow Wilson Carlisle for a night.”
I whistled, not expecting that. “How did that go?”
“Nerve-wracking, that’s how it went. He . . . mentioned Kara.”
“Hell.”
She sucked her top lip in, nodding and squeezing her eyes shut. “Yep. That was so hard to hear. They’ve definitely got her.”
“And Evie? Did he talk about her?”
“No . . . but he did say they should have made sure the knife and things were found sooner by the police.”
My knees suddenly sagged. I knew they’d done the setup, but to hear it was something else. “You heard him say that?”
“Clearly.”
I shook my head, wondering if Evie and Kara even realised what kind of people they were with. It seemed that they’d gone willingly, although I couldn’t be sure of that. It didn’t always take a weapon to force someone to do something.
“Wait,” I said. “Is that the exact moment you decided it wasn’t me who buried that stuff?” I met her eyes.
Her shoulders hunched a little, and her gaze dropped. “I’m sorry. Yes. Please don’t think bad things of me. This whole thing is just too much to grasp.”