Nancy nodded. “Yes, in the cave that the people were camped in.”
“That’s called Kea Lake. It has a channel that leads out of the cave—a tunnel of water. It connects to a small pond on the other side of the point, where you flagged me down.”
“Do you mean we could have swum out of the cave?” Mick asked, somewhat surprised.
“It is possible,” Theo said. “But it is very tricky if you do not know the cave.”
“You seem to know Dragonisi well,” Nancy told Theo.
He shrugged. “I have maps, but the caves are dangerous. I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“Lucky for us you were in the area,” said Mick. “We saw your boat on the other side of the island before lunch. How was the fishing?”
Theo glanced away. “Not so good. No fish today.”
Nancy looked over at the empty fishing net and wondered what Theo had been doing all day. “Maybe you saw the people we had the run-in with,” she said. “I think they were out swimming before they returned to the cave.” She went on to describe the man and woman.
Theo frowned and suddenly became preoccupied with navigating his boat. He definitely seemed uncomfortable with her questions. In fact, she was sure he was hiding something. “I didn’t see them,” he said, concentrating on the open sea.
Changing the subject, he said, “It will be almost an hour until we reach Chora. In the meantime, I will try to radio Nikos so he does not search for you. Why don’t you relax?” he said, nodding toward the seats on the aft deck.
With a sigh, Mick sank onto an orange cushion. “I’m glad that’s over.”
“We’ll have to report it to the police on Mykonos,” Nancy reminded him as she sat down next to him. In the frenzy of their confrontation in the cave, she hadn’t had time to tell him about the passport photos she found there.
“Wow!” Mick exclaimed once she told him. His green eyes flickered with interest. “Along with the explosives, it all adds up to something illegal—and deadly.”
“Do you think those people in the cave are connected to the three passports?”
Mick shrugged. “How do you figure that?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy said, hugging a cushion to her chest. “But I thought of it when I saw those photos in the cave.”
As she spoke, Nancy looked down at the cushion in her arms. Something about it struck a familiar chord in her mind. The square cushion was covered with smooth orange canvas cloth. She turned it over and found that a star and a few Greek letters had been marked on the cushion with a black felt-tip pen. The Greek word ended with the letters aooa.
Nancy’s eyes widened in surprise. The same cushions had been sitting near the sleeping bags in the cave with the explosives!
Chapter Nine
“What’s wrong?” Mick asked.
Nancy glanced ahead to make sure that Theo couldn’t hear them. Then she showed Mick the marking on the cushion. “I saw the same cushions in that cave.”
“Are you sure?” Mick questioned. “We don’t know the Greek alphabet. Maybe some of the letters just look the same.”
“I’m positive,” she said emphatically. “It was a star, followed, by these symbols.” A quick search of the other cushions on the aft deck revealed that they were all marked the same way.
Mick’s eyes darkened, and he said, “Now that I think of it, what was Theo doing on that deserted part of Dragonisi—after he refused to take us there? He could have been on his way to see the people in the cave!”
Nancy tensed. “And remember that woman we saw him talking to, next to the snorkelers? She had red hair . . .”
“Just like the woman in the cave,” Mick finished. “I think it’s time Theo gave us some solid answers,” he added, suddenly on his feet.
Nancy grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “If he is involved with those people, we can’t afford to confront him while we’re out on the open sea.”
“Good point.” Mick took her hand and settled in for the ride.
Nearly an hour later, as they arrived in Mykonos’s harbor, Nancy held up one of the cushions and said to Theo, “These are nice. But what do those letters say?”