Hidden Depths(65)

“But it seemed to make sense to maybe just come here ourselves and poke around,” Vanny finished for him.

“My reaction exactly,” Amanda assured Vanny, “when I called Damien and learned the whole story. So here I am.”

Both women looked up at Michael.

As if he was the one who should have a plan.

“Well?” they said in unison.

He shook his head.

* * * * *

Evan steadied the tiller of the boat he’d just bought from an ex-investment banker in the marina—bought,like any other billionaire, instead of made like Evan Reynolds always had in the past. But he was in a hurry. He wanted to see for himself where Athena Stavros—Andrea—had disappeared into the sea. And the five-times premium he’d paid the startled ex-investment banker for the privilege was worth it.

Staring out at the rocky shoreline to Stavros’ compound, he tried to imagine the thoughts of the eighteen-year-old girl who had walked into the sea. Tried to imagine the thoughts of that girl right now.

And while he was at it, maybe figure out where the hell she was.

A crack of thunder was his only answer and he glanced up at the darkening sky. The sun-kissed blue had turned to gray verging on black. As an experienced sailor, he should have taken note of the conditions before heading out, but he could think of nothing but the police captain’s revelations.

The body they had found had not been Athena’s.

He looked toward the shore, almost too distant to see. He was a good swimmer and could swim that distance easily. But then he looked out to the churning ocean in the other direction.

But swim to where? There was no boat here the day Athena Stavros disappeared into the sea.

Or was there?

The rain began as a thin, cold stream that Evan just absorbed, barely registering the damp turning his windbreaker and then his T-shirt and shorts to soaking. Eyes fixed on the shoreline, deviating only to check out the waves behind him every once in a while, he stood stock still in the storm—his sea legs second nature to him as the boat rocked this way and that—as if somehow by standing there he was accomplishing something that would bring that long-ago girl, his girl, back to him.

He would kill Fredrico Stavros. He would. There were ways. Hadn’t some part of him always despised the money and the power he’d been born into because he knew instinctively there were ways? Ways to get around every rule made for other people. Even the biggest one.

And if he didn’t get around it—if he ended up in some Greek prison—so be it. It wouldn’t matter. At least Fredrico Stavros would be dead for what he’d done to Andrea.

A jagged shard of lightning brought a figure up from the roiling waves at the back of the boat and with a deft leap, the sea creature landed on the deck, water streaming from her sleek black swimsuit and long wet hair as she came to her feet, breathing heavily.

Evan jumped back a foot from the apparition, startled. He couldn’t help it. His heart jarred out of his chest as well as he recognized who had just climbed onto his deck. But the heart pounding wasn’t out of fear.

More like disbelief in equal measures with elation.

Jesus. It was her. As if she was some kind of siren and his engrossed thoughts had called her to him.

Oh no, with sirens it was the other way around. They called to you.

But shit. She was here.

The rain was so loud now the sound resembled hail on the hard wooden deck as the two soaked figures stared at each other, visible in the faint illumination of the automatic lights that the investment banker’s toy sported and that had gone on in response to the darkening storm.

“Do you get some kind of a charge out of showing up in the middle of storms and freaking the shit out of me?” he finally called to her over the sound of the rain.

She shook her head.

“Ever think of using a boat or do you just swim everywhere?”

“I didn’t want anyone to see me. You’re awfully close to his compound.” She didn’t need to specify who “his” was. “Why can’t you just stay out of all this, Evan?”

“All what? Your life? No fucking way.”

“He’s a dangerous man.”

“And yet you came right back here when you discovered I was talking to him, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

“Why? I thought your thing was running away.”

“I can’t let you get mixed up in this.”

“Remember, I told you once already. Too late.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, drenched body to drenched body, the cold no match for the heat of what they felt for each other, the swaying of the deck no match for the grounding they experienced in each other’s arms.

“How could you leave me like that?” he asked, directly in her ear. “Without a word? You promised.”