Free Blowback by Emmy Curtis Page A

He needed to bring things back on track.
    “What do you know about this Doubrov guy?” he asked. “Was he into anything he shouldn’t have been?”
    Molly was silent for a beat too long. “Not that I know of. I really didn’t know him that well at all. We were on the same archaeological conference circuit, but I really only knew him from attending his lectures, and the meet and greets afterward. He’d just passed a message through my boss that he was looking forward to seeing me again.”
    “What exactly did you say to him when you met him at the party? In fact, why were you at the party with jeans and sneakers on?”
    “The airline lost my bag with my cocktail dress in it,” she said as she pointed across the road to the tops of the temple pillars.
    He noticed that she hadn’t answered his first question and a cloud of concern—or was it suspicion?—bloomed in his stomach. He took her hand to cross the road, wanting to make sure she couldn’t run. And suddenly he wondered why he thought she would. Instinct? He hadn’t been able to rely on his instinct for a few years. He wasn’t sure he could now. “And you couldn’t have waited for the cocktail party the next evening, or the evening after that?”
    “Well, I had my speech tomorrow, and I was supposed to have a few days to relax afterward, maybe visit an old dig or two, but I guess that’s out of the question now, right?” She pulled some tickets out of her purse and handed them to a woman in the box, who gave her two brochures with color photos of the temple.
    The temple loomed in front of them, huge white columns against a dark blue sky. It was a beautiful ruin, he had to admit. But it didn’t diminish the feeling that he was missing something key. Something he should have remembered. It chilled him that he wasn’t on top of his game, and he wondered if it was Molly fucking him up, or his own special demons doing the job.
    As they walked around the site, he thought for the first time since he’d hit Athens about his EOD brother Danny, who had died in an explosion when he’d playfully kicked a soccer ball, on patrol in Afghanistan. A ball that had been filled with explosives. It had been nearly a decade ago, but as his therapist pointed out over and over, seeing the explosion, feeling the blast, smelling the burned flesh was not normal. Remembering it was normal. Being horrified by that memory was normal. His life however, was not normal, and at this stage he didn’t even know what normal looked like.
    She sat on a bench facing the ruins. “I like to imagine the people who lived here, who worshipped here.”
    He sat beside her and put his arm around her like they were teenagers on a park bench. Embarrassed he drew it back again, but she grabbed his hand and snuggled in his shoulder, despite the heat of the day. She fit there.
    He took a breath, and then another. He wanted to just enjoy this today, because tonight they would both be gone and this would be a memory. Even if she wouldn’t tell him exactly what was going on, after today he didn’t really need to know her secrets. And would probably be better off not knowing them.
    A man in a suit entered the site. He didn’t stop at the ticket booth, he just showed the lady something. David stood up. “Is there another way out of here?”
    “Only over there.” She pointed to the other side of the temple, close to the way they’d come in.
    David made a fairly simple deduction. The man was in a suit, so he wasn’t a tourist. He didn’t buy a ticket, so he probably flashed a badge or some kind of ID at the ticket woman. And, he and Molly were virtually the only people there.
    “Molly, listen to me. I think that man is either with the police, or something worse. I’m going to distract him while you get to the exit. Go meet Victoria for lunch and I’ll meet you there, you remember where she said?”
    “Sure. Sina and Skoufa.” Molly gathered her purse and looked anxiously at the