A Dark and Twisting Path

by Julia Buckley

  I said good-bye and stared at the phone. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “Allison has a neighbor over, and she called her Agatha. And we just met that Agatha at the library—oh my gosh.”

  “What?”

  “It was on the edge of my mind, all this time, and now I remember why I know her. I went to Allison’s before she found Eddie Stack, and there was a woman gardening across the street. She waved to me. And I remember thinking that she looked so familiar, maybe like someone I had seen in a movie. But it wasn’t that—she had looked like a Lazos. In that picture Belinda showed us, several of the women had those scarves tied into their hair, and she had one, too. Her dark hair tied back while she tended her garden.”

  “Agatha is a Greek name,” Sam said, his expression thoughtful.

  “Like you said, it couldn’t be, right? Nikon’s sister, living right here in town? Why wouldn’t the authorities know? She would have to be registered somewhere, be known to someone . . .”

  “Unless she’s here under a different identity.”

  “But her name is Agatha, right? Could that be a Lazos sister? It’s not a common name.”

  Sam leaned toward me. “How long has she lived there?”

  “I don’t know, but Allison’s been here a year, and she just implied that this Agatha has been there at least that long.”

  “Why would she be in Blue Lake? Did he plant her here to keep an eye on me?”

  My hands were tense in my lap. “Nikon’s brother said he would have seen you as the enemy. Maybe from the very beginning. So why not send his sister here to live so that she could give him reports about you? Especially if he feared you would take steps to find Victoria. It was only Victoria who had no contact with the outside world. Nikon could have been keeping track of you all this time, from his yacht.”

  “Why would his sister do that? Give up her life, her home, to come and live out here by herself?”

  “Family loyalty?”

  Sam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “If she traveled from Greece, they should have known—”

  “She didn’t,” I said suddenly. “Remember? Victoria told me that when they boarded the yacht, he had a brother and a sister already in New York to see them off. She was already in the States—who knows how long? Maybe they lost track of her.”

  “We need to call Doug.”

  “Wait—there’s something else. Allison had mentioned that everyone had done renovations. Now she just said that Agatha wanted to show us her renovated basement. What does that mean? What could that mean? Sam—she said that Agatha insisted we come. What if that was a threat? What if she’s using Allison as some kind of pawn?”

  Sam held up a hand; he was still thinking. “Yesterday,” he said. “There was something yesterday, when I met the two women.”

  “What?”

  “How did she introduce herself?”

  “Well, she didn’t say Agatha Lazos.”

  “No!” Sam looked shocked, and he leaned toward me. “She said Agatha Wallace.”

  “So?”

  “That’s Victoria’s maiden name,” he said.

  17

  In the same moment that she realized the danger she also saw the impossibility of her escape. The gods were not protecting her now; they were laughing.

  —From Death at Delphi

  WE CALLED DOUG on the way to Allison’s house. He wasn’t there, and I insisted that they contact him immediately. “It’s an emergency,” I shouted. “Tell him Lena London has an emergency!”

  I also tried dialing Doug’s cell, which went to voice mail. I left a similar message, then sent him a text: Emergency at Allison’s. Might be a Lazos sighting.

  Sam seemed to settle down as he drove. “We have to consider that we might be wrong. If so, we can’t go in guns blazing. Just act as though you’re responding to Allison’s invitation, and we’ll get the lay of the land.”

  “I know. This is all speculation, and she could just be a nice neighbor lady who takes out books at the library. It could be nothing. Nikon’s family hates him anyway, right? So they wouldn’t be helping him with such a terrible crime. But Sam—Allison said that Agatha said we should come. She said ‘Tell Sam to come, too.’ What if that’s a threat? What if she’s threatening Allison to get to us?”

  “Lena—look in my briefcase in the backseat. I think the picture Belinda gave us is in there.”

