Carter
The milling passengers sweep him along in a noisy commotion of bags and big sun hats and sandals and sunglasses and chatter, and he quickly loses sight of his mother and Gramps.
“I don’t wanna hold your hand. I’m eight now.”
“Then hold on to the baggage cart. We can’t go losing you here. You could get whisked off, and we might never see you again.”
“Like who would take me?”
“I don’t know, Carter—some human traffickers or something,” she snaps. “Just hold on here.”
“You mean like the human smugglers on the boats from Africa? We’ll be pretty close to Africa when we get to Crete, won’t we, Mom? Maybe we’ll see a smuggler boat from Libya trying to get into Greece?”
“Carter, just hold on to the cart.” She’s rummaging in her purse for tickets and passports, and she looks increasingly irritated and hot.
He sobers and grabs hold of the cart handle.
But he does in fact know quite a lot about kidnappers and child traffickers and terrible men who abduct women and children from their beds at night, and who snatch them from neighborhood parks and torture them and do other unspeakably evil things to them.
He knows because his grandfather is Dr. Gideon Marsh, a retired FBI mind hunter—or profiler—from the olden days at Quantico.
He was one of the first ever profilers at the FBI, and now he writes crime books about his work and he’s literally famous for interviewing heaps of the scariest serial killers right inside their cells in the worst prisons in the world.
His grandfather is the reason Carter and his mom are going on the Black Orchid trip.
Gramps was invited as a VIP speaker, and he’ll be giving a series of talks on his books and lifework.
He’s bringing Carter and his mom because he’s allowed two guests and his mom says Gramps is trying to reconnect and spend more time with them.
The thrill of smugglers and serial killers, however, is fleeting, as a pretty woman in a dark-blue dress with her hair scraped back in a bun directs Carter’s party through security.
Once Carter’s group has cleared the checkpoints, another lady in uniform points them toward an escalator under a sign that declares To Ship: Orchid Elites Only, and Carter is back to bouncing on the balls of his sneakers.
He’s going to be sharing a cabin with Gramps while Mom gets the adjoining room all to herself.
Carter will be at liberty to pick his grandfather’s brain about terrible killers the entire trip without his mom hassling him.
It’s wild, really, to think that so many people want to read his grandad’s books about the most evil kinds of men who torture and murder people for fun. They’re bestsellers. They make Gramps tons of money. At least that’s what Carter imagines.
As they head toward the escalator, his imagination tilts into overdrive.
He plans on becoming a famous detective one day.
Like Gramps. With a degree in psychology.
He’s already practicing how to read people’s body language.
He watches people all the time, intently, attempting to judge whether they might be suspicious, or evil.
He even keeps a notebook he has titled List of Suspicious Happenings to Be Investigated by Carter J. Frost.
In the book he lists curious situations he observes throughout his days.
His book and pen are in his yellow backpack right now.
His mom bought the waterproof backpack in San Francisco especially for their trip because they’re going to do some kayaking and will be going to the beach.
And with so many different people on board a big boat like this—well, there are bound to be plenty of curious happenings and suspicious guests to follow around and document.
Maybe he’ll even solve a mystery. Or a real crime. If he can find one.
Carter grabs hold of his granddad’s hand as they step onto the escalator. As his fingers absently explore the knobbly shape of the old profiler’s knuckles, he asks, “What are you going to talk about for your first lecture, Gramps?”
“Carter,” his mother warns from behind them. She doesn’t like it when he starts asking about Granddad’s work. She says it’s macabre—a word his mom, also his homeschool teacher, recently taught him. He pretends not to hear.
“Will it be about Vincent? That bikini-killer guy who you said dug an escape tunnel under the old Greek prison that we toured yesterday?”
His grandfather’s face crumples into a grin as he glances down at Carter. A soft light glimmers deep in his pale-gray eyes.
“Partly, yes. Do you know that it was right here, in the Port of Piraeus, that the Bikini Killer executed one of his most daring escapes ever, after the Greek authorities transferred him from the prison we toured yesterday to an even worse prison on Makronisos Island?”
“You mean the one like Alcatraz?” Carter knows all about Alcatraz. He lives with his mom and dad in San Francisco and has visited the site.
“Sorta. It was once used as a military prison and a ‘reeducation’ camp for left-leaning civilian activists and political dissidents, especially during and after the Greek Civil War. Then it was briefly used for detainees until the early seventies. It was a place of utter dread, infamous for its harsh conditions, torture, and forced confessions.”
“Where the prisoners were locked in stone-walled cells with no activities at all, and couldn’t escape because of the sheer cliffs, and they were surrounded by water? Can we go see it?”
“Possibly,” Gramps says carefully, with a small glance back at his mom. “At least from the deck of the ship. The Black Orchid will sail past the island.”
Carter almost explodes with excitement. “So I guess that’s why giving a talk on the Bikini Killer is a good idea—you can tell everyone in the lecture we’re going right past the island prison that he bust out from.”
“True. And it fits with the whole theme of Greek mythology. Ancient stories claim that the waves smashing against the rocks on that island turned even Odysseus away. Vincent, the Bikini Killer, however, orchestrated an ingenious, almost impossible escape.”
“Will you tell me more about him and all his other escapes later?”
“Of course.”
Carter squeezes his grandfather’s hand tightly, and his chest fills with pride as they step off the top of the escalator. A greeter in a blue uniform points them down the gangway toward the ship entrance, where more smiling crew members await, one with a tablet in her arms.
“Did the Greeks ever recapture him?” Carter can’t help pressing as they head down the gangway, dragging their hand luggage.
“Nope. Not the Greeks.”
“You mean some other detectives—just not the Greeks—put him in prison again?”
“Several times. In other countries.”
“And he escaped them all?”
“Yup. Until . . . one day he didn’t. And he was put away for life. He tempted the Fates one too many times. And the Fates turned on him.” His gramps glances down, smiles. “As the ancient Greeks will tell you, the three Fates do not appreciate hubris.”
“What’s hubris?”
“It’s when you think you’re so special and above it all. You get too cocky. But Vincent was still just a mere mortal.”
“So who was the final detective who got him?”
“A Nepalese cop who never forgot what Vincent did in Kathmandu. Vincent was arrested for the very last time when he—for some reason known only to him—returned to the scene of one of his crimes many years later. He was sentenced to life in Kathmandu for the murders of a Californian woman—Bobby-Jo Hanson—and her boyfriend, Guy DuPont, a Canadian tourist from Manitoba. They were brutally killed by Vincent and his assistant, Sanjay, their bodies hacked and burned and left in a farmer’s field back in 1975. ”
Another quiver of excitement chases through Carter. “Is Vincent still alive?”
“He is.”
“So he never escaped again?”
Something shifts in his grandfather’s demeanor. His crumply face changes. “No,” he says quietly. “He did not.”
It appears his grandfather is going to say something more, but he hesitates, then looks away.
“Welcome aboard the Black Orchid!” the woman with the tablet says cheerily as they reach the ship entrance.
She scans their boarding passes, hands them back.
“Dr. Gideon Marsh, Sarah Frost, we’re so very pleased to have you on board for our inaugural voyage.
” She glances down at Carter. “And you must be Carter?”
He puffs out his chest, still clutching proudly onto Grandfather’s knobbly hand. “Yes, I’m Carter James Frost, and I’m going to be a famous detective someday. Like my granddad.”