Chapter Eleven

Like a champion cliff diver being heckled by a suicide response team, Leanne swung her gaze from the dark roast blend in the bone china mug and looked up at me, “I need to know what happened to Elias.”

Beyond the patio of the cafe, in contrast to most travel brochures, the hills in the distance were huddled, as if protecting a secret; I looked at her, “As your private investigator, I’ll stop looking when you say, ‘Stop looking.'”

“Yet you’re here as my friend as well.”

“The same standards apply;” as she replied, I was appreciating why this part of Europe is the preferred setting for tales of dark magic and deals with the Devil, and so, was spared the full power of her smile; to say Leanne could convey a message with nothing more than an eyebrow or a tilt of a shoulder pulling at the corner of her lips was like saying the United Nations General Assembly was culturally diverse; I continued, “I’ve been known to engage resources that are less, how to say, traditional…”

“You got a guy?”

“Oh, far more than that, ‘I got a woman…’ in Chicago; lets just say, if the Delphi oracle were a real thing, smokin hot and insanely dangerous, she might qualify to work for the woman who runs the Omni Corporation; trust me when I say, just telling you her name is Anya Claireaux puts both our lives at risk.”