Chasing the White Lion by James R. Hannibal

Author:James R. Hannibal [Hannibal, James R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

FORTY-

THREE

ADAMANTAS MARINA

MILOS CALDERA

MILOS, GREEK ISLES

FINN, MAC, AND DARCY did not return until dusk, cutting across the caldera in a pair of rented powerboats. And they did not return empty-handed. Black canvas bags bulging with their purchases filled up a quarter of the houseboat’s living room. When Talia tried to unzip one, Darcy slapped her hand away. “What are you trying to do, blow up the boat?”

“I just wanted to see,” she said, rubbing her smarting fingers.

“So did the curious cat, yes? And look what happened to her.”

Bunking with the chemist that night had charms of its own. Eddie stayed well past his welcome, and something in the way he and Darcy talked science made Talia want to put her earbuds in. There were passionate undertones hidden in all the technical jargon. “Time for you to go, Eddie. It’s late.”

“Am I being too loud?”

“No.” Talia caught his elbow and led him to the door, all of two steps from the edge of Darcy’s bunk. “You’re being too . . . here. I need to sleep.”

“We’ll be quiet. We can talk with the lights off.”

“Not a chance. Out.”

They both glanced at Darcy, who had lost interest and started digging in her purse. Eddie lowered his voice. “But we were connecting.”

“Connect tomorrow, when I’m not around. Good night, Eddie.” She pushed him out and closed the door.

With Eddie gone, Talia began a nighttime ritual she had started many years before, after losing her father. Any first night in a new bed, she read a worn copy of The Cat in the Hat.

She had barely passed the title page when Darcy set her purse down and propped herself up on her pillows, playing with what Talia took to be a ball of clay. “He is sweet, no?”

Talia lowered the book to her lap. “Always has been.” To her, Eddie was like a little brother—not the annoying kind, but the kind who needed protecting. “Darcy . . .”

“Yes, mon amie?”

“Where do you see things going? With you and Eddie, I mean.”

Darcy kept playing with her clay, molding it into a little man. “Nowhere. Anywhere.” She shrugged, and in the process, tore one of the clay man’s spindly little arms off. She frowned and tried to stick it back on. “We are having fun, and for me, that is enough, yes?”

“Does he know that?”

Darcy let go of the repaired arm, and it stayed in place, now shorter and grossly uneven with the other. “Does he know what, mon amie?”

“That you—” In that instant, the clay’s yellow tone and glossy sheen registered in Talia’s mind. “Darcy, is that . . . ?”

“X-dough. Swedish plastique.”

“And you thought I would blow up the boat?”

“Don’t be silly. X-dough has the stability of C4, with improved plasticity. Watch.” Darcy smacked her hands together, squishing her art. “See? Safe. You cannot set it off without detonators.” She held the little man, now as flat as a pancake, in her palm and placed two tiny black discs where his eyes would go.

“What are those?” Talia asked.

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