Chapter Forty-Two
Forty-two
It was a clean break.
Martyn sat in mutinous silence as the doctor patiently took him and Skye through a series of X-rays, explaining that the ankle would need to be put in a cast and that crutches would be provided. His head injury was superficial, although a concussion had not been ruled out.
“If you take him home, you must watch him closely,” the doctor told Skye. “Any dizziness or nausea, the room starting to spin, anything like this, then you must quickly return.”
“Entáxei,” she murmured, the Greek coming through naturally. “I mean sure, yes, of course.”
Andreas made a small noise of appreciation from the corner of the room. He had insisted on accompanying them and ignored Martyn’s terse mutter of “For God’s sake” that had followed.
The medical center was crowded with the walking wounded. Rather than being allowed to wait in the examination room, Skye and the two men were ushered back to the small waiting area, Martyn thoroughly disgruntled to be pushed there in a wheelchair.
“They are saying that the earthquake measured over five points on the Richter scale,” Andreas said. He was staring down at his phone, brow furrowed. “There have been some landslides on the north side of the island, a few buildings damaged around the port.”
“Not your house?” Skye checked. He smiled briefly.
“éla, no. That one, I reinforced myself.”
Martyn said nothing, merely continued to scowl into the middle distance.
Skye studied his profile. So much about him was familiar, and yet she didn’t know the man beside her, had never really known him at all.
The version he’d charmed her with was not the same one she’d married nor the monster that man had swiftly become.
Martyn’s crow’s-feet had deepened, and there was more salt than pepper in his dark hair.
She had teasingly asked him once if he dyed it and been met with a stony silence.
“I wouldn’t care if you did,” she’d said, hurrying to repair the damage. “I quite like gray hair on men. In fact—”
“I’d quit while you’re ahead, if I were you,” he’d snapped, the meanness in his tone coming as a shock. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then it’s better to say nothing at all?”
She hadn’t meant to offend him and meekly told him so, but Martyn had taken her remark and stewed on it, bringing it up time and time again.
It came to a point where Skye herself began to second-guess her recollection of the conversation.
Had she deliberately set out to goad him?
Was she really as bad a person as he claimed?
“How long does it take to get a goddamn cast done?” Martyn said, addressing no one in particular.
Skye went to reply, only to think better of it, though Andreas had no such restraint.
“There has been an earthquake,” he said. “There are many people injured, and this is not a hospital. We are on a small island, and the resources we have here are limited. Everybody must wait their turn.”
Martyn’s neck flushed puce, his lips twitching with what Skye recognized as fury.
“This is going to put me out of action for weeks,” he complained. “Perhaps even months. I have a full roster of flights booked. I can’t very well honor those now, can I?”
Andreas exhaled long enough to count to ten.
“Can I perhaps make an observation?” he said, crossing his legs at the ankles.
He was in his thick-soled boots, the laces knotted tight around the bottoms of his coveralls.
“It appears to me that you are not a man who has been told no very much in your life. This is not a good thing. We cannot always have what we want exactly when we want it. A good man, a patient man,” he went on, “understands this and does not blame other people.”
“I think in this case,” Martyn replied cuttingly, “the blame can be fairly laid at Skye’s feet.”
“You think so?” Andreas scratched behind his ear.
“The only reason I’m on this provincial lump of an island is to collect what is rightfully mine.
” Martyn’s attention switched to Skye, who shifted in the hard plastic seat.
An elderly man with a nasty gash on his cheek limped in and made his way to the reception desk, a teenage girl hurrying after him.
“éla re, koúkla,” she heard him say to the girl as she fussed around him. “Eímai entáxei.”
Skye’s father had fallen a few times in the months leading up to his death, the worst incident resulting in a trip to the emergency room.
Ten stitches and a strict warning from the doctor not to drink so excessively.
It was a plea echoed by Skye, which had been roundly ignored.
She should have intervened, done more, moved back in with her parents if necessary—though she hadn’t.
Work had been time-consuming, her life a merry-go-round of chores, admin, and snatches of respite time.
It had all felt vital then, but nothing should’ve mattered more than her father.
When the phone had rung on that awful day and she’d seen her mother’s name on the screen, Skye had known. She’d just known.
Andreas leaned forward. His expression had hardened. Martyn was the taller of the two, though her Greek friend was heavier, broader, stronger.
“A person cannot belong to another,” he said.
Martyn scoffed.
“Who said I’m here for her?”
Skye sat up a fraction higher.
“For God’s sake,” she interrupted.
Martyn turned to her. He looked almost bored, as if he hadn’t spent the past few weeks sending threatening emails, stalking her best friend at her place of work, and wheedling his way into her mother’s sympathies. Of course he was here for her.
“What?” Martyn asked. “It’s the truth. I don’t want you. As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to wish we’d never met.”
Skye let out a short, broken laugh.
“I can assure you that the feeling is one hundred percent mutual,” she said.
“However,” Martyn said acidly, deflating the small bubble of triumph that had bloomed within Skye, “the truth is, you have something of mine, and I would like it back.”
She looked away, stared hard at the opposite wall, with its posters showing various skin rashes and instructional diagrams for washing your hands. The Greek letters swam as she fought the tremble in her bottom lip. From beside her, she heard Martyn emit a small huff.
“When you chose to steal from me, you really left me with no choice,” he said.
Andreas’s phone began to ring, and he stood with it in his hand, seemingly torn.
“It’s OK,” Skye told him. “You should answer it.”
Andreas tapped the screen, and bringing the phone to his ear, he said, “Nai. Perímene.”
“Go,” she said. “It’s fine, honestly.”
His eyes flicked back to hers.
“I will be outside,” he said. Then, turning to Martyn: “I will stay close—and do not worry,” he added with a look at Skye, “I know that he is lying. éla, you are not a thief.”
He’d gone before she could muster a reply, though what could she say? On this occasion, Martyn was telling the truth. She had stolen from him, there was no point in denying it anymore.
“Mr. Lockhart?” A nurse had appeared in the doorway that led through to the examination rooms. When she saw that Martyn was in a wheelchair, she came toward them.
Skye didn’t wait. She fled, out through the door and into the street beyond, her heart a frantic drum, the heat slamming into her like a wall.
Andreas was a few feet away. She could tell at once that something was seriously wrong. His eyes were fixed, features pinched, lips pulled into a tight line.
“What’s happened?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”
Andreas blinked, as if he barely recognized her, and then his face crumpled.
“Karolos,” he said, sounding so wretched that Skye stepped back.
“Your neighbor?” she said. “The old man with the dog?”
He nodded once, teeth biting down hard on his lip.
“His house,” he began, swearing as a tear slid across his cheek. Skye felt his torment as keenly as if it had been her own, though there was little she could do other than be there, stand with him while he struggled to make sense of this new, unfathomable tragedy.
“I knew it was no longer safe,” he said, his voice low and urgent, the words infused with grief. “I should have insisted that he let me do the work.”
“Did he?” Skye began. “Did the earthquake…?”
Andreas swallowed. A second tear chased after the first.
“Nai,” he said simply, sadly. “Karolos was inside when it happened.” His eyes met Skye’s. “He is dead.”