The crew had been on site for three days, and Francie felt they had made good progress. Christina, Jane, and Josh were on their first dig, but had learned fast and easily adapted to the routine. She noticed Alex worked as hard as anyone else, even though as Project Director, no one expected him to do any heavy work. He spent all day in the sun, working side-by-side with the crew. In the evenings, he worked with Francie and Professor Theo, going over the daily reports. Francie noticed he read each report carefully, double-checking the figures and asking questions about each step of the excavation process.
He had seemed particularly interested in the system of cataloguing they were to use. The night before, he’d asked her to demonstrate it for him.
“Show me how you would record an item—say, a piece of pottery,” he’d requested. Francie had wondered why an archaeologist with enough experience to be a Project Director would need to be shown something as simple as the cataloguing procedure, but she had complied. Perhaps he simply wanted to see if the system they used suited him.
The crew seemed to work well together despite the wide variety of ages, native languages, and levels of experience. Francie believed part of this was because Alex insisted everyone always speak in English during the workday. One morning Christina began a conversation with Yannis, speaking Greek to her fellow countryman.
“Christina, please use English. There are some here who don't speak much Greek.”
“But Kyrie Leonidis, it is so difficult for me. And Yannis and I were having a private conversation.”
“Then you should save the conversation for later, in private. While we are working, or at mealtimes when we are all together, it is courteous to use a language everyone understands.”
The girl had scowled, but grudgingly complied.
Later in the day, Josh was the first to notice something wrong. “I don’t smell anything cooking. Shouldn’t Dimitri have supper on by now?”
An inspection of the dining tent confirmed Josh’s suspicions. The kitchen looked exactly as it had after breakfast cleanup. There was no sign of Dimitri.
“Maybe he took a nap and overslept,” Christina suggested.
A trip to the men’s tent brought bad news: Dimitri had contracted the flu and would not be able to prepare dinner. Francie knew what would come next, and had already started for the kitchen when Professor Theo spoke.
“Francie, since you work in a restaurant, could you—”
“Of course.” She was more than willing to fill in for Dimitri, but her steps faltered when she heard a deep voice behind her.
“I’ll help.”
Help? She couldn’t imagine Alex the Authoritarian helping with anything. But having another pair of hands would be welcome. Besides, he was the boss here. Better to bite her tongue and go along. If he faltered or showed any incompetence at all, she could take over.
Sure enough, as soon as they stepped into the kitchen, Alex took charge.
“Dimitri said he had planned to make spetzofai tonight. All the ingredients are here, so we’d better get started.” He glanced at her, and she nodded in approval. He hauled the sausage and vegetables out of the refrigerator. “I can handle the main dish. Would you like to make the rice and perhaps a salad to go with it?” Without waiting for her answer, he went to work, oiling the large saucepan and chopping the peppers and tomatoes for the savory sausage dish.
The man definitely knew his way around a kitchen. His movements were efficient and precise. She turned and measured out the rice, putting it on to boil.
“Were you a chef in another life?” she asked.
“My father’s family owned a restaurant on Santorini. We all helped out in the kitchen.”
Francie thought about her father, so brilliant in many ways, but utterly helpless in domestic affairs. When he remembered to eat, he depended on someone else, or he went out. Alex didn’t seem to be helpless in any situation, but most of the men in this country had definite ideas about division of labor between the sexes.
“Francie?”
She turned to him. “Yes?”
“Are you planning to do anything with that knife?”
She looked down. Her right hand was wrapped around the handle of a large chopping knife, but nothing was on the block in front of her. She’d been caught daydreaming. Her mother had often said, “You and your father both get so caught up in your other worlds, I might as well be living alone.” And then she would leave. Again.
Francie blinked, bringing herself back to the present. “Sorry, I was somewhere else.”
“Wherever you were, I hope it was a pleasant place. I’d hate to see you wield that knife when you’re angry.” He went back to tending his grill.
Francie stared at him a moment. There had been no censure in his voice, only mild teasing. Her father, though he often “disappeared” in his own thoughts for hours at a time, would not tolerate the same behavior from his daughter. Leandros hadn’t either. He had expected her total attention and devotion when they’d been together.
Now, she opened the cooler and found the produce. Dimitri had made arrangements with a local farmer for the food. The tomatoes and cucumbers nearly burst with freshness. Fresh feta cheese came from another local farm. They would have a nice Greek salad to go with Alex’s main dish.
Francie washed the vegetables then cut into a ripe tomato. The juice from the fruit sprayed up into her eyes, and she instinctively backed away from the counter. She connected solidly with Alex, who had headed toward the sink to wash his hands. He reached out to steady her, and her temperature rose.
“Are you all right?”
Close together like this, his breath tickled her ear.
She answered with a nod and shivered at the loss of heat as he backed away. They completed the meal preparations in companionable silence, though she couldn't stop herself from glancing at Alex every so often. Though she knew Greek men who cooked, none stirred her senses like this one.
Since Josh checked in on them every ten minutes, they didn’t have to notify the others when dinner was ready. The minute Alex pronounced the spetzofai done, the entire crew gathered at the dining area where the tables had already been set up. Everyone ate heartily. When thanks and congratulations came her way, she gave the credit to Alex, who simply waved away the praise and insisted Francie was the real cook.
