“What does that mean?”
“Let sleeping dogs lie, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Like hell,” he muttered.
* * * * *
“Why do you have an apartment in Greece, Michael, if you’ve never been here?”
“I didn’t say I’d never been here, Vanny. I said I hadn’t been here in a long time.”
“Since before Miss Prentiss, I bet.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I think you’re right about that.”
“And she always traveled with you, which means she didn’t want to come to Greece.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to either really. So what exactly are we doing here now?”
“I told you. Scouting out a possible wedding venue.”
“Yes, that’s what you told me. But what are we really doing here? Following Evan? Or following Andrea? Because if we think we’re following Andrea, then we’d be on a wild goose chase,” he said gently. “Just like Evan.”
Vanny shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think Evan was telling us everything he knows about what happened to her.”
“I still think we should have gone with my original idea of just sending some security to go with Evan for his interview with Stavros.”
“Don’t be silly! You don’t want to give Evan the impression he’s being followed.”
“Which he is, right? Just to be clear.”
The doorbell to the penthouse rang and they traded looks of confusion, Michael’s leavened by slight disapproval.
“You don’t like it when people come to the door, do you, Michael?”
“No, for one thing because they’re not supposed to be allowed to just come up. That’s what doormen were invented for.”
He went to the door and opened it. “Oh.” He leaned forward and kissed the woman at the door on the cheek lightly, ushering her in. “What are you doing here?”
Vanny came forward eagerly. “Amanda!”
Vanny was exceedingly interested in all things Reynolds family focused, his father’s ex-wives among them, so she’d met them all by now and was busy becoming fast friends with each and every one of them. She was determined to make the Reynolds clan into the Brady Bunch if it was the last thing she did. Well, more power to her. Personally, Michael thought his fiancée had her work cut out for her on that front.
“Fancy meeting you here! You look fabulous as ever!”
Evan’s mother smiled at Vanny and even spared a less harsh glance than usual her ex-stepson’s way. “You too, my dear. But when am I going to be able to wear the perfectly spectacular peach outfit I bought for your wedding, by the way? Or are you just torturing this poor man by putting the ceremony off all these months like this?”
Vanny laughed. “As if! I’m having to drag him to the altar and he just weighs a little more than I thought. It’s taking me longer.”
Michael shook his head in disgust, muttering, “I’d marry her at city hall if she’d let me, as she well knows.”
“As everybody well knows, Michael,” Amanda added wryly.
“But what the hell are you doing here, Amanda?” Michael asked. “How did you even know we were here?”
“Your father, of course. We’re both worried about Evan.”
“Join the club,” Vanny said.
“And you came all the way to Greece because you learned he was here? That seems excessive.”
“He’s my son, Michael,” she snapped, ever mindful that her ex-husband had never let her forget he wasn’t. “A mother cares about her son.”
“Of course,” Vanny soothed.
“I just don’t know what you can do here. Hell, I don’t know what we can do. I don’t even know what we’re doing here,” he noted as an aside to Vanny as she showed Amanda to one of the sofas in front of the stunning view of the Aegean.
“I’ve been trying to catch up to Evan for days,” Amanda explained to Vanny. “I went out to Maine and couldn’t seem to connect and then, well, I admit my focus wandered for a day or two—there was this scrumptious grocer gentleman—and when I looked back, I found my son was interviewing some Greek thug in the local jail and was involved in some altercation. And then off to Greece!”
“It all seems to be connected,” Vanny admitted. “Evan came to see Michael about setting up an interview with this Fredrico Stavros character and then—”
“Then Dad got a call from the Maine attorney general, an old friend—”
“Of course,” Vanny said snidely.
“Telling him about this business in the jail. In light of that, I was of the opinion that we should have sent some security for Evan’s interview with Stavros—”