  I unbuckled my belt and leaned into the back; Sam was pulling off of Green Glass Highway and heading toward Allison’s subdivision. I removed a file from Sam’s briefcase and riffled through it. “Wait—pull over somewhere. I don’t want to look at this right outside her house.”

  He tucked the car under a shady elm in someone’s driveway, and I located the picture. There again were the Lazos children grouped around their parents. “There are the two brothers, George and Demetrius. They’ve both disowned him,” I said. “And so has the sister named Demeter. That leaves four sisters.”

  “Can you read that caption?” Sam said. “It’s kind of blurry.”

  “Something about the Lazos patriarch and matriarch. Sons—I can see their names. Then daughters: Demeter, Gaia, Adoni, Korinna”—I turned to Sam, my eyes wide—“and Agatha. The youngest.”

  “Little sister. Maybe a case of hero worship?”

  “Oh God. Why is she at Allison’s? Why does she suddenly want Allison to come over? Is Nikon going after my friends now?”

  “Be calm. Let’s go and see. Doug has the information. Try calling Cliff.”

  “I don’t know if I have a cell number for him. No wait—I do. I called him once before, when I got the note on my car.”

  I found Cliff’s number and dialed it, but it, too, went to voice mail. “Damn it! Cliff, this is Lena! We’re at my friend Allison’s house. She lives in the Elm Park subdivision on the corner of Willow and Grace. There’s a rock on her lawn that says ‘Branch House.’ We think she’s dining with Nikon’s sister Agatha, and she doesn’t know who she has in the house. We’re going there now.”

  I hung up, and Sam pulled away from the curb. There was no traffic to speak of, and the subdivision was as quiet as always, except for the happy birds.

  Sam pulled up in front of Branch House, and we got out. I didn’t look at Sam because I knew my expression would betray something; she could be looking out the window. I focused on the door, and I rang the bell, feeling stiff as a rod until I heard Allison’s laughter on the other side. She swung the door open and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you could make it! I guess you guys met the other day?”

  “Just yesterday,” I said, as Agatha Lazos came around the corner and smiled at me. And surely this was Nikon’s sister. The miracle was that we had not seen it before. She had his eyes, and Athena’s eyes, and, like the woman in the picture we had studied in Sam’s car, she had an unusually long and graceful neck. Today she had knotted a blue silk scarf around her throat; she wore a white blouse and capri jeans, with a pair of jeweled sandals on her feet. “Nice to see you again,” I said. It was so hard to be friendly that I was sweating with the effort. I reached out to take her hand, and she shook mine. Her hand was cool and dry, just as it had been before.

  “My pleasure,” she said. “I only realized later that I had seen you here, at Allison’s. You had come out of her house once, and we waved at each other. And of course on the day that all those terrible emergency vehicles were here—I saw you then, too.” She spared a cool glance for Sam. “I saw you both.”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Funny how we don’t make those little connections.”

  “Would you like some salad?” Allison asked. “I got the recipe from the chef at Wheat Grass, and it turned out really well. Agatha loved it.”

  Agatha inclined her head. “I did. Salad is my favorite food, and this one is so flavorful.” I detected it now—the hint o
f an accent that came out with some of her vowels. Slight, but there.

  “I heard you were going to give a tour of your house,” Sam said. “We would love to see it, because Lena and I are going to do some renovating, too.”

  “Are you? So you are—a couple? You live together?” Her words were light, friendly, but her eyes were watchful and untouched by the smile on her lips.

  “We are a couple. We live together when we can. Lena has another residence, as well.”

  “Ah yes. Allison tells me that you work with a very famous novelist. This is so exciting.”

  “It is. But Sam and I are both tired of being in the public eye. We never wanted to be famous, but the newspapers have made us that way. I suppose you’ve seen us in the news,” I said.

  Something flashed in her dark eyes, and then she shrugged. “Of course. As I mentioned to Mr. West at the library, I have followed his case with interest. Like the rest of the country, I suppose. How difficult for you both, but in any case, these things happen. We must accept them with grace.”

