Something Wicked by Evelyn Vaughn Page B

luggage carousel and had to wait, worried that someone else would take it, for it to circle back.

    Then came customs, and more guards with machine guns. I got into the blue line marked EU, because it was moving fastest, but a nice lady noticed my United States passport and directed me to the green line. Apparently EU was only for the Europeans.

    The first stamp in my brand-new passport was in Greek.

    Finally I escaped into the arrivals area, with people shouting in all kinds of different languages, and I thought, What the hell am I doing here?

    Which is when someone called, “Katie! Kate Trillo!”

    I turned, and Ben was pushing through the crowd to reach me, and I could have hugged him. I wanted to.

    Except for the looked-like-my-sister’s-murderer thing. Even that didn’t stop the twinge of magical recognition between us before he looked away. “Here, let me take that.”

    I was glad to let him have custody of my suitcase. And me. Traveling with one hand in a cast is a bitch, and at least he seemed to know where he was going.

    He said, “I’ve checked a lot of the major hotels, starting with the kind Vic’s most likely to frequent, but so far no go.”

    “That took you a week?” I asked.

    “Do you know how many hotels there are in Athens?”

    I considered the huge sprawl of city that I’d seen from the air. “Good point.”

    The Athens airport had to be the shiniest airport I’d ever seen, with clean white floors, white walls, white ceilings, high windows, and lots of lights. Our way out was lined with bright shops and Internet kiosks. Not exactly what I’d expected from listening to YaYa’s stories of the old country.

    “They built a new airport for the Olympics,” Ben explained, noticing my distraction. Then, because he was Ben, he had to continue. “They’ve got a new metro system, too, which is incredible—marble floors and walls, escalators, glass displays of museum pieces. But it’s taking a lot longer to finish than they’d hoped. You see, every time they dig, they find urns or graves or temples and have to call in the archaeologists.”

    He’d retreated into lecture mode. Did I make him nervous?

    Anyway, it was mind-boggling, this melding of the supermodern and the superancient. Also mind-boggling? The weather. I’d worn a coat and scarf and mittens to O’Hare when I left…was it only yesterday? The coat was still draped across my bad arm, partly so nobody saw me as weak. But when sliding doors spilled us out into the springlike sunshine, I could tell I wouldn’t need it.

    Definitely not the mittens and the scarf.

    We stood in line for a taxi, and I scanned the crowd. There were a lot more dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned men around here than I was used to, and I hang around Little Italy. Victor would blend in way too well for comfort. I stood closer to Ben. “Have you seen my cousin?”

    “You asked me not to approach her,” Ben reminded me.

    I’d only spoken to Eleni Pappas once, over the phone, to let her know I was coming and beg her to be careful. Luckily, she spoke okay English. “I couldn’t think of any way to describe you without describing Victor. I didn’t want her thinking he’s safe.”

    “I’ve seen her,” Ben admitted. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her when she goes to work and back. I haven’t seen Vic.”

    “But he’s here all the same, isn’t he?” I asked, looking up into the cloudless blue sky. I could sense it.

    “Yeah,” agreed Ben, and then it was our turn for a cab. It smelled of cigarettes. “Yeah, I can feel him.”

    He told the cab driver to take us to an address in “the Plaka,” and for most of the very long drive into central Athens, I stared out the window, still amazed that I was here, wondering what the hell Victor Fisher would want with my cousin.

    A cousin I’d never even met.

    I knew Eleni Pappas was a few years older than Diana. Than Diana had been, I mean. The families kept in touch with Christmas