“That’s it—Shara!” Nancy interrupted. “The guy in the cave kept saying it over and over. I guess he was just calling her.”
“That’s right,” Mick said. Then he returned to reading the letter. “All three of them received life sentences, but two weeks ago they escaped from prison, killing two guards in the process.”
With a shiver, Bess said, “Escaped prisoners? I can’t believe Zoe and I let you go after them.”
“Escaped . . .” Zoe said, thinking aloud. “Maybe that’s why you heard the police saying diafevgo over and over—it’s the Greek word for ‘escape.’ They probably realized that you had come face-to-face with these escaped prisoners but didn’t want to scare you with the truth.”
“Why would the police keep it a secret?” asked Bess.
Zoe frowned. “This kind of news could scare off visitors and harm the tourist trade. The police are probably trying to keep it quiet.”
“But they’ve probably tightened security,” Nancy said. “I’ll bet that’s why they were checking passports on Delos.”
Mick tapped the manila envelope in front of him. “McCurdy thinks the terrorists have been moving around the islands in a stolen boat,” he added. “But they need papers to leave the country.”
“So our theory about the three stolen passports may be right,” Nancy said. “It looks as if they’re going to fall into the hands of these three criminals.”
“Wow,” Bess said, her eyes wide. “I feel like I’ve created an international incident.”
“According to this letter, even Interpol is in on the case,” said Mick. “They’re compiling a special list of all lost or stolen passports in the hope that they’ll be able to use it to snag the terrorists.”
“Do you think we should go to the police with our suspicions of Theo and Dimitri?” George asked.
Nancy took a sip of her fruit drink, and thought for a moment. “We still don’t have enough evidence.”
“She’s right,” Mick added. “All we can do is watch and wait.”
“And lay low,” Kevin added.
Zoe nodded her agreement. “Now that the terrorists can identify Nancy and Mick, we should all be extra careful.”
“I’m glad we weren’t planning a trip for tomorrow,” Bess said. “We’ll be better off sticking around here.”
The next morning everyone else was already on the beach by the time Nancy finished breakfast and changed into her suit. As she walked down the path toward the water, she saw Bess and George posing on beached Windsurfers for Dimitri. The photographer was kneeling in the sand, taking their picture. Dressed in a black wet suit, he looked more like a diver than a photographer.
“I will have all your photos back to you tomorrow,” Dimitri promised Bess, smiling as he strapped the bright yellow waterproof camera around his neck. “But now I must meet a group of British tourists who have hired me. They want me to take photos of them snorkeling so they can brag to their friends back home.”
As Dimitri headed off down the beach, Bess walked over to the beach towel where Nancy had just sat down. “I’m afraid to see those photos he took of me that afternoon in Chora when you guys searched his studio. It was such a hot day—I probably look awful.”
“All in the line of duty,” Nancy teased, her eyes on Dimitri’s retreating form. Was his friendly smile just a cover-up for a master forger? Were he and Theo working together?
She lay down on her stomach. She was thinking about how to proceed with her investigation when she felt a splash of cold water on her back. She rolled over and sat up just as Mick tossed a snorkeling mask onto the beach towel beside her.
“Time for a dip, Nancy,” he teased. “There are some amazing fish out there today.”
“You’re on, Devlin,” Nancy said. Grabbing the mask, she raced him to the clear turquoise water.
With the help of the snorkeling gear, she spent the next half hour exploring the underwater world of the Aegean Sea. A school of tiny silvery fish fluttered past her, tickling her legs as they went. Lingering over a clump of seaweed, she discovered fish in dazzling shades of blue, orange, and yellow. She carefully avoided a group of pincushiony sea urchins, whose spines could sting.