Blue Voyage

by Diana Renn

  Nazif whistled under his breath.

  “They stood in front of a store, watching for a while, and then vanished,” I went on. “And look what I got just before I met you. I bought some simit right outside the hotel, and the vendor gave this to me. He said he’d been sent to find me.” I took the note from my pocket and showed him. “I don’t believe that this note was actually written by Sage. I think it’s from Lazar, trying to use me to get to Sage.”

  Nazif looked startled. “But . . . but this is horrible! None of this is your fault, and now these people are looking for you?”

  “For Sage,” I corrected. “As are the police. Both Lazar and the police think she’ll seek me out, to get the figurines back. If she does, I have two choices. Hand her over to Lazar, or turn her in to the police. Now, I can see why the police want to find Sage, but I don’t know why Lazar is so upset over the figurines. I mean, they’re valuable, Inspector Lale said. But if he’s really in the artifacts smuggling business, you’d think he could let a few things slip.” Thinking of things slipping reminded me of the urn slipping out of Sage’s hands on the path. “Can you describe the urn for me? The urn that was at the meeting?” I asked.

  “Yes. It had this shape and this size.” Nazif picked up a twig and traced an outline of an urn in the dust below our bench. “The handles were made to look like seahorses. Winged seahorses. And the handle was very unusual. It was a golden acorn.”

  I felt like the entire square around us disappeared. “That sounds exactly like the urn my aunt Jackie brought on our cruise!” I exclaimed. “She said it was a replica of a Karun Treasure artifact that some people think got separated from the rest of the cache back when the tombs were looted. She found it in Uncle Berk’s desk, with a certificate of . . . oh.”

  Nazif and I stared at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thought.

  The urn Aunt Jackie had brought on the cruise wasn’t a replica of a Karun Treasure artifact. It was the real deal. Aunt Jackie must have believed the fake certificate Uncle Berk had made for it and didn’t think twice about traveling with it.

  “Sage knew that urn was real,” I guessed out loud.

  Nazif nodded. “She could have been working for Lazar and Vasil. I am guessing they sent her on this cruise to steal the urn.”

  “Then they chose the wrong thief,” I said. “The urn is gone. We took it up a cliff in Fethiye for a memorial ceremony. Sage tripped and dropped the urn, and it fell over a cliff. We looked for it everywhere.”

  “Gone? Do you really believe that?” Nazif asked softly.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “If Sage were working for Lazar and Vasil, she might have come to the memorial ceremony intending to steal it back. Maybe she made her fall look accidental, to avoid making herself a suspected thief.”

  Maybe Nazif was on to something. “You could be right. She could have marked where it went, and returned to the cliffside later to get it. Maybe she even saw it when we were all searching, and she just hid it somewhere, when no one was looking, and then went back for it later.” I thought about how she’d come up with the idea of looking at the base of the precipice. “Maybe she even misdirected people away from where she saw it land.”

  Nazif frowned. “I can see this happening. But real Karun Treasure items would not be gold-plated,” he said. “They would be solid gold. And a solid-gold urn could be damaged, falling from such a height, onto rocks.”

  “But it would still have some value, right?” I said. “Is a Karun Treasure object, even dented, worth taking that kind of risk for?”

  “Possibly. Its value would decrease, but not disappear.”

  “I bet that’s why Lazar and Vasil want to find Sage so badly,” I said. “It’s not just about the figurines that she’d probably failed to hand over to them.”

  Nazif gave me a long look, his dark brown eyes searching mine. “What if she was supposed to get them that urn? And what if your uncle was not the only one who double-crossed Lazar and Vasil? What if Sage double-crossed them, too, and took the urn for herself?”

  I swallowed hard. If our theory was correct, then there was a chance Sage might actually have the seahorse urn. A missing piece of the priceless Karun Treasure.

