One Way or Another(12)

“Excuse me, but I can see you are troubled. Is there some way I could help?”

It was the man in the dark glasses from the next table. Lucy thought quickly of her overdrawn credit cards, any one of which might be rejected. She thought of the small amount of cash in her purse, of her overused checkbook. She might just be able to swing it, it would have been okay sharing with her friend, but right now she was kind of stuck. Accepting money from a stranger was against all her principles and she gave the man a searching stare, a small frown between her lovely eyebrows, a look that definitely questioned his intentions.

“I only seek to help a damsel in distress,” he said, and then his face lit up with amusement. “Sorry, I sound like a bad poet, but I saw you were concerned about the bill. I’m guessing your boyfriend, fiancé…? did not arrive and now you are compromised. Please, allow me. It will be my good deed for the day.”

Lucy thought quickly: she was either going to be deeply embarrassed—at the Ritz of all places—or in debt to some man, who, though he was good-looking, she did not know from Adam. “Well,” she said, drawing out the word to show her reluctance. “Well, perhaps, maybe, if you would be so good as to…”

“Offer my help? Of course.” He took out a black AmEx card, placed it on top of the bill, and signaled the waiter. “I think under the circumstances, I should introduce myself. Ahmet Ghulbian. And I must tell you right away, that lovely as you are, I have no evil intentions. Seriously, I saw you were in trouble, that’s all.”

“Well, thank you.” Lucy found she was blushing. “But you must give me your address so I’ll know where to send a check. Return your money, I mean.”

He shrugged. His eyes behind the tinted glasses were very dark.

“Please, it is so little, there is no need.” He looked at her for a long, silent moment, then said, “I was going on to dinner at the Italian place I’m fond of, on the Kings Road. I’m wondering if you might also be hungry? Perhaps you would join me? All cards on the table, though.” He laid his big square hands in front of him, smiling at her. “No evil intent, simply companionship and a nice meal. For two instead of one. A man traveling can get lonely. I feel the need for some conversation with my wine, a little company, no obligations beyond that.”

Lucy thought she might quite like a glass of red wine and some conversation with this stranger, who already seemed more interesting than most men she knew. Besides, she was broke and starving. “Why not?” she asked with a wide smile that enchanted.

And that’s how she first met Ahmet Ghulbian. A month ago.





10





ANGIE


I was lying on my back, looking at something round, greenish, encircled in tarnished brass. The green undulated against glass. A porthole! I was on a boat, but not the grand yacht from before. Then how did I come to be here?

My mind struggled to find the memory, my head ached with a kind of violent throb that would not stop. I lifted a hand to my head, an act that seemed to have its own momentum, with no connection to my brain. My hand did not find the expected hair. I felt only a wrapping which I realized must be bandages. Panic lit through me, my hand shook as it fell back onto the sheet that covered me from neck to toes.

I heard a rasping sound, realized it came from my chest, my own lungs, seeking air the way a drowning person might. Oh God, I had drowned. I saw myself again, sinking deeper, from azure to green, to darkness. Had I not died? Had there been a savior?

“She’s coming round,” I heard a man say. A deep voice with an accent. Greek, perhaps? I could not tell. Afraid, I kept my eyes firmly shut. I did not want to see him, knew he would not want me to be able to recognize him. Not a killer like that.

Then, “She’s young, same age as one of my own daughters. How could this happen to her?”

My brain clicked in. This man had a daughter. He was concerned about me. He was not the one who’d tried to kill me. I kept my eyes shut though, just in case I was wrong. I wondered why someone would want to kill me. I was unimportant, a nonentity, simply a young woman trying to earn a living that matched her expectations and, like most, barely succeeding.

My throat was parched, my lips dry. I put out my tongue and licked.

“See!” the man crowed triumphantly. “She is not drowned.”

Suddenly, remembering, I wished I was.

*

The man looking at her, Apollo Zacharias, realized he was stuck with a severely wounded, half-drowned woman. His three shirtless crew members stood staring down at her, wrapped like a mummy in blue towels, red hair clogged with blood. Zacharias observed that it had stopped flowing. He knew this happened when a person died. No more heartbeat to push the blood through the veins, keep the arteries working. He had never longed for anyone to bleed before.

Theos. He was tempted to throw her back in. Get rid of her—the body he meant, because he was certain now she was dead and there was no way he was going to be responsible for a dead body. But then she blinked again.

Zacharias thought of his wife, of his children, the eldest only eighteen. Young, like this girl. Too young to die.

“Carry her to my cabin,” he ordered, then he got on the radio and called for help. Another ship might be close, there might by some stroke of luck even be a doctor. To his surprise, he got an immediate answer.