The Charmers: A Novel(7)
Ten minutes ticked by. Another ten. I still had my Cartier watch with the diamond bezel. I hadn’t been dumb enough to get rid of that because I always needed to know the time.
“So, alright,” I said, loftily. Then, realizing I was being rude, added more humbly, “Thank you, I’d like to accept your offer. In fact I don’t know what I would do otherwise, I didn’t plan…”
“I know how it is.” She smiled as she closed her book, put the pen back in her bag, tightened the black leather string around its top, and smoothed the crochet gloves she was remarkably still wearing. The sapphire ring glinted darkly in the sunlight. “I promise everything will be alright.”
“I’m sure it will,” I said, remembering my manners as a well-brought-up girl. “Young woman,” that is, though right now she made me feel like a child again. And somewhere deep inside that felt so good.
“My car is at the station,” she said. “We’ll be at the villa before you know it.”
I could not believe the car belonged to a woman who wore crochet gloves, no makeup and her hair in a red tangle: a gorgeous dark-blue Maserati GranTurismo convertible with cream leather seats hand-stitched to immaculate perfection. A chauffeur stood by, while a second man waited alongside a small white Citroen, ready to drive the chauffeur back while Mirabella drove herself.
“Thank you, Alfred,” she said as the chauffeur opened the door to the Maserati for her and she slid behind the wheel. “My friend will be accompanying me,” she added and he walked quickly around to the passenger side, took my bag, and held open the door.
She waved lightly to him, and he disappeared rapidly in the Citroen to wherever perfect servants disappear, into the ether perhaps, to be called on when required by Madame, though this “Madame” did not seem particularly demanding. I thought it nice of her to speak to him softly like that, and with a slight smile, though I guess he’d expected to leave her to go wherever she wanted in the gorgeous Maserati.
“Get in, Verity,” she said, hitching up her too-long linen skirt, a foot already on the pedal. This woman waited for no one. I was in that car so quickly I had no time even to consider what I was doing, who I might be with—a kidnapper trading in sex slaves, a serial killer preying on young women, or a madwoman who wore a ring outside her gloves. Her flaming red hair flew behind her in the wind as she drove far too fast when we got to the corniche road that wrapped itself around the base of the mountains on one side and fell into the canyon and the sea a hundred feet below on the other. Ohh, that blue-blue sea, the blue of her eyes.
I crouched lower, clinging to the cream leather door so as not to be catapulted to my doom. We were following a gray car, a flattened, close-to-the-earth shape that suggested a Porsche, and which was itself following a small green car. My eyes were fixed on the Porsche and the road ahead; I was practically driving for her, edging into that curve, heading for the next bend.
Our eyes met in the mirror. Her face was pale, her mouth set.
“Take a look behind you,” she said.
I looked. Nothing there. Wait. Yes, a motorcycle zapped around the bend. Black. My ex happened to be a motorcycle fan and I recognized the Ducati Monster by its exposed engine and frame, a classic, geared for speed and elegance, as was its rider, all black leathers and black steel helmet. There was no way to see his face, tell who he was, but he was certainly on our tail.
“Jesus,” I said, the wobble in my voice telling how nervous I was. “What’s up with him anyway?”
She did not answer but her foot pressed all the way down and we were off like a rocket. I closed my eyes and thought about praying. I repented my sins rapidly; I should not have left my husband even if he did behave like a bastard. I should not have called him a bastard. We went quicker and I thought even quicker: I should have taken the damn money, taken all the jewelry, gotten a good lawyer and sued the hell out of him. Instead I was going to end my days the victim of a madwoman whose red hair and crochet gloves should have given me due warning. I had ignored that gut instinct and now I was to pay the price.
“Hang on, my dear,” she said, taking a hand off the wheel to brush her hair out of her eyes. I held my breath. Two hands were better than one even if it was a no-win situation. I decided to close my eyes. No point in watching the Maserati compete with the Ducati and the Porsche and a rapidly approaching sixteen-wheeler for road ownership when it was all doomed to disaster anyway. I did like this car though, loved the smooth feel of the leather under my desperate clutching hand, the way my head fit on the perfectly adjusted headrest. I even liked, no, at this moment I loved the way the seat belt gripped my chest, though I’d probably have no tits left whenever it stopped. If it stopped. I hung on.
And then the Ducati roared past, the small green car disappeared, the road stopped being underneath us, and we were flying, a glorious dark blue bird, smooth as on a test drive, through the air into the depths below.
Somewhere, somehow, out of the corner of my eye before I shut out everything and fled into unconsciousness, I glimpsed the Ducati tearing up that stretch of the corniche road, its faceless leather-clad driver speeding away without so much as a glance our way. The Porsche was gone, the green car was gone, he was gone, and so, I believed were we. I did not feel it would be to a better place. But then, I didn’t have much time to think about anything.
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