of his body. She wanted to be back in his arms. Soon. That was a given. The trick lay in figuring out how to get there without disgracing her family in the process.
Nico delivered her lunch a little later than usual. He looked tired, subdued. As if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and then some. But he handed her the day’s mail and her lunchbox, same as usual, and hunkered down in the chair beside her.
‘Chloe was waiting down at the docks when the boats came in this morning,’ he said finally.
That sounded promising. ‘Moon kissed roses will do that to a girl.’
‘Sam’s not at school.’
That didn’t sound promising at all.
‘She thought he might have been waiting for the boats to come in. Waiting for me. He wasn’t.’
‘Oh.’
‘Chloe told me what she’d said about his mother. She thinks Sam overheard her.’ He ran a hand through his already untidy hair. ‘Some of his clothes are gone. His wallet … Chloe thinks he’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’
Nico shrugged helplessly. ‘I checked the ferry terminal, the ticket office. He didn’t buy a ticket off the island, no one saw him getting onto a ferry. Chances are he’s somewhere on the island. I thought I’d take a Vespa out and look around. He’s probably just gone for a swim, or a walk. He does that sometimes. Skips out for a while. That’s probably all that’s happened.’
Serena nodded. ‘Yeah. He’ll be around.’ She looked up at the hill, looked out over the sea. ‘Where could he go?’
By mid-afternoon all the Vespas bar the one Nico had taken out were back in the shed. None of Serena’s customers had seen Sam; no one had seen Sam, according to Chloe, and Serena had decided to shut up shop for the rest of the day.
Chloe was helping her.
When Nico rode up and told them his sea catamaran was missing, Chloe’s face crumpled. Nico watched in silence, his own face a study in indecision before finally he reached out and drew Chloe into his arms.
‘Not quite the way I imagined it,’ he murmured softly to Chloe. ‘Not quite the reason why.’
Chloe laughed through her tears, a choked, strangled sound, and her arms tightened around him.
‘You think Sam’s taken it out?’ Serena asked him quietly.
‘It’s too big for him, Serena. If he tips it he’ll never get the sail back up.’ Nico looked out to sea. ‘The wind’s blowing North East. I’ll take Theo’s speedboat out. If Sam has taken the cat he won’t have got far.’ He rattled off Theo’s radio frequency, Serena wrote it on her hand. She wrote it on Chloe’s hand too, the one still wrapped around her cousin.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Chloe told Nico shakily.
‘No.’ He set her away and smoothed the hair from her face with gentle hands. ‘You keep looking for him here. Keep asking around. Get Marianne Papadopoulos onto it.’
‘I’ve already called her,’ mumbled Chloe. ‘I’ve called everyone on the island. There’s no one left to call.’
Maybe not on this island. Serena pulled out her cell phone and started scrolling through her directory for a newly familiar number. Nico’s gaze sought hers as she put the phone to her ear and he gave her the tiniest of nods. He already knew where her thoughts were headed. She was calling Pete.
‘Where are you?’ she said when he answered the phone.
‘Kos,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Tell me you’re about to walk through this restaurant door in a sky-blue sundress and make my day.’
‘Sam’s missing,’ she said baldly.
Silence from Pete’s end, silence from hers while she waited for him to comprehend the situation and change direction. He did it in a heartbeat, moving smoothly from lover to warrior and earning her undying admiration in the process. ‘Have you reported it to the authorities?’
‘Chloe’s doing it now. He hasn’t been gone all that long, only a few hours, but Chloe’s worried about him. We all are.’ She gave him the worst of it. ‘Nico’s super-cat is missing too.’
‘Where’s Nico?’
‘On his way to the harbour. He’s taking Theo’s speedboat out to look around.’
‘What’s his radio frequency?’
She gave it to him, along with Nico’s mobile number.
‘Give him mine,’ said Chloe anxiously, and she gave him that too.
‘Pete—’
‘Keep in contact with Nico,’ he said. ‘Try and contact some of the other boats you know are in the area. Ferries, fishing boats, charter boats. Concentrate on finding that cat.’
‘How soon can you get here?’ She wanted him here. Needed him here. They all did.
‘Soon.’
Serena had never felt more at a loss for direction in her life. She and Chloe had taken a Vespa and scoured the nearby beaches for Sam but they’d seen no sign of him and after an hour of fruitless searching they’d decided to head for the village and for Marianne Papadopoulos’s shop. The older woman had the best gossip network on the island, they reasoned. If anyone could get people mobilised and out looking for Sam, she could.
She did. With efficiency more suited to a general than a baker Marianne Papadopoulos assembled her ranks, appointed her colonels and set them loose. Theo would contact all the vessels in the area. Other key people would organise land search parties if Sam didn’t show up soon. It was still early, she told Chloe gently. If Sam was on the island they’d find him. If he’d taken to the sea then Nico would find him. She didn’t say what they were all thinking. That for a city boy like Sam, the sea was a dangerous place and that if something happened to him out there they might never find him.
It was a big sea.
Chloe was too tense to eat; Chloe existed on coffee. Serena bypassed the coffee in favour of cake. Each to their own.
It was Marianne Papadopoulos who first heard the helicopter coming in.
‘You called Tomas’s pilot?’ she asked Serena bluntly. ‘The one you’ve been stringing along these past few weeks?’
‘Not stringing along,’ she said defensively. ‘Getting to know, and, yes, I called him.’
‘Good girl,’ said Marianne. ‘Here he comes now.’
‘Time to go,’ Serena told Chloe, wresting the half full cup of coffee from Chloe’s fingers and setting it on the counter. ‘Pete’s here.’ And to the older woman, ‘You have our numbers? You have Nico’s?’
‘You just get me your young man’s radio contact details and I’ll have them all,’ said
