He stood stock-still, and she could see the pupils of his eyes darken.
“I told the doctors to fix it so I could never have another one of your children,” she lied.
He completely lost control. “Skaseh!” And he punched her in the face and kept hitting.
Melina screamed and turned and ran down the hall, Constantin right behind her.
He caught her at the head of the stairs.
“I’ll kill you for that,” he roared. As he hit her again, Melina lost her balance and fell, crashing down the long staircase.
She lay at the bottom, whimpering in pain. “Oh, God. Help me. I’ve broken something.”
Demiris stood there, staring down at her, his eyes cold.
“I’ll have one of the maids call a doctor. I don’t want to be late for my engagement.”
The telephone call came shortly before dinnertime.
“Mr. Lambrou? This is Dr. Metaxis. Your sister asked me to call you. She’s here in my private hospital. I’m afraid she’s been in an accident…”
When Spyros Lambrou walked into Melina’s hospital room, he walked over to her bed and stared down at her, appalled. Melina had a broken arm, a concussion, and her face was badly swollen.
Spyros Lambrou said one word, “Constantin.” His voice was trembling with rage.
Melina’s eyes filled with tears. “He didn’t mean it,” she whispered.
“I’m going to destroy him. I swear it on my life.” Spyros Lambrou had never felt such rage.
He could not bear the thought of what Constantin Demiris was doing to Melina. There had to be a way to stop him, but how? There had to be some way. He was at a loss. He needed advice. As he had so often in the past, Spyros Lambrou decided to consult Madame Piris. Perhaps there was some way in which she would be able to help him.
On the way to see her, Lambrou thought wryly, My friends would laugh at me if they thought I was consulting a psychic. But the fact was that in the past, Madame Piris had told him some extraordinary things that had come to pass. She’s got to help me now.
They were seated at a table in a dark corner of the dimly lit café. She seemed older than when he had last seen her. She sat there, her eyes fastened on him.
“I need some help, Madame Piris,” Lambrou said.
She nodded.
Where to start? “There was a murder trial about a year and a half ago. A woman named Catherine Douglas was…”
The expression on Madame Piris’s face changed. “No,” she moaned.
Spyros Lambrou stared at her, puzzled. “She was murdered by…”
Madame Piris rose. “No! The spirits told me she would die!”
Spyros Lambrou was confused. “She did die,” he said. “She was killed by…”
“She’s alive!”
He was completely bewildered. “She can’t be.”
“She was here. She came to see me three months ago. They kept her at the convent.”
He stared at her stock-still. And suddenly all the pieces fell into place. They kept her at the convent. One of Demiris’s favorite charitable acts was to give money to the convent at Ioannina, the town where Catherine Douglas was supposed to have been murdered. The information Spyros had received from Georgios Lato fitted in perfectly. Demiris had sent two innocent people to their deaths for Catherine’s murder while she had been very much alive, hidden away by the nuns.
And Lambrou knew how he was going to destroy Constantin Demiris.
Tony Rizzoli.
Chapter Eleven
Tony Rizzoli’s problems were multiplying. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. What had happened was certainly not his fault, but he knew that the Family would hold him responsible. They were not tolerant of excuses.
What made it particularly frustrating was that the first part of the drug operation had gone perfectly. He had smuggled the shipment into Athens with no problems and had it temporarily stored at a warehouse. He had bribed an airline steward to smuggle it out on a flight from Athens to New York. And then, just twenty-four hours before the flight, the idiot had been arrested for drunk driving and the airline had fired him.