Cuts and abrasions on their faces and arms notwithstanding, Helen and Reuben made it to the safe house outside Athens without another incident.

A nurse had been waiting for them. Other than those bumps and bruises, both of them had been declared fit for duty.

Helen’s liaison in the CIA, Dario de la Cruz, had shown up in person, validating their shadow team.

After a hot bath, Helen ambled downstairs with her iPad. When she reached the spacious library-turned-operational-center, all eyes were on her.

The new shadow team was forming, and if they didn’t tread carefully, they would be in a world of hurt.

Hugo, her faithful employee who had gone everywhere she sent him—and still hadn’t quit on her—was on the phone. Helen heard him give instructions to Earl, who was at the Savannah office.

Helen made a note to herself to give Hugo a pay raise or offer him the director position of her European office, wherever she ended up planting it.

At the other end of the table was Leland Yang-Joule, a hacker that Helen had borrowed from the NSA by way of the CIA via Dario. It didn’t matter to Helen how she came about it. The CIA would pay Leland’s fees, but for this week only, she would be assigned to this operation to find a connection between Dario’s terrorist and Helen’s art thieves.

“Alive and well. Good to see you.” Dario waved from the coffeemaker on a side cabinet by a wall.

There was a mirror hanging over the side cabinet, reminding everyone that this was a vacation home or a private villa. They were only passing through.

The quicker, the better.

Helen sat down in one of two empty chairs next to each other. She swiped her iPad. “Where’s Reuben?”

Against Dario’s better judgment, Helen had insisted that Reuben be a part of their problem-solving team. She knew Dario was probably tracking and watching Reuben. That was fine with her. In fact, Helen could not expect anything less from the thorough Dario.

“Coming.” Reuben’s voice echoed in the stairwell and reached Helen, whose back was facing the hallway.

He sat down next to Helen.

Her senses heightened.

He smelled clean and fresh.

Just the way I like—

Helen cleared her throat.

She hardly knew Reuben.

Yet, she knew a lot about him, his past, his present, his connections to Mom.

Speaking of connections…

“It’s time to link the dots,” Helen said.

What would be Reuben’s dot or dots? Helen wondered if she could trust him. Was she prejudiced against his background?

Somewhere in his portfolio, it had stated that he turned religious in his last year in jail. He had given a written testimony of having accepted Jesus Christ in his heart. His fellow inmates had agreed that he was a changed man.

Are we not new in Christ?

Helen glanced at the clean-shaven, neat-and-tidy man sitting next to her.

He did not look like a thief.

A slight smile accentuated his dimple.

Mom would approve.

Mom!

Right. We need her home.

“Our purpose tonight is to collect every dot we have and let Leland’s program find a way to extrapolate the connection. The goal here is to find Mom ASAP.”

Everyone nodded.

“Too bad Cam can’t be here,” Hugo said. “He’d be a useful addition.”

“Dario knows enough about the Petros eggs.” Helen waited for Dario to say something.

He didn’t.

“We begin a week before Santorini,” Helen said.

“Or fifteen years ago,” Reuben said quietly.

Helen placed her hand on Reuben’s arm—before she realized she was doing it.

“Ah, let’s do. Why don’t you fill us in on it?” Helen said.

Reuben tapped the pen on the notepad in front of him, then sat back. “Fifteen years ago, my father fell in love with Person A. Some of us thought that might have been Mama Hu, but it’s all speculation based on circumstantial evidence. Her photo was in his safe deposit box. However, in the same box was a diamond bracelet. In my one week of interaction with Mama Hu, I realized that she doesn’t wear diamonds.”

“No,” Helen said. “Mom prefers something gaudy, colorful, and loud.”

“Like her multicolored jacquard boots.”

“Exactly.” Helen nodded. “Also, Mom is a talker. She lives with me, and she talks my ears off. However, I have never once heard her mention Frederico Costa. It was always Edgar this, Edgar that. Edgar was my dad’s name.”

“Something is off, but we don’t know what it is,” Dario said. “I’ll look into it, if you want.”

“Will you? That will be terrific,” Reuben said.

Leland raised her hand. “From what I see to this point, your bad dudes are techno-savvy. They sent a drone to follow Mama Hu in Oia, even after the egg exchange.”

“Did they? Why would the drone shoot at Mama Hu if they wanted her alive?” Hugo asked.

“We don’t know if it was shooting at her,” Helen said.

“Right. That’s under investigation,” Dario added. “Meanwhile, we might also consider that they had put a tracker on Mama Hu during the delivery.”

“Which could explain why they knew when she would arrive in Athens.” Helen thought for a minute. “Then again, anyone could check the flight schedule or use conventional surveillance means.”

“On the drive to Athens, who dared to kill two police officers and wound an INTERPOL agent—and then abduct the witness?” Hugo talked as he jotted something on his iPad.

“Who has Mama Hu now and what for?” Reuben asked.

“Why don’t any of her tracker and homing beacons work anymore?” Helen asked. “Where is she such that there are no signals out? A cave? Underground? Where?”

As soon as the meeting was over, Helen was on a secure line, calling Sabine in Savannah. She was seven months pregnant and obviously concerned about Mom.

“Tell me everything, sis.” Sabine’s voice was controlled.

Deliberately, slowly, and sparingly, Helen explained to her that Mom had disappeared about seventeen hours ago. Helen spared Sabine the gory details of a roadside abduction.

When Helen was done, Sabine was silent, and then she said something odd. “You mean like those Fabergé eggs? Enamel and gold?”

“It’s not that popular or expensive.”

“Whew. Good to know. Dad gave me a replica.”

“What?” Helen sprung off her bed. She had come to her bedroom to lie down, to calm down, and then call Sabine.

Now she was sweating.

“He said if I kept it, then Mom won’t get into trouble. I must’ve been about five years old.”

“That long ago?” Helen counted in her head. “Twenty-seven years ago?”

“Uh-huh. I dropped it a bunch of times. It’s all chipped up.”

“Oh, I recall that now. You rolled it around your dollhouse.”

“And I rolled it down the stairs, remember?” Sabine laughed. “It went clunk, clunk, clunk.”

“Huh. Was it heavy?”

“I don’t know. After Dad died, I put it in a safe deposit box together with the other things Dad bought me from his trips overseas.”

“What other things?” Helen asked.

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No, no. Mom is in danger. Maybe Dad left us some clues. Can Ming access your safe deposit box?”

“Yeah. It’s in the bank downtown.”

“Is Ming around?”

“We just had lunch. He’s about to go back to work. Wait a sec.” Sabine called for her husband.

While Helen waited, she thanked God for Dad.

Dad must have known Mom would get into a boatload of trouble. He had prepared the family. Maybe?

Helen repeated to her brother-in-law what she had told Sabine, but with more urgency.

“Ming, you need to get Sabine to a safe house. Then FaceTime me with the contents of the safe deposit box.”

“And you’re looking for a chipped, cheap, chicken egg?”

Helen hung her head. “Okay, English major, go get your wife to safety and help us bring your mother-in-law home.”