She shook her head. “I’m not too keen on spending more time with Cosmo at the moment. Not when he thinks I’m over here seeing things.”
“Then I might tell him you’re coming anyway so they make extra food, and maybe I can bring you back some leftovers.”
“Sure, that would be great.”
“What do you think you’ll do instead? Go to that archaeology museum?”
“I don’t know,” Dani said with a shrug.
But she knew. She’d already made alternate arrangements in her head.
She knew she’d seen Theo.
And if Cosmo and the police weren’t going to help her, she’d confirm it herself.
* * *
Apparently, Harold wasn’t the onlyone who couldn’t pass up a home-cooked meal. The following day, the entire Silver crew embarked on the excursion with Cosmo to this alleged “Minotaur cave” (aka, tourist trap), except for Dani. She had other ideas.
To return to the scene of the crime.
Well, okay, maybe nothingthatdramatic. But she needed to know. She needed to confirm that her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her.
Her plan had been set: She found a cheap bus that would take her all the way to Knossos around the same time as the day before, and then she’d wait. She’d focus her eyes on the railing. Watch the area that led underneath the palace. And if the men returned, she’d be ready for them.
She figured there was a reason they’d been there right before closing time. Probably entering the site hoping they wouldn’t be spotted. There wasn’t any guarantee that they’d be back again so soon, but she had to give it a shot, especially when her time on Crete was limited.
Now all she had to do was find something else to keep her busy in the hours leading up to it.
After grabbing a coffee and a crispy breakfast pastry filled with custard, she wandered around the streets of Heraklion. The shops and cafés were waking up in the seaside town, but soon the main town center was bustling with people. She stopped afew times to consult her tour book before eventually making her way to the archaeological museum. The building was full of Cretan artifacts: tools, bowls, statues, and frescoes. The diorama of the palace of Knossos was something to marvel at, a re-creation of what the palace might have looked like in its heyday.
Interestingly, however, it didn’t include the hidden chamber she’d spotted the men in.
She weaved through the exhibits, coming upon a room dedicated to the Minotaur. The description of the myth on the placard next to an artist’s rendition of a man fighting the Minotaur with a spear was largely the same as Cosmo’s, minus anything related to caves or Minotaur worshippers.
Another display included a drawing depicting the labyrinth, a complex system of walls and dead ends intended to trap those who’d dared to challenge the Minotaur. King Minos had purportedly had Daedalus construct the labyrinth. Although no such labyrinth had ever been discovered at Knossos, the tale of the labyrinth persisted in Greek mythology.
Dani moved through the room from one artifact to the next, taking each one in. Now she understood why Theo went into this field. Sure, it was always cool to see old buildings and artifacts, but to picture the lives of ancient Greeks was almost magical. So much history in one place.
She came up to a clay vessel set under a glass case, likely used for water or some other liquid—wine perhaps—with an elaborately painted scene on the side: the Minotaur’s head being held up by a man standing outside a cave set in a wall of stone with a crowd of people bowing to him. And on top of the wall, a structure with columns, but the painting had begun to wear off, so it was unclear. On the chest of the man holding the head was amedallion with the Greek letter μ atop what appeared to be an eye. She felt like she’d seen that symbol somewhere before.
Hmm. Maybe there was something to Cosmo’s “Minotaur worshipper” story after all.
She read the placard on the stand holding the vessel:
Clay wine vessel depicting the beheaded Minotaur.
Circa 225 BC Peloponnesian peninsula.
That was odd. The date of the piece was much later than the others, and the origin of its discovery was placed on the mainland, not Crete.
Shit.Maybe sheshouldhave gone on the cave excursion.
She wished she’d gotten Harold’s phone number so she could have called or texted him to find out where exactly they were, though when she looked at the time, she realized they were probably already over at Cosmo’s uncle’s house enjoying their lunchtime feast. Dammit. She needed to find them so she could ask Cosmo more about these worshipper theories.
Fortunately, there was always a research librarian’s best friend: Google.
She stood in front of a large glass display case that sat in the center of one of the exhibition rooms with an eight-foot-tall model Minotaur as she furiously searched “Minotaur worship cave Crete” on her phone. A bunch of hits came up, but none of the places seemed close enough for the Silvers to visitandget back in time for lunch.