His modesty was another surprise. In her life, Greek men did not hesitate to take credit for any good thing, whether it was their doing or not. After her parents' divorce, Francie had split her school vacations between Athens, with her father’s family, and Montreal, the home of her maternal grandparents. Grand-pere treated Grand-mere as an equal, with respect and love. By contrast, her Greek uncles dominated their wives, expecting total compliance to their wishes. Since Alex was also half Greek, would he take after his father, or did his American mother teach him to be more sensitive to a woman’s personal and professional needs? Surely there had been—or was—a woman in his life. How did he treat her? The thought of him with someone else brought an ache to her heart, and she forced herself to ignore it. She wouldn’t go down that road again. She couldn’t survive the pain.
****
Alex held up his paper cup of wine. “I propose a toast to a successful culinary partnership.”
Francie lifted her own cup and touched it lightly to his. “It was delicious, wasn't it?”
The setting is wrong, he thought. He and Francie should be seated at a linen-covered table in a quiet, elegant restaurant. The cups they held should be crystal wine goblets, and they should be surrounded by the soft strains of string music. Yet here in this dusty camp dining tent, surrounded by their co-workers, he found the woman before him more entrancing than any society maven.
He brought his cup to his lips and sipped, using the moment to clear his mind of such traitorous thoughts. This was not the time or place for such nonsense. As always, concentrating on the job calmed his nerves. He needed to get to know this woman in order to find out how she operated. Hopefully, she would let something slip that would incriminate her.
“Tell me about your projects with the professor,” he began. “He told me you were in Turkey last year, assisting in the excavation of an ancient Assyrian city.”
He watched as Francie's eyes glowed with excitement. Her entire demeanor changed as she warmed to her subject. Her smile widened, her voice became more animated, and her hands gestured as she described the trip. Had any man been able to bring her as much excitement as an archaeological dig?
“It was such an honor to be included in the project,” she insisted.
“What kinds of things did you find?” he asked.
Her brightness faded a bit, and her features scrunched into a thoughtful frown. “I can't talk about the specific finds,” she admitted. “I signed a contract of confidentiality—for security purposes. If someone were to talk about something really valuable we had uncovered, it might encourage thievery.”
Confidentiality agreements were standard procedure for archaeological digs, but it wasn't uncommon for bits of information to leak out. A persistent reporter or an adversary could usually cull some information from a dig participant. Francie apparently had enough experience to understand the ramifications of releasing too much information. Was she being cautious, or was this a measure of her integrity?
But he wasn't as interested in the finds as he was the woman in front of him. “I understand,” he insisted. “Tell me about Turkey. Did you enjoy your time there?”
The brightness returned, and Alex felt his heart lighten in response. When she was nearby, he had to work to keep his face from sporting the goofy grin of a love-struck teenager. His voice became higher pitched, almost like that awkward stage in his early teens. Why did she have such an effect on him? He half expected his face to break out in pimples. He put his elbows on the table and rested his face in his hands, feeling his cheeks. There were no blemishes, but his face felt warm. Blasted woman.
As Francie chattered away about her time in Turkey, Alex listened with half an ear. He had spent time there, so he knew about the places she described and could nod at the right times. He watched her eyes glow as she described the colorful bazaars, the delicious foods, the friendly people. Her hair escaped from her ponytail and framed her lightly tanned face. She looked young, healthy, and oh so desirable.
His senses sharpened as he she mentioned some of her colleagues, members of the crew she had worked with.
“Who was that?”
“Andre? He was a graduate student, I think. The professor knew him. Why?”
Andre Barrineau was no graduate student. He was suspected as a member of an internet crime ring but had never been convicted, due to lack of evidence. He waved a hand, encouraging her to go on with her story.
“Never mind. I used to know someone by that name, but it must have been someone else. The Andre I knew is much too old and too independent to be a graduate student. Tell me about the restaurants in Izmir. How do they compare to those in Athens?”
While she chatted, he made a mental note to find out why Andre's name had not appeared on the list of crew members working with Francie and Professor Theo on their previous digs. He couldn’t work effectively if the information he had was incomplete or incorrect.
****
Later that night, Alex's phone chirped as he wrote his report. Glancing at the caller ID, he frowned and answered. His employer was nothing if not persistent.
“What have you found?”
“Nothing new. Francie is meticulous at her recordkeeping. I haven't seen any suspicious behavior. It seems she's doing everything she can to make sure nothing is missing.”
“It's a cover. She's guilty.”
“Why are you so convinced of that?”
“She has that innocent face. Nobody can be as innocent as that.”
“So it's just a hunch?”
“Call it what you will. I know it in my heart.”
“What about the professor?”
“He's not cunning enough. He's solidly entrenched in the past. Half the time, he doesn't know where he is, or who he's talking to. There's no way he'd be able to pull it off.”
“Francie is his protégé. She could be doing working for him without knowing it.”
“I don't believe it. She's used to the finer things in life, what with her famous parents. She's probably looking for a way to increase her income while she's studying.”
“But if she made extra money from previous heists, wouldn't she be living in more luxury? Her apartment is in a run-down part of Athens, she dresses simply, and she wears no jewelry. She brought only a small duffle bag with her for the trip. That is not the usual way of a materialistic woman.”
“It's a façade. She's trying to fool you.”
“Why would she need to do that? She doesn't know about the investigation.”
“She's cunning enough to know that people will be watching her even after she's been officially cleared. Keep digging. It's her. Or someone she's feeding information to. She's got to be the link.”
Alex wasn't convinced, but he gave his verbal agreement. Zotis was paying the bills.