Chapter Four #2
“At least the British Museum isn’t in hiding,” Theo retorted.
“You say that as if that’s somehow better,” Pierre said with an air of superiority.
He had a point.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were dead,” Theo said to Pierre.
“Funny. I believe that many say the same about you.”
“Yeah, except I’m sure you’re the one responsible for people thinking I’m a goner. What about you? Rumor was that you’d died in the after that blown Moon City expedition.”
Oh my God, he’s THAT guy?
Dani remembered reading about that expedition in the news over a year ago.
An expedition to a real lost city ending in deception and a scuffle in the rainforest. She wouldn’t haven’t been able to recall his name had she been asked earlier, but now that she heard it, yes, he was the man behind the whole thing.
And the subject of an international manhunt thereafter.
Holy shit. This was wild!
Dani watched with fascination. Theo, Eddie, and Dani had had some fun adventures back in the day, but this was next level.
She could picture their families together at the dining table, with everyone in stitches when they recounted the story of when they were on a school field trip to Chicago and somehow ended up in Milwaukee on their way home rather than Grand Rapids.
Or the time they went on a kayaking trip and Eddie lost his bag so by the time they made it home, his chones were threadbare. How would they ever top this one?
If they got out of it, that was.
“Ah, yes. The Cidade da Lua,” Pierre said.
“One thing I’ve learned in all my years in this business is to never trust anyone and to always, and I mean always, have a plan B.
I always plan for contingencies. Fortunately for me, I had a team waiting for me in Caracaraí who’d come to find me after I’d escaped. ”
“You mean, after you scurried away like a rat,” Theo said, pointedly.
Pierre rolled his eyes. “What did you expect me to do? Let those glorified Amazonian equivalents of grail protectors lock me in jail? I don’t think so, Dr. Galanis,” he said, wagging his finger and shaking his head.
“I’m not finished with my world travels.
Besides, this is much better than a Brazilian prison cell, don’t you think?
” he said, holding his hands up and displaying his surroundings.
Dani scanned the luxurious estate that looked straight out of a Restoration Hardware Modern catalog. Yeah…she may not have known anything about jail, but this place was definitely better.
Pierre looked up toward the house and smiled as Maurice approached.
“Ah, Maurice. Thank you,” he said reaching his arms up to take the bottle as Maurice set down three champagne flutes on the concrete coffee table.
Pierre popped the cork and filled their glasses moments before Louis returned with a tray of olives, dried fruits, cheeses, meats, and bread. Dani’s mouth watered. Their kidnapping had put a damper on her lunch plans.
“Eat. It’s not poisoned, I promise,” Pierre said, motioning toward her.
“You first,” Dani said.
Pierre’s lips turned into a devilish grin, as if she amused him. He leaned forward, taking a few grapes and a handful of nuts, before popping them in his mouth and raising his eyebrow. “See, madame? Now please. Eat.” He gestured toward the food again.
Good enough for me. She was never one to pass up good food.
Dani scooted forward and knelt at the coffee table, then dug in. Her first bite—pita dipped in some sort of eggplant mixture—made her groan with pleasure. She closed her eyes, savoring the flavors dancing along her taste buds. My God, the food here…
Dani opened her eyes to Theo and Pierre watching her, and she swallowed. “Did I say that out loud?” she mumbled, holding her hand over her mouth as she ran her tongue along her teeth to catch any bits stuck in between them.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Pierre said with a suaveness that shouldn’t have been so charming for someone who had taken them as prisoner. “I agree—the food here is unmatched.”
Dani glanced at an expressionless Theo—what was he thinking?—before returning to the snacks.
“Well, now that we got who I am out of the way,” Pierre started again, “I must tell you how excited I am to finally meet you. I’ve been following your career for quite some time.”
“Me? Really?” Dani said, looking up and pointing her finger at her chest. “How do you know who I am?”
“Pretty sure he’s talking about me, Juicy,” Theo interrupted.
Dani snapped her mouth shut. Oh. Heat rose from her stomach, up through her chest and neck, and eventually stopped at her cheeks. Of course he wouldn’t know some random public librarian from Michigan. Though she wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed by what this crook thought of her.
Or maybe it was Theo calling her “Juicy”—again—that got her all hot and bothered.
The day that had been the impetus for the nickname flashed in her head, as it did almost every time he said it, and she had to look away from him.
