"Alcina, I didn't know you were here."

"It's my job to be here." She showed no guilt and made no attempt to hide the pipe.

The moon cast light enough to see and Dinah turned off the flashlight. She couldn't think of anything to say. Too bad your husband was arrested for murder would have been gratuitous and insensitive and Please smoke your pot somewhere else would have been rude and contentious. Maybe it was legal. Anyhow, the woman probably needed a hit of something soothing. Finally, she said, "I thought I sme...heard intruders."

"You're wrong if you think Yannis killed that man."

"I'm sure the police will do a gunshot residue test."

Alcina tugged at the cross on her breast. "Yannis is innocent." She seemed unfazed by the pot. Her words were clear and her voice emphatic. Disbelief, denial, loyalty-it was no surprise that she would defend her husband. But was her certainty based on something other than instinct? Some verifiable fact?

"Did you speak with him when he came home for dinner?"

"Tending this house is my job. I stay here. Yannis stays at the farmhouse. He cooks his own meals."

Thor had told Dinah that the combination bedroom-sitting room off the kitchen on the first floor was Alcina's private domain, but she'd thought it was just for rest breaks during the day. "Did Yannis telephone and tell you what he and the dead man argued about?"

"No phone calls."

Dinah's internal alert center lit up. Thor had phoned. He said Alcina hadn't answered. "Maybe there was a call and you didn't hear the phone ring."

"No calls."

Dinah didn't dwell on the discrepancy. "Do you...did you know this Fathi fellow?"

"Boatloads of his kind, Iraqis and Kurds and Afghans. Thieves, criminals, vipers. The Turks don't stop them. They're glad to get rid of them. Most end up in the migrant detention center in Samos Town."

"But not Fathi?"

"He talked his way out."

To do that, Dinah guessed he would have to have a job or a sponsor. "Did Fathi work for Zenia Stephanadis, too?"

Alcina flipped open a Zippo. In the flare, her face loomed out of the shadows like a Gorgon. If looks could turn a person to stone, thought Dinah, Alcina's could. She relit her pipe and the Zippo spanked shut. A plume of smoke rose over her head. A minute went by and Dinah inferred that she would not be commenting on Fathi's employment or volunteer any additional information. His death didn't seem to bother her so long as Yannis escaped punishment. Presumably, Yannis shared his wife's dislike of foreigners. What happened was probably one of those senseless, but all too common explosions of violence fueled by prejudice, alcohol, and testosterone.

There was nothing else to say and Dinah turned to go back inside.

"Your gkomenos has a gun."

"What?"

"Your boyfriend. He has a gun."

The remark blindsided Dinah. Why would Thor bring a gun with him to Greece? Norwegian policemen didn't carry guns when they were on duty at home unless there was a crisis. Oh, no! Had it been stolen? Was Thor's gun the one that Yannis used to shoot Fathi? Was that the reason Thor had been so distant and uncommunicative after returning from his ride with the police? If his gun had been used in the commission of a crime, he could be prosecuted by the Greek authorities. More importantly, he would never forgive himself. Panicky, she about-faced, ran down the hall, and took the stairs two at a time.

He was still sleeping. She brought herself up short. Would a man who'd lost his gun sleep that soundly? If he had a gun, it must still be here. Where had Alcina come across it? Was she hinting that someone other than Yannis had broken into the house and swiped it? I should have grilled her. I shouldn't have let her make such an insinuation without demanding to know exactly what it was that she was insinuating.

"Thor? Thor, wake up." She turned on the overhead light. "We need to talk."

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Is there a gun in the house?"

He hesitated. "My service pistol."

So it was true. "Show me."

He opened his bedside table drawer, pulled out a sleek black pistol, and pointed it toward the floor. "Why so surprised? I'm a cop."

"A cop on holiday. Has the gun been fired?"

"You mean recently?"

"Of course I mean recently."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

He aimed it toward the window, examined the barrel, and removed the clip. "It's clean and fully loaded."

She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Why? Why do you have a gun in Greece?"

