The Charmers: A Novel(10)
Oh, Jesus, had I just witnessed a murder? Or was it me he had meant to kill and gotten somebody else by mistake? But who would want me dead? Or the young blonde sitting next to me? Surely not even a bastard husband could want her dead.
No, it had to be me, the “rich bitch” in the expensive car, the woman with all that money she’d not even earned, simply inherited from an aunt who’d died violently and mysteriously. Me, Mirabella, the woman who now owned the villa where we were heading before this event. I could not bring myself to call the dangerous act “attempted murder.” Not yet, anyway. I would have to deal with that later, try to think of who might have something to gain from my death.
Meanwhile, I had to get my head together, find my phone, get help for the other car, though there was unlikely to be any reception down here. Yet, wait, up at the top of the cliff, faces peered over the broken edge-rail, horror written all over them. I put up an arm, waved, saw them flinch with shock, then rush about, obviously trying to get help. I must wait; later I would find out who had tried to kill me. Or Verity.
The rescuers were soon here; some clambering on ropes down the slope while others circled in a small open-sided helicopter, swirling dust into my eyes so I could hardly see. “Saviors,” I should really call them, because I knew in a very short while the Maserati would have continued its tumble into what seemed a bottomless canyon, where even finding our bodies would have been doubtful. Probably been just bits and pieces by then anyway, and since we both seemed currently to be all in one piece, I allowed myself the luxury of tears. In fact I was crying my eyes out, in front of all those TV and press cameras that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the way they always do at scenes of disaster, though I doubted my demise would have counted as “a disaster,” except to me.
I wanted a few more years if only to get to the bottom of what really happened to Aunt Jolly and catch the perpetrator, because I was sure as hell he was now also after me. But why? The same old same, of course: money or sex. I didn’t think the sex was appropriate for Aunt Jolly so it had to be the money. The inheritance, which perhaps someone felt more entitled to than they thought I was. Well now, I wondered who that could be. Whoever it was would stoop to murder. Did I even know anybody like that? Of course I did not. This perpetrator had to be a stranger. The thought was even more terrifying than if it really was somebody I knew. Didn’t they say better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?
Suddenly a couple of soldiers in khaki jumpsuits and rugged boots were dangling over us from a helicopter. One took Verity. I reached up to the other. God, I was so relieved that amid my tears I even kissed him; well, kissed his stubbly cheek anyway, saw him grin from the corner of my eye, heard myself laughing and sobbing at the same time as, terrified in his arms, I swung back up the canyon and miraculously was shoved into the hovering helicopter, rotors whirling, and looking to me like a bird of good omen. And oh boy, did I need one.
Minutes later I was on the ground again, laid out on a rough blanket that scratched my bare legs, and a man who said he was a doctor was leaning over me, checking my racing pulse, my thundering heart, my legs, arms, head. I hurt everywhere and just wished he would go away, stop bothering me. Though I did have sufficient wits left to notice how good-looking he was. Trust me to find a handsome doc when I most needed one.
He said, “You’re going to be alright, you’ll make it.”
“Oh, go away,” I said.
“Right,” he said. And he signaled to the ambulance driver and left.
Aunt Jolly, wherever you are now, I know what happened was because of you. I will use all of this, I will find out how, why, where, when; I will avenge you, my poor dear Aunt Jolly, so happy in your lovely Mediterranean aerie, needing no one but your dog and your cat and the tiny canary bird that seemed to live on forever. Its name is Sing, I remembered it as I flew like that canary out of the canyon to safety. It sang all your life. I hoped it was still singing, though you are gone.
6
A detective came to the hospital to question us, though Verity and I were in shock, still disbelieving that someone had run us off that road and halfway down a canyon.
“It’s a miracle Dr. Prescott found you and that you are alive,” the detective said in English.
He introduced himself as Colonel Rufus Barrada. He was fortyish, attractive, stocky, thickset, with a stubbled chin, deep eyes you could not read, and a thatch of dark untidy hair after he took his cap off. Those eyes bored into me from beneath brows as thick and untidy as his hair and I knew I was looking at a man who was not prepared to believe what I had to say, and that he thought the accident was my fault. I recalled the motorbike rider, the green car, and also—I could not help myself, I thought with a sinking heart, about the insurance on the Maserati. I had to explain to the officer what had happened, make it official, tell him I didn’t know a Dr. Prescott.
“I’m thankful to be alive,” I said. “It was all the motorcycle rider’s fault.”
“There was no bike rider at the scene of the accident.” The Colonel crossed his arms over his broad chest, stood looking down at me.
A charmer, he was not.
“Of course not, he sped off, faster than a speeding bullet,” I added, sticking to my Superman scenario.
“There was a green car, which you hit and which went off the road. The driver was killed.”
My breath caught in my throat. Oh God, oh God, the poor bastard got it, that bike rider got him.… “Jesus,” I said in a small, shaky voice. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. But I did not hit him, I just saw the bike rider go at him and then it was gone … and so was I. There was a truck in the other lane. The driver must have seen what happened.”