Page 43 of Captured
“That’s fair.” Still, she shook her head, looking over the assemblage. “And they never found a body, or anything remotely like a body?”
“No. The storm that blew up the night he left Oûros was fierce. He was testing equipment, and I knew he was excited about seeing what the airplane could do. He had equipment in the cockpit not attached to the controls that he was testing—a watch, specialized phones. All that would’ve been washed away, and his body wouldn’t have survived long in the open water. I never expected to find his body, his clothes...but the electronics should have resurfaced eventually. That was my hope.”
“Electronics like the black box or whatever.”
“Any sort of recording devices, yes.” Dimitri nodded. “Something that could give us some insights into what he was doing, why he was where he was, what went wrong.”
Lauren watched him as he spoke, the bleakness of his expression making her heart hurt. All the platitudes that crowded into her mind seemed pointless, ineffectual. She had never loved any of her friends with the deep force of will that Dimitri seemed to have for Ari. She had never been loved so much.
She reached out her hand and touched his arm. “He was lucky to have you as a friend,” she murmured.
His lips twisted. “Not lucky enough, in the end. If I’d had any idea that he would fly that night, I would have broken ranks to stop him—or at least warned Cyril of his plans.”
She nodded as she turned back to the bits of sea wreckage, but she didn’t believe him. No, she suspected Dimitri wouldn’t have stopped Ari. Not that night. Not if his friend had truly wanted to go exploring. He would simply have entered the planewithAri, and then the two of them would have been lost: the crown prince and his faithful friend and bodyguard. Double the tragedy, double the pain. Two families bereft instead of one.
And Dimitri clearly felt everything deeply—his duty to the crown, his love for his friend. Even his intensity in making love to a woman he barely knew. Lauren kept her gaze glued on the scraps of metal as her cheeks heated. Something had been seriouslydifferentabout sex the night before with Dimitri.
Setting aside the fact that he was a wild, virile hunk of man who had muscles for days, every time he touched her, every time either one of them slammed into another climax, it was like the entire world around them reacted. The sea danced, the stars spun, and there—I mean, she would swear that there had beenmusic?—
“Enough of looking at what we know is of no use,” Dimitri said abruptly, cutting off her thoughts as she glanced back at him. “The men will start returning with their nets in a few hours. In the meantime, we should go see what the ocean has brought us.
They didn’t go down to the port, however, but along a rocky trail that skirted the wide crescent bay and dove into the forest, heading to where a smaller point jutted out into the ocean. “The reefs aren’t so bad leading into the cove,” Dimitri explained as at length they left the higher ground, weaving down through a tight jungle of trees and rocks as they made their way to sea level. “More wreckage washes ashore here.”
“How did you find this trail to begin with?” Lauren asked. “It’s barely visible.”
“Those who comb the beaches have always known where it was. They were kind enough to show me when I came to them for help.” Dimitri said this as if it were commonplace, the giving up of secrets to help someone in pain. She shook her head at his back, now lined with sweat at the collar as he pushed through branches and tested the rock-strewn pathway.
In her experience, no one gave up an advantage unless they needed to gain greater status or safety. But what status or safety was there to be gained on this desolate island? Only a hundred or so families lived here. There was no status in being the top of a few hundred people, not when you all had to pull together in times of crisis or need.
“Ah, here we are.” Dimitri held back a final branch and Lauren saw open sky, heard the crash of water. She moved forward gladly but paused beyond the break in the trees, her jaw dropping open.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Quite the place, isn’t it?”
The grotto was a trash monger’s paradise. Metal, tubing, lights, even strings of coins hung from the trees in swaying glory, mute testimony to the rich treasure that lay beyond the water’s edge. Lauren half expected to find a crazed old man muttering among the sheets of metal, looking for treasures amid all the junk. “Who put all this up?”
“The scavengers and beachcombers. Anything that was too big or too common to fetch any sort of decent price, they simply started to hang. Over the years and decades, it’s become a tradition. You’d think the junk would make the place too crowded, chaotic, but there’s a sort of peace that comes from seeing it all together like this. As if the sea will one day give up all her mysteries, if we only wait long enough.”
“Any of this from Ari’s plane?” she asked, touching one of the relics.
“Not a scrap. Which was Cyril’s number-one reason for the wreck to have obviously been near Thassos to the west of us, versus out to the east. But the storm wasn’t in Thassos. It was blowing up the coast of Turkey. That’s where Ari would have gone.”
Lauren frowned. “Turkey? That seems unwise, doesn’t it? A small, single-manned plane soaring into a storm over the border of an unfriendly neighbor?”
“As I said, Ari was a master of leaping first, thinking second. He’d never found a situation that he couldn’t get himself out of.” Dimitri smiled ruefully. “I suspect that’s why I’ve had such a difficult time accepting his death.”
He looked so forlorn there, staring out at the sea junk suspended from the trees that Lauren reached out and grasped his hand with both of hers, tugging him forward. “Show me,” she said. “Show me where all this stuff washes up.”
Twenty-Eight
Dimitri tried to keep his heart from expanding beyond the confines of his chest as he walked with Lauren through the hanging gallery of sea gifts to the open beach. She was dressed simply today, in long, loose pants and tank top, her hair drawn back in a simple ponytail, and only the most basic of makeup on her face beyond sunscreen. Even that he noticed only because she smelled like coconut, instead of whatever expensive designer fragrance she would normally be wearing, if she was in her own world.
A world he couldn’t share. Would never share.
He tamped down his mutinous thoughts. Last night with Lauren had been a gift from the gods, and he should honor it as such. As the night had turned to morning, he’d awakened to realize they’d spent hours in each other’s arms, their positions as comfortable as breathing and every bit as unconscious. He’d watched her as she slept, memorizing her face, the curve of her lips, the soft brush of eyelashes against her cheeks. He hadn’t wanted to wake her, but the birds accomplished that soon enough, their chatter bringing her upright with a rush, dazed and bewildered until she’d seen him. Then the smile she’doffered him, radiant and full of light, had made him feel like he’d slain a thousand dragons for her, all before breakfast.
He was a sap. Ari would be laughing his ass off at him right now.