"For protection. Southern Europe isn't like Norway. Norway isn't like Norway anymore. Violent crime is on the increase and there are foreign criminal networks moving into Norwegian cities."

"But you told me yourself that Norwegian policemen don't carry guns, not loaded ones anyway. Not unless they're going to meet a polar bear. You didn't change your no-guns policy even after the massacre on Utoya two years ago."

"Yes, and plenty of us think that's a mistake. The Utoya fiasco would never have happened in the U.S. If Norwegian cops had carried guns, half of those kids would've been saved. We looked worse than The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight. We couldn't shoot at all. We weren't even competent enough to get a damned helicopter off the ground because the regular crew was on holiday. The SWAT team had to take a boat to the island and the first boat sank under the excess weight of their equipment. All the while that monster continued to pick off children one by one." He raked a hand through his hair and curbed his anger. "The point is, I have the gun because there's lots of crime in Greece, especially in the cities."

The shootings of sixty-nine teenagers by a right-wing, anti-immigrant zealot in 2011 had jolted Norwegians to the core and she could understand Thor's determination not to be caught defenseless in the future. But gun violence had already disrupted their holiday and the knowledge that he was packing heat other than the romantic sort, unnerved her. She said, "Kanaris isn't a city."

"I was in Athens for a week before you arrived. Athens has crime." He put the gun back in the drawer. "There's plenty of serious crime. Greece is a gateway for human trafficking into Europe. Thousands of women and young girls are forced into the sex industry here. There's narcotics, weapons, organized crime. And theft is on the rise everywhere."

"At the moment, theft is the only crime that worries me. Alcina knows about the gun. She could have told anyone where it is and let him walk out the door with it. Yannis or whoever could have used it to murder the Iraqi and put it back without you ever knowing."

"You ever consider a career in law enforcement?"

She scowled.

"It's a joke, Dinah. A quote from my favorite TV show. Crocket used to say that to Tubbs all the time."

"You're pretty glib for someone just roused from a deep sleep."

"I'm not used to waking up to the third degree. I don't know when Alcina caught sight of my gun, but nobody has touched it but me. Look, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll carry it in my coat pocket and sleep with it under my pillow."

"Oh, for crying out loud."

"I know you're upset, Dinah. Seeing a dead man would upset anyone. But I have a permit to carry and I'm a trained marksman."

She still felt uneasy. "Who did you phone when I went to fetch Brakus?"

"Alcina."

"She says she didn't receive any calls."

"Which one of us do you believe?"

"You, I guess."

"You guess?"

"You, completely and conclusively. But don't you dare put that blaster under your pillow."

His face broke into a smile. "Come back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."

She unhitched the belt of her robe and took a step, but his smile waned.

He wrinkled his nose. "I smell marijuana."

"Alcina's smoking a weed pipe on the veranda."

"And you said theft was the only crime I should worry about. I'd better go speak with her. We can't afford to draw more unfavorable attention to Zenia's house." He swung out of bed and went to get his robe out of the closet.

She couldn't suppress a frisson of desire as he walked across the room. He looked like a Greek god in the nude, an absolute Adonis. A shadow of superstitious fear crossed her mind. Adonis was another of Artemis' victims. She sent a wild boar to gore him to death.

Thor marched off downstairs and Dinah returned to the window. The moon had slipped out of sight like a guilty thing, but the sky was riddled with stars. She knew nothing about astronomy except that the names of the constellations had originated with the ancient Greeks. Orion was one of them. Even she recognized the three stars known as Orion's belt. She scanned the heavens looking for them, but evidently Orion wasn't visible at this time of year. She turned her head this way and that to see if she could make out Aries and the ram of the Golden Fleece or Aquarius and the image of the shepherd boy who carried cups of water and nectar to the gods. But the Greeks' ability to connect the dots and visualize rams and water carriers was greater than hers.