  This made me angry. “I’m curious,” I said. “Did you know the mailman Eddie Stack? The one who was murdered?”

  Allison looked shocked. “Lena, I don’t think—”

  “I did not know him well, but of course I knew his face. He came by each day with our mail,” she said. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Sometimes he messed up Allison’s mail,” I said. “Even though Branch is a simple name. And I suppose Wallace is a simple name, too.”

  “It is. Very easy to spell and say. No, I didn’t have much trouble with mail. It was on time, it was not torn. A nice enough mailman.”

  Allison was staring at us with wide eyes; she had lost track of the conversation, and even my sunny friend must have sensed some undertones in our dialogue.

  “Wallace is apparently quite a common name,” Sam said. “It was actually my wife’s maiden name. Hers is another name I’m sure you know from the news. Victoria West? She lives here in Blue Lake some of the time?”

  “Oh yes. I see her on television often. She is a lovely woman. Although her pretty face is always marred by her tears. It is sad.”

  “Yes. It is sad.” Sam, too, was wearing a fake smile and seeming to have a hard time of it. “Excuse me for one moment. I left something in the car. Allison, will you dish me up some of that salad?”

  This Allison could understand. “Of course! Lena, Agatha, can I get you some?”

  Agatha brightened. “I would love some more. Come and taste it, Lena—it is splendid.”

  I went with the two women into Allison’s kitchen, trying not to worry over what Sam was up to. He had slipped out the front door, and I strained my ears, listening for the car door.

  We sat and I pretended at sociability; I think I ate the salad, although I tasted and saw nothing. Allison chattered happily, oblivious to the growing tension. I couldn’t stop looking at Agatha’s dark eyes, so flat and cool as they looked back at me.

  After a few minutes, she showed her white teeth in a smile. “We seem to have lost your Sam.”

  “I should go see what he’s up to,” I said, standing up.

  She stood, as well. “Let’s all go. I’ll show you my house.”

  Allison perked up at this. She loved house tours. “Great! Let me just cover this food, in case there’s a fly in here.”

  We made our way to the front door. Allison opened it, and I peered past her, looking for Sam.

  He wasn’t near the car. I looked across the street, at the house where I had seen Agatha gardening. He wasn’t there, either.

  Agatha looked amused. “What a strange time to take a walk,” she said. “Your lover is unpredictable.”

  Terrified, I did a quick scan. What if someone had killed him? What if he were somehow lying out in the woods now, where Eddie Stack had ended up? What if the Lazos clan was like a group of terrible spiders, luring people to their doom?

  What if there were more Lazos sisters in this town? What if Eddie Stack’s wife was a Lazos, and she had killed him because he told her about something he saw? What if Darla was a Lazos, and she had told Agatha about our research with Belinda?

  Panicked thoughts bounced around my mind, but there was only one clear reality shining through: I was following Allison and Agatha across the street. Agatha was smiling serenely as she glided along on her jeweled slippers.

  She turned once, to beckon us forward, and her ring flashed in the sunshine: a silver ring with an embedded jade snake. The snake lady.

  “Come, sweetheart,” she said, clasping my hand in a tight grip.

  18

  “Run!” he cried as a bullet whizzed past them. “Don’t look back! I’ll be right behind you.”

  She no longer trusted the gods, but she did trust him.

  She ran; soon enough she realized that his footsteps had ceased pounding behind her, and she feared the worst.

  In this place of sacrifices, she was highly conscious of what she could not bear to sacrifice.

  —From Death at Delphi

  I FORCED MYSELF to be calm. She had called me “sweetheart.” She wore Nikon’s ring. Did that mean Nikon was here? Perhaps it was a family ring, and they all wore one. Perhaps the snake was from the family crest, identifying them as a clan of betrayers . . .