  24

  Having talked too long at the Hippodrome, Nazif and I had to run all the way back to the hotel. We burst into the lobby, where the tour group of Germans was converging at the front desk. Mustafa said a few words to his son harshly, in Turkish, an obvious reprimand for running late. Nazif, shoulders hunched and head hanging low, began loading luggage onto carts and ferrying it to the guests’ rooms, careful not to make eye contact with me. I felt Mustafa’s disapproving stare and was left alone with my new, dark thoughts about Sage, Lazar, and the priceless urn.

  This situation was way bigger than me. I had to let Inspector Lale know what was going on: that Sage could have a long-lost urn from the Karun Treasure. As soon as the front desk was quiet and Mustafa was out of the lobby, I snatched the phone and took her business card out of my pocket. I dialed, and got her voice mail. I was afraid to leave too detailed a message, not knowing if someone might intercept it. “It’s Zan. Call me back at the Mavi Konak as soon as you get this message,” I said. “I have an idea I have to tell you about.” I’d barely had time to spit out that sentence when Mustafa came back into the lobby, and I hung up the phone fast.

  Maddeningly, Mustafa settled down at his desk to work, which involved making phone call after phone call. I assumed they had call waiting, but would he interrupt a work call to take Inspector Lale’s? I could only hope. I might as well use the time to collect my thoughts about everything I’d just learned from Nazif. I ran up to my room, unable to listen to Mustafa talking. I needed some footholds, some facts and observations that I could nail down. Were we crazy to think Sage was a hired thief? Did she have opportunity and motive?

  My hand brushed against my dad’s journal as I riffled through my suitcase, looking for paper. It felt heavy, the pages too smooth, too intimidating. So I took out my Lonely Planet guide instead and flipped to the Notes section in back, to jot down what I knew so far.

  As soon as I flipped to the Notes section, I saw my doodles and scrawled notes from the Blue Voyage. It was weird to see my sketch of Riza on the Anilar. It seemed so long ago since we’d been on the boat. But weirder still was to read my “You Are Here” entry, where I’d written about the heat, about Mom being mad, and about following Sage’s lead to cool off in the water.

  My heart thudded. This entry was written right after Aunt Jackie had taken the urn from her tote bag and showed it to Mom and me. Could Sage have seen it from her deck chair? And then she dove into the water and swam toward the Anilar. What if she’d gone to tell Lazar and Vasil that we had the urn? And were her other swims to the Anilar also to deliver news or goods to these guys? Had she bought even more trinkets from Baklava Guy than the ones she’d shown me, objects she was ferrying back to her bosses?

  I grabbed a pen and jotted down my thoughts on a blank Notes page before I lost them:

  1. Sage was probably working for Lazar and Vasil. Maybe they hired her to get goods from looters or thieves, like Baklava Guy. Maybe they’d even put her on our cruise to look for the urn or find out what we knew about it.

  2. As soon as Sage saw what Aunt Jackie had brought, she swam to the Anilar to tell Lazar and Vasil.

  3. Uncle Berk had been working for Lazar, authenticating real artifacts as fakes, including the Karun Treasure urn. But he didn’t seem happy about it.

  4. Lazar worked for Onyx-level members of the Lycian Society, members who were into buying illicit antiquities. Maybe he had a client among them who was ready to buy the urn once its “official papers” were in order and it could be disguised as a fake—“prepared for shipping,” as Nazif heard someone say at the big hotel meeting.

  5. Uncle Berk died just weeks be
fore a Lycian Society cruise!!!

  I hesitated, then dared myself to write the darkest thoughts that were pulsing in my brain:

  6. Could Lazar have killed my uncle because he failed to deliver the urn?

  7. Could Lazar be looking to kill Sage next because she failed to deliver the urn???

  I gripped the pen. Aunt Jackie probably had the right idea, thinking my uncle’s death was no accident. She was just looking at the wrong group of criminals.

  Now I had a new, more urgent reason to find Sage. I needed to get my hands on that urn. If our theory was right and she actually had it, but then sold it out from under Lazar, it would sink back into the black market. The trail that might lead to my uncle’s murderer could forever be obscured. I stared accusingly at the useless phone on my nightstand. I tried to send Inspector Lale a telepathic message to call me right away so I could tell her about my murder theory.

