“Oh, good. Because I thought I saw a rock over there that looked like a sideways eye,” he said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder, “and I really thought it was maybe time to get my eyes checked again.”
Dani and Theo snapped their heads toward each other.
“Where exactly did you see that rock?” Dani asked.
“Back thataway, up above the pathway a bit,” he said, turning around and pointing. Then he eyed her, suspiciously. “Why? You’re not up to something no good, are you?”
Dani’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water.Shit.
“Cuz if you need a lookout…” Harold then added.
Now Theo and Dani were the ones eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you getting at, Harold?” Dani asked.
“I’m only sayin’…I’m an old man who needs a little break once in a while. So, I dunno…I might just sit right here,” he said, grunting as he lowered himself to a boulder, “and, oh, you know, if someone comes walking that way, I might have a bit of a coughing fit from the dust. One loud enough so that anyone on this side of the Acropolis might hear me.”
“You’d do that?” Dani asked.
“I ain’t got nothing better to do,” he said, “but it seems you do.” He gave her a suggestive look.
Did he think they were sneaking off to have sex? Not that she wasn’t very much looking forward to doing it again, but now was not the time or the place.
“Harold, we’re not—”
But he held up his hand to stop her. “Plausible deniability,” he said. “I’m simply an old man catching his breath.”
She smiled, and then leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You were one of the best parts about this trip, so you know.”
He then looked up at Theo and said, “Don’t worry. I already told her, she’s not my type.”
They all laughed, and he shooed them away as he stood watch. Theo and Dani wound their way along the path, focusing their attention on the rocks above them. For a moment, Dani thought maybe Harold’s eyesighthadbeen playing tricks on him. Everything looked the same. Plain. Jagged. Rocks.
But there, beyond the end of the pathway, was something else. High above the path, like Harold had said, was what appeared to be an eye carved into the rock, the carving slightly worn away by weather.
Dani pointed. “There,” she said.
Theo narrowed his gaze, following the line of sight from her finger toward the hillside. Once it seemed he’d connected with the spot, he took out the page with the pot and held it up in the air.
“This looks like it could be the spot. It’s the right angle, but I don’t see a cave,” he said.
Other than the rock, there wasn’t anything unusual about the spot. There was no indication of a cave. No indentation in the stone. Just a pile of rocks.
“Maybe we need a closer look,” she said.
Theo turned around to gauge their surroundings, his handson his hips. The spot was exposed to the area outside the Acropolis’s fence. There was no way they’d be able to get up there without someone seeing. Even with Harold standing guard, there were far too many people.
“I don’t think we can get up there,” he said.
“What if we wait?” Dani said.
“Wait for what?”
“Until dark.”
Theo frowned. “It won’t be dark until at least eight p.m. Our flight is at midnight. We can’t stay here, Juicy. This is our chance to leave.”
“No,thisis our chance. What if this is it? Are you going to be satisfied going home knowing that we didn’t even check? What happened to the Theo who’s always ready for an adventure?”
“You realize that I would do anything that you asked me to, right?”
