The Charmers: A Novel(43)

“I have to get her to the hospital.” He reached into his pocket for his mobile, to call them. “I’ll drive her there myself, it’ll be quicker than waiting for an ambulance.”

“Wait.” The Boss held up a hand, palm out, to stop him. “We’ll use my helicopter. I’ll call the pilot now. He can be here in five minutes.”

Chad nodded. It was pretty amazing that not only had the Boss rescued the half-drowned girl from the sea, now he was about to save her life a second time, by helicopter. It seemed there was nothing the Boss could not do.

The Boss stared down at the immobile girl, then suddenly covered his eyes with his hands. “Oh God,” he murmured. “How could this happen? At my party? What will my guests think?”

He turned to the Colonel who was also on his phone. “You have to find the culprit. Somebody did this to her, put drugs in her drink the way I’ve heard men do in cheap bars. There’s something they use to make young women unaware of their actions, then they take them home and rape them. I can’t have someone doing things like that, here, in my home.”

Though the Boss did not actually say it, looking at him, larger than life and twice as rich, the Colonel half-expected expected him to say, “Do you know who I am?”

“You have to find the culprit,” the Boss stormed on. He was pacing now, hands clenched. Tension radiated from him. The Colonel respected his concern, his need to do something to help the young woman lying on the beach, more dead than alive. Chad was still pounding on her back. He turned her over, and gave her the kiss of life. The Colonel did not think it was going to work. How had this happened? What was she doing in the sea? Even drunk, even drugged, surely she would have recognize the difference between walking on sand and struggling through waves. It did not make sense.

“We’re not after a ‘culprit,’ sir,” he said to the Boss, who turned to look at him, eyes wide with anger. And with something else. The Colonel wondered if it could it be fear. “This was no accident,” he said. “What we’ll be looking for is a would-be killer.”

The Boss stared back at him, silenced.

Chad attempted to lift the girl, intending to carry her to dry land and the Boss seemed to return to his senses. “No. Wait. I have a stretcher.”

They watched as he hurried back into the bunker. Chad checked Verity’s pulse again. Mirabella sank onto the sand next to him.

“I promise I won’t cry,” she said, despite the fact that tears were already running down her cheeks, along with a great deal of blue-black mascara. “Oh, dear God, please, please, Doctor, save her.”

“I’m afraid I’ve done all I can here.”

The Boss came back from his bunker with a folded lightweight stretcher. Chad glanced at him, surprised. It was not exactly the kind of thing you kept handy. In fact he did not know anyone who had a stretcher in their home. Two burly men accompanied the Boss. Now they helped move Verity onto the stretcher and carried her to the helicopter landing pad. In minutes the six-seater Beechcraft Bonanza G36 clattered overhead. The Boss was as good as his word.

In the stretcher Verity was lifted inside and placed across the seats. Chad and the Boss climbed in behind. The two men sat in back of them.

In less than ten minutes they were at the local hospital. The Boss was already on his mobile, speaking in French. Astonished, Chad realized he was talking to the party organizers, telling them to keep the party going, ordering up more wine, more champagne, more food, louder music.

“Let them dance,” Chad heard him bark in his giving-orders voice. Chad bet they would dance. They would not dare not to.





35

The Russian

The Russian found the pearls right where Mirabella had dropped them. He scooped them up, on the run, shoved them in his pocket, and kept on going until he reached the lane and his car parked beneath an overhanging tree, which conveniently hid it from passing traffic.

He threw the door of the Renault open so hard it crashed back on itself with a loud smack of metal on metal. Jesus. It sounded like a road accident. Anybody might show up now. He had the ignition turning almost before he sat down. He switched off the headlights, tense, waiting, eyes and ears straining in the darkness. No sound of following footsteps, no shouts, only the music still coming from the Boss’s party, which he knew would go on until morning, when a breakfast of bacon and eggs, sausages and pancakes was to be served. God, he could use that breakfast right now, his stomach was rumbling with nerves and hunger, plus a couple too many drinks.

The Boss’s rule was no drinks on the job, but f*ck it, a man had to live. If caught though, a man might also die. He should know. Often enough he’d been the man who’d done that job. That’s what happened to his pal, another Russian who’d done work for the Boss. Drank and opened his mouth, until he’d shut it for him. Forever. Which is why he was about to take the Boss for a hefty chunk of money. Blackmail. Dollars in his pocket, or at least in his bank account. Maybe open a new account in Switzerland, a secret one with only a code to identify it. You didn’t know the code, you didn’t get access. The Swiss were good at things like that.

Only trouble was, he had missed again. Missed killing Mirabella, who he knew the Boss needed dead so he could get his hands on her land, and also that little painting, on which it seemed he’d set his heart. Who would have known the Boss even had a heart? Ah, perhaps he was just an art lover. Anyway he’d missed doing the deed, simply because the f*ckin’ doctor had shown up at the crucial moment. Fuckin’ nearly gotten himself caught, had to slide out from behind those curtains, off into the night like a fox, well, maybe a wolf was a better description. Yeah, he liked wolf. Fanged, fierce, fearless. That was him alright.