  So what did I do? Go into the house of this bizarre woman in hopes of finding Sam? Perhaps I was still misunderstanding the situation. Perhaps she just wanted to get a sense of what, if anything, we knew. What if she had not intended for Allison to call me at all? If that were the case, then she, too, might be trying to plan her next move.

  If Sam were with me, I would have simply refused to go to her house; I would have made an excuse and kept Allison away, as well. But now Sam had disappeared, and I knew he wouldn’t have left my side without good reason. If he were now in danger, who was there to help him but me? Surely Doug and Cliff would be here soon to back me up, but for right now I was on my own.

  Allison said something to Agatha, and the latter let go of my hand as she turned to answer my friend. We followed her up a well-tended walkway and through a large wooden door. Her foyer was wide and stone tiled, with bright white walls and a central glass-topped table that held a huge bowl of white peonies. We filed past this, heading for a doorway at the end of the hall, and my gaze fell on the table, where an ant who had obviously escaped one of the flowers was now marching across the glass surface. Agatha sniffed and crushed it with her thumb.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket; I had turned off the sound, a fact for which I was most glad. Waiting until Agatha turned the corner, I glanced quickly down and saw a text from Doug: I’m here. Saw you go in. Where’s Sam?

  I wrote back Don’t know, and, on pure instinct, slid the phone inside my bra, between my breasts. Then I turned the corner into a spacious room, designed with a decorator’s flair and what seemed to my heightened imagination a distinctly Greek look.

  “Oooh, this is lovely!” Allison said. “That color of blue on the back wall—I can never find colors like that in the paint palettes.”

  Agatha shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I had it imported,” she said. “I wanted something that looked like the deepest blue sky, day turning to evening.”

  Allison strolled around, occasionally touching things. Agatha was watching me and pretending not to, and I was pretending to be fascinated by some elaborate border at the place where the walls met the ceiling. There seemed to be mythological characters on it. “Do I see Zeus and Hera up there?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course.” Agatha smiled with her white teeth. “The gods in my personal temple.”

  “That’s cool. What were some of the other gods? I can’t remember from school. I know there was Apollo and Zeus and Athena and Poseidon. Wasn’t there a Nikon?” I asked, my eyes on her.

  Her brows rose and something changed in her eyes.
“Not a god, no. There was a sea spirit called Nikon. He was unfairly killed by the gods.”

  “Oh, okay. I knew I heard that name somewhere.”

  Allison put her hands on her hips. “Well, you also know it from the papers! The guy is in the headlines every day. And I’m sure you saw that latest article by Jake Elliott, right? Didn’t you and Sam ask him to write it?”

  This brought Agatha a little closer. “Is that so? You mean that article that suggests the man who lived with Victoria West and fathered her child is somehow seeking revenge on everyone?”

  “Yes. The guy seems totally nuts,” Allison said.

  Agatha’s hand came up, gracefully, and tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “Before our tour begins, I need my sweater. Allison, it’s in the room just behind you—would you get it for me? A white knit thing, slung over a chair.”

  Allison straightened, her friendly face bright. “Sure!”

  She moved curiously into the next room, and Agatha glided silently after her, shutting the door to the room and then locking it with a key she pulled from her pocket. “What—?” I began.

  Her smile was wide and disturbing. “There’s no need to involve her yet, is there? Not in our private conversation.” This was it: the confrontation. And in a weird, surreal way, I wanted to know what was about to happen. I felt that, if it came down to me grappling with her, I could potentially win. I was fit from my daily walks around Blue Lake, and I routinely picked up the German shepherds to put them in the bathtub. I could take this woman. If I couldn’t, it didn’t matter. I had Doug outside, and soon he would be inside.

  “She shouldn’t have come here at all. Why did you make her a part of this?”

  “I needed her help. She is a nice girl. A sweet neighbor.” She folded her arms. “You are something else.”

  “You’re assuming I know what you’re talking about.”

  She laughed. “Don’t bother. I saw it in your face the moment you walked in Allison’s door. And your lover is an even worse liar.”