DING-DING-DING-DI-DI-DI-DI-DING!
Max couldn’t stop banging his hand on the silver bell on the front desk, while Alex was checking out. Outside, the sun was peeking over the horizon.
“Will you stop that?” Alex shouted. “It’s too early for noise.”
“It soothes me,” Max said.
“It irritates everyone else,” Alex replied.
“You know what irritates me?” Max said, forcing himself to pull his arm back from the bell. “I said we shouldn’t trust him. I knew it the moment we met him in the funeral home.”
“He fooled us, Max,” Alex said, as she waited for the clerk to process her credit card. “It’s understandable. He’s our uncle.”
“Fifth cousin twice removed,” Max reminded her.
“Once you get past third cousin, it’s barely even family,” Bitsy said. “Look at the royals.”
“What?” Alex and Max said at the same time.
“Never mind,” Bitsy said.
“OK, let’s assume he’s a rat, and he’s trying to get these ingredients before we do,” Alex said. “But we don’t know a lot of things—like why? Is he working with someone or flying solo? In what order is he going to be attacking this list? We don’t know where he’s getting his money. But we’re the only one with the Isis hippuris, so I’m assuming we’ll run into him again, eventually.”
She pulled out her phone, tapped on her documents app, and pulled up the list of locations.
Max and Bitsy peered over her shoulder. “‘Mexico . . . Kathmandu . . .’” she read aloud.
“Wait . . . what about this one?” Max said. “‘Preserved with the tincture of coil dust from the Kozhim River’? Nigel said it’s in Russia. That’s the closest location to Greece. That would be the most efficient search method.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.” Alex pocketed her phone and turned to the clerk. He was holding tight to the credit card, looking at the computer monitor with a furrowed brow. “I am sorry, miss . . .” he said. “It is not working.”
“No prob,” Alex said. “I’ll pay in cash.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled the card farther away. “I cannot.”
“Wait . . .” Alex said. “You can’t take cash? Money. Dollars. Euros. Whatever. Everybody takes cash.”
“I cannot,” he repeated, turning the monitor toward her. “Is message. Here.”
“Shoot, I can’t read Greek,” Alex said. “Can you—?”
The wail of a siren interrupted her. Max and Bitsy ran to the front window. From a couple of blocks away, a police car was heading in their direction.
“The police?” Alex said. “Is that what the message says?”
The clerk nodded.
“We took ancient artifacts,” Max said.
“Not to mention disturbing an undeveloped cave and creating a new hole in the earth,” Bitsy said.
“But how would they know where we are?” Alex said.
Max was getting a headache. He began pacing. “Nigel. He’s the only person who knows us.”
“The creep!” Bitsy said.
Alex’s eyes widened. “We are toast.”
“I hate him!” Max shouted. “He doesn’t have a friend who’s dying! He wants to kill Evelyn!”
“Max . . .” Alex said.
Slowly, the clerk slipped out from behind his desk toward the front door.
Max ran after him, snatching the credit card from his hands. The guy looked afraid. Max didn’t like making people feel that way. He took three deep breaths. “Sorry. Sorry. But it’s hers. And we need to get away. Now! That guy who was in Room 115? He stole something from us. He’s framing us. Is there another way out? Out? Exo?”
The clerk looked nervously back to the window. That was all the hint Max needed.
“Follow me!” Max called out.
Just beyond a set of restrooms was a glass door. They barreled through, emerging into the back lot of a small strip mall.
“Nice work, Max,” Bitsy said.
Max broke into a jog. “I can’t figure out his plan. What’s he going to do with one ingredient? It makes no sense. Why not wait and use us to help him get the rest?”
“He’s got a copy of the list,” Alex said. “Maybe he just felt like he had his chance now to get rid of us easily, so he can go off on his own.”
Max scanned the signs on the backs of the shops. He was hoping at least one would be in English, but no such luck.
At the end of the row of shops, they circled around to the front. The strip mall followed the curvature of the road, and from their angle the motel was not visible. But just to their left was a large lot with a half-dozen cars. “A car rental place!” Alex said. “Cousin, you are brilliant.”
“I saw it on the way in,” Max said, handing her the credit card. “I hope it’s open. One of you two can rent the car and get us to an airport. Alex, you should text Brandon now. Can he fly to meet us somewhere? The closer to here, the better. I don’t want to drive over those mountains again.”
“Aye, aye,” Alex said, pulling out her phone.
As Bitsy ran into the rental office, Max scanned the lot. There were only a couple of cars, a four-door sedan and a minivan. Either would do.
“Max—I got Brandon,” Alex said, staring at the phone. “He says we’re in luck. He’s able to get clearance at an airport in Kalamata, which isn’t too far from here. He’ll meet us there.”
“We can’t stop to pick up flowers.”
“Not funny, Max.”
Now Bitsy was emerging with a clerk, a young woman with wide eyes and a big smile. “Guys, this is Frangitsa. She just arrived to open the shop.”
“Three of you? Perfect!” Frangitsa said. “We have number two five five, two five six, two five seven. Please, let me show you.”
“We only need one car,” Alex said. “Not three.”
Frangitsa stopped at parking space 255. She put a hand on the seat of a beat-up silver Vespa motorcycle. Two others were parked in the spaces next to it. “Etsi!” she exclaimed.
“Is that like voilà?” Max said. “Because motorbike is not what we said. A car. Car. Aftokinito. Like one of those two.”
He pointed to the sedan and minivan, but Frangitsa grimaced. “One of those is mine,” she said. “The other is not working.”
“No cars in a car rental place?” Bitsy said. “Halfway between nowhere and nobody? How about a taxi?”
“My husband drives taxi. He can take you when he gets back. From Athens.”
“Athens is hours away!” Max said.
Alex was swinging her legs around the Vespa. “Guys, I’ve been wanting to do this since we got to Greece.”
“I haven’t!” Max squeaked. “I cannot ride a motorbike on a highway. I absolutely cannot.”
“You ride a bike, no?” Frangitsa chirped. “Then you can ride motorbike!”
“No,” Max said. “No no no no no no.”
Bitsy was eyeing the bikes warily. “I must say, I’m with him.”
“OK, no problem,” Frangitsa said. “Then you have one more choice.”
“Please say private helicopter,” Bitsy asked.
“No,” Frangitsa said with a laugh. “Walk.”