“I’m sorry, madame, but he is correct,” Pierre said to her.
“So why have you been following me?” Theo said.
“Your studies of the Minoan civilization. It’s quite fascinating.”
“Lots of people study the Minoan civilization.”
“Ah, yes, but few have written about the myth of the Minotaur with such depth.”
Dani cocked her head to the side. Who hadn’t heard of the Minotaur? She knew the mythical creature existed in all kinds of modern literature. It didn’t seem all that unusual.
“You can cut to the chase, Pierre. I already know why I’m here. You want me to find the Minotaur.”
Pierre wrinkled his brow and then looked over at Maurice and Louis standing behind him like statues. “Is that what you told him?”
Maurice and Louis looked at each other, obviously confused. “That’s what you said. ‘Find the Minotaur’?” Louis said like it was a question.
Pierre closed his eyes and sighed before turning back to Dani and Theo.
“So, you were saying?” Theo asked once Pierre took a sip of his drink.
“I want you to find the eye of the Minotaur. The ruby gemstone cut from its head.”
Theo scrunched his face. Dani had seen that face many times, usually whenever Eddie said something particularly ridiculous.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Theo said. “The eye of the Minotaur is a myth. A fable. In other words, it’s not real.”
“Then why did you write that piece five years ago with your theories on its whereabouts? ‘The Mind of the Minotaur’?”
Theo burst out laughing. “My theories? That’s why I’m here, why you’ve commandeered a year of my life? Because…because of a story I had published in a children’s magazine?”
Pierre glared at him. “Children’s magazine?”
Dani wondered the same thing. Theo had always been a great storyteller.
She remembered finding a journal of his from when they were teens full of his own tales of Greek legends.
His stories were always based in the original mythologies, but with his own spin.
He’d been embarrassed when he’d caught her reading it back at the time, but she’d told him there wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.
His stories were good. By the time they were adults, he freely shared his stories with her.
She’d always thought he could have done something with them someday.
But he’d never told her that he published one of them.
“I wrote that for Archaeology Kids magazine, not a scientific journal,” Theo said, “based on a story my grandfather used to tell me before bed.”
“You based it on fact. You said it yourself in the article—it was founded on the account of a real person.”
“Yeah, my grandfather. He told me a lot of things: rumors of cults, Minotaur worshippers, and treasure hunts. But I’ve never been able to confirm any of it.
I’ve yet to see a single mention of the eye in any reference books.
And that’s beside the point,” he said, waving his hands like they were getting off topic.
“The story was made up, and it wasn’t an article. It was something I wrote for fun.”
“I don’t understand this…this obsession with fiction and fairy tales,” Pierre said, scowling and twirling his hand dismissively in the air.
The deep-seated anger in his voice was palpable.
“Why do people with so much potential waste their time on made-up nonsense? There is so much truth to discover.”
Yikes. That seemed to be a personal problem.
“Sorry I didn’t check with you before I pursued my hobby. I’ll remember that next time,” Theo said.
“You’re quite impertinent.”
I’ll sure say. Typically, Dani was the one being snappy, not Theo. He usually followed orders. A GGB: Good Greek Boy. He didn’t talk back. Or disobey. Which was why it was always so fun whenever she was able to get him to break the rules.
“Well, you’re quite gullible,” Theo responded.
Pierre’s eyes narrowed on Theo with laser focus.
Uh-oh.
“You know, most people know better than to treat me with such disrespect,” Pierre said.
“Well, fortunately I haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know you better. So can we cut with the phony formalities and get to the point?”
Who was this Theo? It was sort of hot, the way he was being so…brazen.
“You’re going to find the eye for me,” Pierre said.
“No,” Theo said definitively without flinching.
“No?”
“You heard me.”
“Need I remind you of your current predicament? You don’t exactly have much negotiating power here.”
“Who said I’m negotiating?” Theo asked, glaring at Pierre. “I said no.”
Dani stopped eating, her gaze ping-ponging between the two of them.
“You can’t keep me here forever,” Theo continued.
“I’ve already been searching under Knossos for months, and we haven’t found jack shit.
It isn’t like we found a giant ruby gemstone and tossed it aside because we thought you were looking for a mummified Minotaur instead.
Keeping me here longer isn’t going to change anything. ”