Page 53 of Footprints in the Sand
Harry had his phone out and searched for more information. When he found it, he turned his screen around so that Dimitra could read: Greek Drug Dealer Fakes Own Death and Starts New Life with Second Family.
The photographs were of Kostos with two little girls and a much younger wife.
Dimitra’s first instinct was to throw Harry’s phone into the water beside them. Instead, she read the first few articles, learning that, apparently, after getting too involved in a drug ring on Paros Island, island police helped Kostos fake his own death and take on a different persona. He was living with two daughters and a wife on Amorgos, an island south of Naxos, where he continued to oversee his drug ring at a distance. His nephew through marriage, Nico, was also involved in said ring.
Dimitra’s heart pounded. Poor Athena.
Of course, the articles suggested that Dimitra and Harry had helped make Kostos disappear, that they’d struck an agreement. But that would be easy to disprove, she knew. She’d only just met Harry a few weeks ago. She’d spent the entire past year mourning Kostos.
“I can’t understand how they figured this out,” Harry said, shaking his head.
Dimitra had a sudden image of William Cottrill on his mighty yacht, smoking a cigar and gazing down at her ominously. He’d told her he had the power to destroy her. He’d basically told her that he’d smear her name.
But the funny thing was, William Cottrill had actually freed her. Dimitra now knew the truth about her terrible ex-husband. She now understood that he’d wanted to leave her so badly, that he’d hated her just that much, that it had been easier to fake his own death.
She didn’t want to be in a marriage like that. She deserved so much more.
“How do you feel?” Harry asked gently, touching her shoulder.
“Like I might faint,” she admitted, smiling.
“You look happier than I expected you to,” he said.
“I feel lighter, somehow,” Dimitra said.
Harry touched her hair. “He has two children.”
“He does.” Dimitra nodded.
Harry shook his head and wrapped her in a big bear hug. As Atlantic winds descended upon them, he held her like that, stroking her hair, telling her everything would be all right.
One way or the other.
But later that night, William Cottrill texted:
What a story, huh?
Dimitra didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Paros Island - June 2025
Eva wasn’t the one who broke the news about Kostos. When she first learned the extent of it—including the two little girls and his wife on the island of Amorgos—she was so overcome with shock that she cried. It was personal to her, of course, going far beyond the little Greek story she’d found herself in. It reminded her too much of her grandfather, too much of what Grandpa Chuck had done to his first wife. It put everything into context.
Then again, Kostos was a dangerous part of an active crime ring. Grandpa Chuck had never dug himself that deep into anything. He’d loved, lied, and lost. Like Finn, sort of.
When news of Kostos broke, Eva, Jean-Paul, and Aphrodite were “in hiding,” sort of, in a friend of a friend’s house near Noussa, on the opposite side of the island to Aliki. After they’d learned that Kostos was watching them and knew they were after them, they’d known not to go back to where he’d be able to find them. They’d reasoned, though, that Paros was the bestplace to go, if only because most of Kostos’s friends and relatives assumed he was dead.
The news was strange, however, because it often suggested that Dimitra was a part of the cover-up, if only because she took insurance money from Kostos’s death.
“Poor Aunt Dimitra,” Aphrodite said, standing near the television with her arms crossed.
When Nico first appeared on-screen in connection with Kostos’s arrest, Aphrodite gasped and got ready to go. They’d been in hiding for only forty-eight hours, but everything had blown up. Aphrodite needed to go home and tend to her family. She needed to take care of her mother.
“Mom won’t believe this,” Aphrodite said.
Eva knew that no mother wanted to believe their son was a criminal. She hardly wanted to believe it herself about Nico, a guy who probably could have been happy just being a bad boyfriend and making a little cash in the summertime. Had Kostos dragged him into the mess of all this?