  I’d have to call her again and explain how urgent my message was. I flung open the door to the Harem Suite, nearly hitting Mom in the face as she stood right outside the door, room key in hand. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “You took a luxuriously long lunch break.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “And your work is not done. I have that napkin-folding project, plus silver that needs polishing. You can do it on the rooftop if you like.”

  I swallowed hard. I had to take the risk of telling her what had happened. “Mom, I have to tell you that there might be something to Aunt Jackie’s theory about Uncle Berk being murdered. I—”

  “Oh, Zan. Not you, too.” She sighed. “The conspiracy theories are driving me crazy. Do you know how hard I’ve been working to keep your aunt off the Internet? She’s obsessed. I’d almost rather have her working on hotel business, because every time I tuck her into bed and turn my back, she’s looking at crime logs and old newspapers again, or calling up hotel operators in Cappadocia to find out what they know. I really, really need you not to get sucked into this drama, Zan. I mean it.” She turned on her heel and flounced out of the room.

  I trudged up to the rooftop behind her and sat at a table under the trellis of grapevines. Now I was even farther away from the phone. I hoped Mustafa would know to find me up here if she called me back.

  “So. I found these in a storage box in a closet,” said Mom, taking tarnished things out of a box and setting them on the table: trays, samovars, teacups, knickknacks. “Jackie said they could be displayed in the lobby.”

  “Are they ancient?” I asked, poking at a pair of candlesticks with suspicion. “Are we going to get arrested for having these?”

  “They’re not that old. They were just family items from Berk’s parents. Wedding gifts. But they’d sure be pretty, with some shine,” she said. “The lobby looks so gloomy. There’s nothing interesting to look at except for a couple of instruments. These will help bring out its charm.” She handed me some rags and a bottle of silver polish and went back downstairs.

  As I polished an old lamp, I wished a djinn would come out of it and grant me three wishes. Find Sage. Get her story so I could either help her or turn her in.

  And my third wish? What would that be?

  Inspector Lale calling me back.

  I gazed at Nazif’s rooftop. Could I get a fourth wish? Once again, I was filled with a powerful feeling of envy, like a noxious smoke inside me. Then I remembered that envy was what the nazar boncuu, the evil-eye amulet, was supposed to protect against. Was I giving Nazif the evil eye by longing for the family life he had? I wasn’t superstitious. I didn’t believe in Ouija boards or tarot cards, or daily horoscopes, or anything like that. I wasn’t even sure I bought the idea of the Karun Treasure curse. Still, I turned my evil eye away from his rooftop, toward the Sea of Marmara.

  My mom came back up to the rooftop and handed me a phone. I jumped up, heart pounding. I would tell Inspector Lale all about my theory and she would know what to do.

  “It’s your dad.”

  I let out a long breath and sank back into my chair. I picked up a platter and polished it vigorously. “I’m busy. I’m working.”

  “Zan,” she whispered, cupping the receiver with her hand. “He is still your father.”

  “All right. Fine. But only for a minute.” I took the phone, realizing I could call Inspector Lale again once my dad and I were done talking. Satisfied, Mom retreated toward the staircase that led back downstairs. Then I saw her hesitate at the door and look back with a sad expression.

  “Hello?” I sighed more than spoke.

  “Zanny!” My dad’s cheerful voice sounded weirdly close, as if he were in the same building. “How’s Turkey? Are you seeing lots of ruins?”

  “Yeah. There are ruins everywhere.” Like my entire life, thanks to you. “Aunt Jackie even has a Byzantine wall in her patio.”

  “That’s great. I hope you’re writing down all your impressions in that book I gave you.”

  “Yep.” I hesitated, mouth open, on the edge of saying more. For a moment, I wanted to pretend he wasn’t a big part of the reason Mom and I were in Turkey. I wanted to tell him about the situation I was in, that scary guys were stalking me. Maybe he could help.

  Or maybe he’d just be pissed, or disappointed, that I’d made bad decisions again and was now on the radar of the Turkish authorities.