She tried to eavesdrop on the conversation between Thor and Alcina, but the tree frogs were too loud. Zenia Stephanadis' ear trumpet would have come in handy. She had an urge to meet Zenia and see for herself the woman who seemed to perturb everyone. Maybe after K.D. had been packed off to Atlanta, she would dream up an excuse to pay the old lady a visit. If she was going to remain on Samos, she might as well satisfy her curiosity about the Stephanadis sisters while one of them was still alive to tell.

Thor tromped back into the room, shucked off his robe, and fell back across the bed like a toppled statue. "This place is like your American Wild West. The hell with law and order. Everybody's an anarchist."

Dinah laughed. Why had she been so panicky? The Greek gods were messing with her head. The god Pan had stampeded her with an irrational fear and the goddess Psyche had psyched her out with ridiculous doubts. What was clear beyond a doubt, the real-life man in front of her needed comforting. She turned off the light and went back to bed.

Day 2.

Chapter Six.

Except for the marble floors, the interior of the Samos International Airport reminded Dinah of the Greyhound Bus Station in Needmore, Georgia. She sat in the sunny waiting area dreading the arrival of Olympic Air Flight 752 from Athens. It had been due at 10:50, but it was already a half hour late and the longer she waited, the antsier she became. Thor had dropped her off at ten to give her time to rent a car and organize her thoughts. It was now 11:30 and her thoughts remained as hectic and muddled as they'd been last night, and any minute now she'd have the added headache of a teenage desperado on the lam from a burglary rap.

Flight 752 was the logical connection with the flight arriving in Athens from Atlanta, but what if K.D. hadn't taken it? What if she'd defied her mother's instructions and hared off into the center of Athens? Dinah had seen K.D. operate. She'd inherited her mother's good looks and her father's aptitude for chicanery. Left to her own devices, she could wreak havoc.

A crowd of arrivals from another flight filed past, donning their sunglasses and yakking into their cell phones. Dinah checked her watch and fingered the phone in her pocket. At what point should she call Neesha and report the girl a no show? She kneaded her forehead. The fun was leaking out of her summer plans from a dozen different holes. She got up and paced. If the kid took a detour into Athens, I suppose I'll be obliged to chase her down and retrieve her. What a pain. It will be an even bigger pain if she shows up on Samos and refuses to leave. What then? Even if she acknowledges she did wrong and feels genuinely bad about it, what are the odds I can persuade her to go home and face the music? I wonder if I could petition the Greek authorities to round her up and ship her home? In leg irons, if necessary.

At 11:45, a voice announced the arrival of Flight 752. Dinah coached herself. Be sympathetic, but firm. Don't try to bully her or she'll park herself on Samos just to spite you. And don't, don't, don't let her wheedle a few extra days out of you. Was there a plausible threat or a bribe that would appeal to the girl's self-interest? Two years ago, she'd wanted to be a great writer. Maybe there was a school somewhere or a program or a mad professor in a distant land willing to tutor a fugitive wannabe author.

Dinah hadn't smoked a cigarette since last New Year's Eve, but she was beset by an almost unbearable craving. Did she have time to go to the snack shop and...?

"Aunt Dinah!" Dragging a large Louis Vuitton roller bag behind her, K.D. parted a sea of tourists and swooped toward her. She wore lime green harem pants that swished and billowed, an electric pink camp shirt, a pink visor, and red, heart-shaped sunglasses. She'd grown another few inches, to maybe five-ten or -eleven, and her long, straight hair had gone from sandy blond to auburn. The only thing that hadn't changed was her expression of smug entitlement. She enfolded Dinah in a suffocating embrace. "You are a perfect saint to give me asylum."

Dinah extricated herself and eked out a tight smile. "Hello, K.D. Or is it Katherine nowadays?"

"While I'm in Greece, I think I shall answer to Katarina." A gangling boy in a T-shirt that read "Raining Pleasure" rubbernecked as he walked past and she took off her glasses and gave him a flirty half smile. She held one arm of her glasses between her little white teeth and searched the crowd. "Where's your boyfriend?" Her drawl had thickened, along with her mascara, and if she still grieved for her father, she gave no outward sign of it.

