Black Night, Amber Morning by Freda Vasilopoulos

Author:Freda Vasilopoulos [Vasilopooulos, Freda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1991-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Kissos lay in a verdant forest a little distance from the main highway, a village of steep streets and old stone houses. Beyond it, a dirt track led to the hamlet where Angelo Hatsis was supposed to be living.

Leafy boughs formed a shady green tunnel through which the car bumped and lurched. They emerged after a kilometer or two into a little square bathed in bright sunlight. Dion braked next to a group of people coming out of the small church. Poking his head out of the car window, he called a greeting. “Herete.”

A boy of about twelve came forward, though judging by the direction of his gaze he was more curious about the car’s foreign plates than about its occupants.

“Where can we find Angelo Hatsis?” Dion asked politely.

“Hatsis?” An old man spat on the ground, but it might not have been personal.

The boy answered. “Up the path there. But you have to walk. A car won’t go up the steps.”

Dion parked the Renault at the edge of the square. He and Solange started up the path, uncomfortably conscious of the villagers’ eyes following them.

“Is it my imagination, or aren’t they very friendly?” Solange said as they turned a corner that took them out of sight of the square.

“Maybe just shy.” Dion shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”

The sun beat down on their heads. Solange squinted against the glare on the whitewashed walls, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses from the car. They stopped for a moment at the foot of the steps the boy had mentioned. Off to their right, under a willow tree, stood a travel trailer, an incongruous sight at the top of a steep gravel driveway.

“How’d that get up here?” Solange gasped, wiping her forehead with a handkerchief.

“A hoist, maybe,” Dion ventured. “German plates. Probably some returned villager who worked there.”

They toiled on, climbing the steps made of flat stone slabs. At the top were two houses.

“Which one?” Both looked deserted, drowsing in the sun. A breeze that failed to relieve the heat sighed through the nearby trees, rustling the leaves. Far away, up the mountain, a cuckoo called, the sound tinny and mechanical.

The shriek of poorly oiled hinges brought Solange’s head spinning around. The house on the left. An old woman clutched one of the upright bars of the gate with a gnarled, arthritic hand. A braid of a faded, indeterminate color escaped from the black scarf she wore on her head.

“Come here.” She beckoned with her free hand. “You seek Hatsis?”

Hesitantly, Solange edged closer, aware of the increased harshness of Dion’s breathing at her back. “Yes. Is he here?”

Instead of answering, the woman asked another question. “You’re Doctor Solange?”

Surprised, Solange glanced back at Dion whose face was set and oddly pale. “Yes, I am.”

The old woman pulled open the gate, stepping out of the shadows of the mulberry that grew next to it. Solange saw that her braid, though threaded with gray had once been blonde, not a common hair color in Greece. “I’m so happy you’ve come at last.

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