Reliquary (Reliquary Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

conversation in the morning. If it still seems significant once you have a chance to sleep on it, I promise I’ll take a look.”
    The muted click on the line told me she’d ended the call. I looked down at the card again. “Yeah, right. I’m sure you’ll totally take it seriously,” I muttered as I headed back out to my car. “Screw sleeping on it. I’m in the mood for kebabs.”
    Alessandro’s had a plain, boxy facade, deep and narrow with little space between it and the buildings on either side. The area seemed kind of sketchy—on one side was an abandoned house with boarded-up windows. Still, there were lots of cars parked up and down the block and plenty of people around, so I parked across the street and headed inside.
    It looked like a busy Friday night, and all of the tables were full. When I said I wanted to order for takeout, a harried-looking waitress waved me over to the tiny bar at the back near the kitchens.
    Trying to be subtle, I snagged a menu and perused while glancing around. There were a few other customers around me, most glued to their phones. The wall was cluttered with framed photos, most including the same elderly man with bronze skin, a bushy mustache, and a shock of white hair. There he was posing in front of what might have been the Parthenon, grinning with his arm around a curly-haired woman in an olive grove, on the deck of a boat with an octopus dangling from his fist. Was that Alessandro? Or . . . Eniro?
    “It’s not going to be that easy,” I muttered aloud.
    “I always have a tough time choosing, too,” said a stocky guy leaning up against the counter. “But the lamb souvlaki’s hard to beat.”
    I smiled at him in a vague way that said I wasn’t looking for conversation. A rush of warm air fluttered my curls, and I craned my neck to peer down a side hallway with a door leading outside. The person who’d just come in from the alley didn’t come into the restaurant, though—he made a beeline for the end of the hall and stood there like he was talking to someone behind the door. Finally, he went inside and the door closed.
    “What can I get you?”
    My attention snapped back to the guy behind the counter. He looked college age, with curly, dark hair and a large, beaky nose that kept him from being handsome. “I’ll have the lamb souvlaki.”
    Curly scribbled the order on a pad. “Anything else?”
    “Um. Yeah. Do you know anyone named Eniro?” I knew it was a long shot. It wasn’t like these people knew the names of all their customers, and Ben probably hadn’t been meeting someone who actually worked here.
    But instead of looking puzzled, Curly furrowed his brow, and his gaze slid to the side hallway. “Eniro?” he asked in a voice barely above a whisper. “Uh . . . hang on.”
    He disappeared into the kitchen, and a moment later I heard loud voices in another language, probably Greek. The other waiting customers tossed me irritated looks, probably thinking I’d delayed their dinner. But after five minutes or so, Curly came out again, several paper bags in his hands. He ignored me as he rang up each order and handed out the food to the people who had been waiting, then pushed the last bag toward me. “Lamb souvlaki. That’ll be ten ninety-nine.”
    I dug in my purse and pulled out my wallet. When I opened it I realized it was still packed with bills—fifties, twenties, a few hundreds—all gifts from the engagement party. I hadn’t yet made it to the bank and had been walking around with nearly nine hundred in cash. Probably not the smartest thing. I pulled out a twenty and handed it to Curly. “So . . . did the guy in the back know where I could find Eniro?”
    Curly’s eyes flicked toward my purse, making me clutch it tighter to my chest. “Nah. There’s no one here by that name.”
    “Look, I really, really need to find him. My fiancé is missing, and I think he met Eniro here last Friday. He was kidnapped three days later. Please help