Dark stubble covers his jaw, and his hair is going in about a dozen different directions. But he’s here. And, most important, he’s safe.
“You made it,” I say. I didn’t realize how worried I was until I see him standing on the deck of the boat, squinting against the glare of the sun as it bounces off the water.
Lila smiles at me. “I told you no one would follow me. We didn’t see a soul.”
Noah smirks at his sister. “Oh. Okay. This makes sense. My murder wouldn’t get her out of bed before ten.”
Lila snaps back in Hebrew and soon the two of them start again. This time, I step between them.
“Enough! Noah, leave your sister alone,” I say in my best Ms. Chancellor voice. “And, Lila, if you don’t want to go to the island, feel free to use your time otherwise. I’m sure there is something your little party-going minions didn’t tell the authorities, for example. If you don’t want to go with us, then go question them. But I’m not going to listen to the two of you argue all day. Do you understand?” I ask. They both stay quiet. “Do you?”
“Yes,” they answer in unison.
“Okay,” I say, turning for the pier. “Let’s go.”
At this time of day it’s easy for the blue water of the Mediterranean to disappear into the blue of the sky, and as we reach the island, I can’t fight the feeling that I’m returning to someplace I’ve never been. It looks so different, here in the light of day. There is no bonfire, no music. Instead of a beach covered with partying teens, there are long scrapes in the sand where things have been dragged ashore. The grass and bushes at the back of the beach have been trampled. It’s like walking into a ghost town, something once so full of life that now stands empty.
Spence died here.
And now I have to find out how.
“What now?” Rosie asks.
“Spread out, I guess,” I say. “We need to find out where he was killed, if we can. Just … look. For something. Anything that doesn’t belong. Anything that might prove … something. Anything that could indicate that there was someone out here that night besides Spence and Alexei.”
“And you,” Noah says. Something in his gaze unsettles me.
“And me,” I say. “Meet back here in two hours?”
Everyone agrees, and slowly we start to spread out down the rocky beach. Lila and Megan start toward the forest. The island feels bigger than it did in the dark, farther from land. Our phones won’t work here, and I know we’re all alone, miles from shore — from civilization. There’s nothing but the sound of the waves lapping on the beach, the wind in the trees. It’s supposed to be paradise. But it feels like something else entirely as I climb a huge stone outcropping and —
“Ouch!”
Sharp pain shoots through me as I trip over a stone that protrudes from the hillside. “What the …”
“Uh … guys?” Noah calls. He’s already climbed the rocky ridge and is looking down on the beach and the water and … me. “I think you need to see this!”
There’s something in Noah’s voice that frightens me, so I run up the embankment as quickly as I can. Noah clutches my hand and helps pull me the rest of the way. The others have taken the long way around, but soon I feel my friends gather at the edge of the ridge, all of us peering down at the same eerie sight.
I didn’t trip on a boulder or an outcropping of rock, I realize. I tripped on a —
“Face!” Rosie says what everyone else is thinking. “That big rock is a face!”
“I think it’s some kind of statue,” Noah says, his voice flat, but there’s no doubt that he’s right.
I lean over the edge and peer down into the face that stares back at me from the ground. Years of age and erosion have dulled the features. The nose is smaller than it probably once was, but the lips are still closed, as if keeping a secret. And the eyes stare up at me like a giant who’s been buried alive.
Like a god who was cut down in his prime.
“Neptune.”
Part of me had just assumed that the tale Ms. Chancellor told me was some kind of myth. Or legend. Or fairy tale. But now I stare into eyes that are the size of washing machines, at a nose the size of a tiny car. In its prime, the statue must have been massive, and now it’s easy to imagine a great stone idol rising into the sky, looking out over the blue waters of the sea.
“What do you think it is?” Noah asks.
“A statue used to guard the bay before the Crusaders came,” Lila says. “I never thought I’d see it. I thought it was all gone. But it’s … here.” She gestures toward the parts of the statue that we can now identify strewn across the beach.
“Is that a foot?” Noah points to a huge stone. There are fingers, and long, massive pieces that are probably broken arms and legs. The hill has tried to reclaim it, but from this vantage point we can clearly see the statue’s base.
“Why would someone tear it down?” Rosie asks.
Lila shrugs. “False idols and all that, I guess. But if you ask me, they didn’t want someone else sneaking up and stealing Adria from them after they went to so much trouble to steal it from the Turks or the Mongols or whoever it was they stole it from in the first place.”
Lila and I share a look. We could tell them about the knights and the angel that guided the Grace through the storm. We’ve both heard the same story, but it’s one that I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to tell.