The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(14)
“I see this call was a mistake,” she said.
“Where is your sense of adventure?”
“It evaporated with my sense of humor. What’s ironic?”
“Christos being kidnapped when his daughter is one of the top K&R experts in the world. Our families have known each other for many years. Thea Paris. Former DIA with a master’s in international relations. Speaks seven languages. Known as Liberata, since a case in Sicily, when she freed a hostage from a mafia kingpin without paying a cent. No one knows how she did it.”
Right, Thea Paris. She hadn’t connected father and daughter.
“Also, Paris’s son was kidnapped years ago, when the boy was twelve. Some families are just jinxed, I guess.”
“The son came home?”
“After nine months of captivity in the bowels of Kanzi.”
Where Christos was trying to close the biggest deal of his career.
“Can you nose around; see what you can find out? My facts are unconfirmed; my source is sketchy. While you investigate, I’ll be on the next plane to Athens.”
“‘Sketchy source’? Come now. Smoke and mirrors are not necessary if you want to see me, Gabrielle.”
“Focus on the kidnapping. Not everything’s about you.”
“That is where you are wrong. You could have called another contact in Greece, but you dialed my number.”
“Because you’re good at your job, or you used to be,” she said.
“And good in bed.”
“Don’t make me regret calling.”
He laughed. “Pack your red dress. See you soon.”
She hung up. Max was the one guy she might’ve considered sharing a second night with—but she wasn’t a relationship kind of girl. The firing range provided all the therapy she needed. Besides, getting close to someone meant risking her heart. She’d had enough grief with her parents’ deaths and her sister’s illness.
Family. Just the thought made her ache for her parents. Four years ago, they’d headed back to Lebanon for a holiday that had turned into a deadly nightmare. She still wasn’t satisfied she had the full story of what’d happened, but she’d hit a brick wall when she tried to investigate further. Now the Paris family needed help.
If Christos had been snatched, this could turn out to be the case of the century, and the job would require all her attention. Time to have her team create a detailed dossier on Paris and his family. She slung her rifle case over her shoulder and headed for her battered BMW.
Chapter Seven
Thea brushed her long, dark hair, applied lip gloss, and slid into the black Anne Fontaine dress she’d picked out for her father’s name-day celebration. Her mind whirled with the pretense she was about to play out. She’d booked a suite in the hotel directly across from the party location, thinking that she’d surprise her father with a post-bash soirée of his closest friends. But circumstances had changed. Now she had to address the party goers, manufacture an explanation for the guest-of-honor’s absence, and use the time to scan all the faces in the crowd.
One of them could be behind Christos’s disappearance.
She gave Aegis a big hug and a treat—he had been out of sorts since that morning, in tune with her mood. He also missed Papa. “We’ll find him—don’t worry.”
After spraying herself in a mist of Creed perfume, she slipped on her Louboutins, wishing she could erase the last thirteen hours. Hakan’s arrival, the debriefing, searching for witnesses—it was all a blur as they followed protocol, using routine to tamp down the panic bubbling under the surface. The golden window only stayed open so long: the first twenty-four hours were a critical period in any kidnapping, and they had so little to go on.
A quick check of her blood sugar, and she exited the hotel, traversing the courtyard to the Sphinx, the restaurant she’d booked for the party. Its view overlooking Santorini’s stunning caldera was unforgettable. The tiny pinpoints of light on the cliffside worked with the stars to brighten the night sky. She wondered if her father could see the stars wherever he was.
Her stomach churned at the memory of the carnage aboard the Aphrodite, the crew’s bodies lined up in a ghastly row. She’d make sure their families were taken care of financially, but no amount of money could ever be commensurate with their grief. As she well knew. All her father’s considerable wealth hadn’t done a thing to soften the blow of losing her own mother years ago. The death had left a gaping hole in their family that could never be filled.
After a thorough search of the yacht, she and Hakan had navigated the Aphrodite back to Santorini, towing the Donzi. Hakan had told Christos’s trusted police contact Max Heros about the yacht, the bodies, and the bloodstain on the helipad. They had no idea who had taken Christos or why. Until they better understood the situation, containment was key, and Max was keeping the information on the down-low. Working openly with the authorities had never been her boss’s modus operandi, and in this case she was willing to follow his lead.
Especially given the strange Latin text message that had been sent to her father’s cell. She had eventually translated it: Often it is not even advantageous to know what will be. A quote from Cicero, it offered no clues, just a dark omen. She kept rereading the message, desperate for a lead. Although kidnappers usually transported their hostages to a safe house before calling in a ransom demand, this felt different. This felt as if they were being taunted.