Chapter 32
As Delphina’s brother and his pals carted off Uli and his band of thugs and began making excited calls to the home office in Athens about their big capture, Delphina’s cousin with the helicopter offered three of us a ride back by air. I suggested Delphina, Liam, and Charlie go with him. Laurette and I could just take one of the ferryboats back. I wanted Charlie checked out by a doctor as soon as possible to make sure he was okay.
“I’m a little tired, but I’m fine,” Charlie said. “We’ve been apart long enough, Jarrod. I’m going back on the boat with you.”
Laurette was more than happy to go back to Mykonos on the chopper. It would give her an opportunity to squeeze in next to the strapping Liam, who was happy to have the Oscar back, one of the few remaining connections to his dear late lover.
Charlie and I clasped hands and made our way toward the dock, where a large number of tourists were already lining up to board the boat back to Mykonos port.
I had so many questions for Charlie, but I didn’t want to overwhelm him so soon after our joyous reunion. He knew me well enough to know it was in his best interest to tell me everything now. Otherwise, it would be an impossibly long cruise back to Mykonos.
“After you stormed out of the room that night, Akshay called and asked me to meet him down at the bar. I was just pissed enough at you to take him up on it. Besides, I didn’t want to sit around the room stewing all night, so I went down for a cocktail. Apparently, Uli’s guys were staking him out and saw us drinking together. They caught Akshay trying to make a pass by pawing my knee under the table.”
My back stiffened, but Charlie smiled and massaged the knots with his hands. “I pulled away, don’t worry, and told him I wasn’t interested. But it was too late. The guys had already reported back to Uli that Akshay had a boyfriend. On my way back up to the room, they got on the elevator with me and chloroformed me with a rag. That’s the last thing I remember. Next thing I knew, I was on a private plane with a massive headache. And I wound up here. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
We waited in line to board the boat, and I noticed the middle-aged Little Rock couple from the Music Café where Laurette and I first met Uli standing in line ahead of us. They were straining their ears trying to eavesdrop on our spicy conversation.
“That entire first night I was held captive at the compound, I tried convincing Karydes his guys had made a colossal mistake, that I barely knew Akshay and I had no knowledge of what kind of schemes he was involved in. Of course he assumed I was just trying to save my own ass, hoping he’d let me go. But I finally started to get through to him, and after he did a little checking on his own, he realized I was telling the truth. And that you were my boyfriend. At that point, it dawned on me that I might have been stupid. He could’ve just driven me out to sea on his boat and dumped me into the ocean. Luckily for me, Uli Karydes may be a lot of things, but he’s no killer.”
“So Akshay agreed to make the trade anyway?”
“He at least had a shred of decency. He felt responsible for my predicament, so he agreed to swap the Oscar for my immediate release.”
“And the e-mail you sent me?”
“That was Uli covering all his bases. He didn’t want you snooping around, so he sat me down at the computer and forced me to write it. When word got back from his guys that you were undeterred in finding out what happened to me, he made me call you. I figured my one shot was sending you a message that something was wrong, which was why I got Snickers’s gender wrong. I knew you’d pick up on that, and it would just fire you up to keep searching for me. I knew in my heart you’d never give up, babe.”
I reached up and kissed him full on the mouth, much to the consternation of the conservative red-state couple in front of us who had craned their necks to get a good look at us while we talked.
We boarded the boat, never letting go of each other’s hands, and settled in for the twenty-five minute ride back to Mykonos. As we pulled into the dock, I noticed a small commotion. Laurette, Liam, and Delphina were all there, as well as a few of her brother’s Special Guard buddies and some very uptight-looking, pasty-skinned officials. As passengers disembarked down the plank to the dock, I made eye contact with Laurette, who was looking very worried and uncomfortable. Uli Karydes had been arrested for Charlie’s kidnapping. Liam had Claire’s Oscar back. Charlie was safe. What could be wrong now?
I gripped Charlie’s hand tighter as we ambled up to the assembled group waiting for us. That’s when I saw them. Detective Inspector Sally Bowles and Detective Colin Samms. The two British cops who were so convinced I was hiding something and were trying to pin Claire’s murder on me.
Bowles marched forward like an angry den mother who had accidentally lost one of her charges on her watch. “Skipping the country has done nothing to alleviate the perception of your guilt, Mr. Jarvis.”
“I’m not concerned with perception since I’m innocent,” I said.
Samms scowled. “That’s not what they’re saying back in England.”
Detective Colin Samms unfolded a Fleet Street tabloid for me to see the blaring headline. Former Child Star on the Run after Poisoning Claire Richards!
“Yeah, well, that paper also said Princess Di faked her own death and is now living in a cult of Tibetan monks.”
“Why did you flee the country, Mr. Jarvis?” Bowles said.
“There was a small matter of rescuing my boyfriend from a crazed Greek shipping magnate with an Academy Award fetish.”
“Well, you did yourself no favors back in London. Her majesty’s government has gone to great expense to come here and retrieve you,” Samms said with that intimidating fixed scowl on his face.
“There were no charges against me. I was free to go where I wanted to, and I wanted to come here.”
“You were advised to not leave, and you disobeyed that request,” Bowles said.
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” I said. “You’re acting like I was under arrest when I left London. And we all know that wasn’t the case.”
“Yes, you’re right about that,” Bowles said. “But that was then. This is now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Circumstances have changed,” Bowles said with a smirk. “We now have enough proof to substantiate our suspicions.”
She removed a pair of handcuffs from the belt looping around her business-suit skirt and slapped them on my wrists. “I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Claire Richards.”
I turned to Charlie, who stared at me in disbelief as the elation from our all-too-brief reunion quickly melted away and Inspector Bowles and Detective Samms led me off to a waiting car.