  “Zan. Honey.” My dad took a deep breath. “Listen. I hate the way we parted before your trip. I’m just feeling sick about it. We haven’t really had a chance to talk.”

  I said nothing, while my breath caught in my throat. It was almost an apology. Almost, but not quite. The words didn’t bring me comfort.

  “Zan? Are you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your mother and I will always love you. We’re still a family. That is fundamental.”

  I gritted my teeth. More lies. In no way did we resemble a family.

  “Sometimes families rearrange. They shift, or divide, or come together,” Dad continued. “Sometimes in unexpected ways. Sometimes with new people. Sometimes families have to open their hearts a little, to make room for changes. Do you follow?”

  “No,” I said. I picked at the hangnail on my thumb. It stung, but I ignored the pain.

  “What I’m trying to say, Zanny, is that Victoria and I have decided not to let the media and public opinion control our hearts and actions. We will not be puppets. I mean, if the good people of Massachusetts can’t handle a governor who has a life outside the office, then I don’t need them. They’ve figured it out in France. Their leaders aren’t put under a microscope. A marriage ending doesn’t bring down the whole country.”

  I froze. “You’re moving to France?” I squeaked.

  “No! No. What I’m trying to say, if you’ll just give me a moment, is that Victoria and I, well, we feel something genuine between us, and we’d like to explore it and see where it takes us. And if it costs me my campaign, then so be it. At the end of the day, I’d rather be true to my heart, and happy, than Governor of Massachusetts. And I’ll be a better father.”

  I felt cold. I thought of the story Sage had told me at the cliff tombs, about how the sultan had gone all the way to Hungary to battle, then left his heart buried there. Victoria Windham was freaking Hungary. Why had my dad dragged us through his whole campaign, then the whole scandal, only to end up leaving his heart with her?

  “You must have some complicated feelings around this. I can understand,” he said.

  “Did some shrink tell you to say that?” I was angry.

  “I just think transparency is best. I’m tired of living with my life under wraps.”

  “Is that a Fresh City Wrap joke? If it is, it’s not very funny.”

  “Zan,” Dad said. “You’re sixteen. I think you’re old enough to understand a little more. Listen to me. Your mother and I tried to work things out. But we decided we’re just different peo
ple than we used to be. We’ve grown apart. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes lives take different directions, and the person you thought you married is no longer there. Or the person you thought you were on a trip with isn’t on the same trip at all. I’m sure she feels the same.”

  I glanced at the stairway door again and saw Mom standing with her back to me. She was leaning against the doorframe, her shoulders shuddering. I was pretty sure she was crying.

  Dad was just assuming that Mom was cool with this change, simply because he said so. And I hated that. He’d given me a blank notebook to fill up with my words, but in reality, he was the one always writing our stories. Spinning our situation to suit his needs and make people think we were this perfect family, not a ruined one. Now he was writing a new story: We’re unconventional! We follow our hearts! We live for love! That’s how we roll! It was an amicable split! We’re all better off!

  Not me. I was writing myself out of this one.

  “I’m looking forward to this new chapter in our lives,” Dad continued. “I know there’ll be some bumps along the way. It won’t always be easy. But not all change is bad. Your mom and I will work out a visitation schedule and you can have some say in it. I’m going to take an apartment near Victoria’s place, on Beacon Hill. A two-bedroom. One’s for you. You can decorate your own room however you want to. Won’t that be fun? And Victoria—she’s really excited to get to know you better—she’s an amazing decorator. She knows all these hip design shops downtown, and she can take you shopping. And after that we can have dinner, and—”

  “Thanks,” I said, in an acid-tinged voice. “But I already have a nice room, at home, that Mom and I decorated. Mom’s a great decorator, too, you know. You used to say so yourself.”

  Silence. I knew I’d touched a nerve.

  Feeling empowered, I went on. “I don’t get it, Dad. You bailed on Mom and me, and now you want me to have dinner with Victoria? And pretend to be some newly formed, happy family?”