The Hotel Riviera(53)

And that’s when Evgenia met Patrick Laforêt and decided he was her destiny. But now Evgenia had a plan. She knew it wasn’t just Lola that was keeping him from doing what she wanted. It was that awful little Hotel Riviera. It had been Patrick’s father’s place, and his grandfather’s before that, and he loved it. Sentimentality did not exist in Evgenia’s vocabulary. With the hotel gone, the land would be free of “family memories.” It would be free of Lola because she would be out of a job. It would be easy to make Lola disappear, just like the hotel. In fact, maybe she could arrange for both to happen at the same time. All she would have to do was strike the first blow. Falcon would take care of the rest.

Still ignoring her husband, Evgenia walked along the deck and up the flight of steps to the swimming pool, casting off her sarong on the way.

Following her, Solis picked it up, watching her long muscular legs as she strode up the stairs, the smooth upward tilt of her rump in the thong, the delicate curve of her breasts as she took off her bikini top. He held the sarong to his nose, breathing in the scent of her.

Evgenia could feel his eyes on her, like a vulture, devouring her flesh. She posed for a moment, giving him his money’s worth. Then she dived cleanly into the smooth sparkly waters of the marble pool.





Chapter 51




Miss N

Miss Nightingale had failed; she had not got the number of the Ducati, only that it was an Italian plate. There hadn’t been time and her eyes were not as good as they used to be. Bothered by what she thought of as her “dereliction of duty,” she drove back to Saint-Tropez and onto the Ramatuelle road.

She heaved a small sigh of relief as she turned into the lane leading to the Hotel Riviera; she felt as though she were coming home. She parked under the blue morning glory, next to Lola’s old CV2, noting that all the other cars were gone. She’d said her goodbyes to her fellow guests before she left on her little trip with a promise to visit Red and Jerry Shoup at their home in the Dordogne, and to keep in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon, the sweethearts of the Riviera. Despite all the problems, it had been a good summer; her fellow guests were delightful, the view sublime, and Lola as kind and caring as always.

The only fly in the ointment of peace and perfection had been Evgenia and Laurent Solis, and of course the mysterious Patrick. Only he wasn’t so mysterious any more. Patrick Laforêt was alive and well and riding a very expensive motorcycle. She couldn’t wait to tell Lola and Jack.

The front doors were open, as they always were, and Miss Nightingale pulled off her sunhat and stepped into the cool, silent hall. The hotel was closed for a week, for “renovation,” Lola had said, though all it needed was a thorough end-of-season clean and a touch of paint here and there.

“Yoohoo,” she called. “Yoohoo, Lola, I’m back.”

There was only silence. There was a metallic tang in the air, and puzzled, Miss Nightingale walked out onto the terrace. “Yoohoo,” she called again. Nothing. Lola was probably in her own house, taking a well-earned nap. She debated for a minute whether or not to wake her, then decided that her news was important enough.

As she rounded the oleander hedge, she noticed the freshly turned over patch of earth beneath Lola’s bedroom window with a sprig of plumbago on it, wilting from lack of water. Odd, she thought, why would Lola take the time to plant something, then fail to water it?

“Lola?” She rapped on the French windows but got no reply. But Lola must be in because her car was here. The door was unlocked and she went in, but the little house was empty.

Tired, she plumped onto the porch sofa. She’d have to wait for Lola to get back, though she was bursting with her news.

After a while she got up again. No use wasting time, she would bathe and change, then wait out on the terrace. Lola had to come home sometime soon.

She was walking back up the path when she smelled that odd smell again. She paused, sniffing the air. And then she saw the plume of black smoke curling above the kitchen roof, drifting across the high blue sky.

“My God, oh my God. Fire!” she screamed. But there was no one to hear her.

Her legs were shaking as she ran onto the terrace to the kitchen, saw flames shooting out the door and out of the windows, which exploded suddenly in shards of glass.

She ran back along the terrace to the front hall, no fire here yet. She grabbed the phone, dialed the emergency number. “Fire,” she said, controlling her panic until she had got the message through. “Fire at the Hotel Riviera, off the Ramatuelle road. The kitchen is on fire…”





Chapter 52




Lola

We were in the dinghy, back from breakfast, when I heard the blare of the fire trucks, never a good sound in the south of France. Fires have scorched thousands of acres here, destroying part of the coastal beauty for decades to come. Trucks seemed to be coming from every direction, and I put a hand over my eyes, scanning the coast. I saw the black smoke curling into the air, spilling over the little coastal towns, borne by the brisk wind,

“Looks like a big one,” Jack said.

I frowned, suddenly anxious.

Then we saw it, the smoke swirling up from the hotel, and orange flames licking from the kitchen windows.

“It’s home,” I yelled.

“It’s the Hotel Riviera,” he added, but Jack was already heading for the jetty.