"What makes you think I have a boyfriend?"

"Lucien told my mother you'd come to Greece to rendezvous. Is this one a policeman like the one you had when you lived in Seattle or an egghead like the last one in Hawaii?"

Dinah made a mental note to kill her blabbermouth brother. "I assume you didn't check any luggage."

"This is all I have in the whole, wide world." She essayed a rueful smile.

"It looks like a lot. I'm surprised the airline didn't make you check it."

"I slipped one of the flight attendants twenty American dollars."

"Terrific. Let's go." Dinah steamed off toward the parking lot and her canary yellow Kia Picanto rental. Princess Katarina and her Louis Vuitton trundled along in her wake. Dinah trained her eyes straight ahead, hoping that it was only the princess' bright colors that turned so many heads. For all she knew, K.D. was snatching purses as she went.

When they got to the car, Dinah popped the trunk, hoisted Louis inside, and took her place behind the wheel.

"It's simply too glorious!" K.D. stood beside the car and raised her arms heavenward. "I can't believe I'm really in Greece."

"I can't either." Dinah fastened her seat belt and rethought the wisdom of not bullying. "Get in, K.D."

"This is so exciting!" The girl gave a little squeal and folded her long legs into the Picanto.

Dinah turned the key, jerked the car into gear, and lurched out of the lot. Leaving the airport, she drove east along the coast road toward Pythagorio, named for Samos' native son, Pythagoras. Geometry hadn't been one of Dinah's best subjects in school, but she'd memorized the Pythagorean theorem for the sheer deliciousness of the word "hypotenuse." She had read in her Samos guide book that Pythagoras was deemed the first communist, although his notions of equality were limited to his upper-crust friends and disciples. Nevertheless, he taught that money and property should be held for the common good.

She drove for about three miles, passing a ritzy resort hotel that looked wonderful, but well outside her budget. She should have reserved a hotel yesterday when her mind was clear and her temper was cool. Although in retrospect, neither of those conditions had actually applied.

Broken pieces of marble columns-Corinthian, Ionian, Doric-littered the sides of the road and ruined arches and agoras stood in the weedy spaces between the hotels and businesses. The modern town, and probably the airport runway, had been built on top of one of the oldest port cities in the world. It was an archaeological atrocity. Mentor's resentment of the British notwithstanding, anyone who cared about the grandeur that was Greece would be appalled by such casual destruction.

Traffic ground to a stop as they entered the main part of the village and she began to worry about finding a room. She inched along, immune to the kitschy charm of the cafes and shops, and irritated on many fronts. "Tell me about this trouble you're in, K.D. You burglarized somebody's house?"

"It's been blown all out of proportion, Aunt Dinah. It's really only a misunderstanding."

Dinah wasn't her aunt and she didn't regard this new form of address as an honor. "Help me to understand. Did you not do it? Were you falsely accused?"

"My friend Fiona and her parents go to dinner, okay? So Fiona leaves the back door unlocked for me and I sneak into her house to get the vibrator she's ordered for me off the Internet. I hang around for a few minutes to look at her new posters of Zac Efron and Kevin Zegers, and everybody comes home early and her father goes, 'Hey! She's stealing Fiona's curling iron.' I mean, I'm hiding it behind my back and he sees it for just a second, but curling iron?" She gave a derisive little hoot. "And Fiona totally freaks because she doesn't want her folks to know that it's a vibrator and think that it's hers and she just starts screaming and I run out and her parents call the police."

Dinah wasn't so much surprised by K.D.'s interest in sex toys as by the change in her vernacular. When last they'd met, K.D. had flaunted her precociousness, sneering at cliches and salting her conversation with literary jawbreakers like verisimilitude and denouement. Having lost her own father at a young age, Dinah knew what it was like to go through a stage of rebellion and acting out. But she had a particular aversion to being lied to and the story K.D. had just told was seriously lacking in verisimilitude. "If that's all there was to it, the police would have dropped the case as soon as they talked to Fiona. Did you take something else?"