Turned to Stone by Jorge Magano

Author:Jorge Magano [Magano, Jorge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 25217752
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Published: 2014-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Jaime’s cockiness vanished as soon as he walked out of the building and climbed into the taxi Laura had called for him after all. He felt dreadful, as if a part of him had died along with his innocent companions. Common sense told him he should go home, take a few days off, and put this business behind him before resuming his routine of writing about exhibitions, old statues, crumbling ruins, and ancient myths.

Common sense also tried to convince him that this whole thing was above his pay grade. That playing at being a swashbuckling journalist was one thing, but going up against someone capable of cold-blooded murder quite another.

Common sense kept up its efforts for a while, and then, fed up with being ignored, finally turned away and left.

Jaime Azcárate’s drowsy mind had room only for Sonia Durán, Professor San Román, Lucas Andrade, Inspector Kraniotis, and the three Greek historians whose names he’d never been able to remember. As a journalist, it was his job to tell the story of what had happened. He was somehow ashamed he had survived, and he felt a responsibility to discover what had cost so many lives. He believed he owed it to the victims to uncover the truth, and he planned to do so with a fire in his belly.

First he left a message for Roberto. Then he skimmed the daily news, which barely mentioned the incident in Piraeus. He spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at the little desk in his attic apartment, listening to music while roughing out his report. He recounted everything, from the team’s arrival in Athens to his and Amatriaín’s treatment at the hospital. Once he’d finished, he printed it and left the copy on his printer. He had no desire to reread it. He sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. He could see it was time for a deep clean. He noticed the mass of papers overflowing from his desk drawer. How long had it been since he’d tidied up, anyway? He clicked the mouse cursor on the CD icon and a jazz band began to play Chet Baker’s “You Go to My Head.”

Still exhausted after his ordeal, Jaime very nearly fell asleep at his keyboard. But the series of events that had been tormenting his subconscious for days forced its way into the foreground of his rational thoughts: the man with the red handkerchief shooting at him, then blowing off Amatriaín’s shoulder, and finally joining the list of casualties himself. And those mysterious words: porco albino.

He did an online search for the phrase and the results surprised him: pictures and videos of white pigs, a superhero fan’s blog, and several inconsequential sites, almost all of them in Portuguese.

Albino. White skinned.

Like the Medusa.

Then he thought of Paloma.

Though the memory had been parked at the back of his mind, Jaime hadn’t forgotten the strange way she’d behaved when he mentioned their university piece. She had looked like a seer on the verge of making contact with Lucifer himself.

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