The Hotel Riviera(68)
“Pull to the side, just stop,” Lola yelled. “Oh God, I shouldn’t have gotten you into this, Miss N, I’m just so sorry, so sorry.” She screamed as the Hummer bumped them again and sent them skidding out of control.
Chapter 69
Jack
Jack heard the sound of a motorcycle behind, just as the German got the Hummer in his sights. It was halfway across the road, its nose on the tail of the Fiat that was skidding out of control. “Dear God, no, no…,” he yelled, and the Fiat somehow righted itself and took off up the road again.
The Hummer’s engine revved into top gear just as a gray Ducati shot past them. The German woman tourist screamed and her husband slammed on his brakes, cursing the Ducati driver who wasn’t stopping for anything, not even the two cars battling it out in the middle of the road.
Chapter 70
Lola
I put my hands over my eyes. We were as good as dead; my whole life should be passing before me and all I could think about was Jack and that I would never see him again. And Miss Nightingale, the innocent I’d involved in my troubled life. “I’m sorry, Miss Nightingale, I’m so sorry,” I said, through chattering teeth as the Hummer driver put his foot to the metal one more time.
“Oh, my dear,” Miss Nightingale said, knowing it was the end and the enemy had won. She was thinking of Tom as she clung to the wheel, still striving for control.
Chapter 71
Jack
Jack saw the Ducati swing past the Hummer, so close the bike’s wheels almost scraped the car’s hubs. His mind registered that it was Patrick Laforêt’s Ducati and that he was trying to cut off the Hummer but the driver wasn’t letting him. In the seat in front of him the German woman was still screaming, and there was the sudden clatter of a helicopter overhead. It swooped in low alongside the road, just as the Ducati swung in front of the Hummer. There was a screeching of brakes as the Hummer hit it, then the Ducati arced slowly into the air, losing its driver at the top of the arc. He seemed to hang in the air for a split second, then he and the bike plunged into the canyon.
The Hummer did a full spin, balanced on the edge of the sheer drop for a moment, then plunged after the Ducati.
Chapter 72
Patrick
They say a man’s life passes before his eyes in those split seconds before he meets his maker. What Patrick Laforêt saw, like a film unrolling, was Evgenia’s beautiful face hovering over his as she made love to him. Her fingernails are digging into his shoulders, her eyes are wide open, locked onto his. “You must kill Lola,” she is saying to him. “This has to come first.”
He pushes her off him, slapping her hard, snapping her head back with the force of the blow. She doesn’t make a sound, just looks balefully at him with those translucent green eyes. He can see her now, as the Ducati spins out of control, and then he’s flying through the air…
“You will kill Lola first,” she’s saying as though it were the most normal thing in the world, and to a sociopath like Evgenia, it was. “Then we’ll be equals. You can never tell on me, and I can never tell on you. All’s fair,” she reminds him, lighting up another cigarette.
“I’ll just divorce Lola, then I’ll marry you,” Patrick says fiercely.
She shakes her silken head. “It will take years, Lola will contest it, she’ll claim half of your land, you’ll have to sell it to pay her off. Remember, I got your property back. It’s for us. We’ll build my house there.” And Patrick, full of sympathy, knows this is Evgenia, the poor Russian child who’d never had a real home, speaking. “I want to live there with you, Patrick,” she says, “with Laurent’s money. There’s no room for ghosts from our past.”
“I’ll divorce Lola,” he says stubbornly.
“And what happens to me in the meantime, while you are going through all these procedures in the courts? Am I supposed to wait around for you to be free? To be ready to marry me, when she lets you? After all I will have done for you?”
Patrick didn’t accept her plan, he never agreed to it. He thought she was just playing the James Bond girl or something. He hadn’t realized this was for real, that she had the heart and soul of a ruthless killer. And so, when he stalled her, then refused point-blank, Evgenia decided to take matters into her own hands. She would kill Lola.
By the time Patrick realized this, it was almost too late. But he was no killer, he couldn’t let her kill Lola, he just couldn’t. Whatever Evgenia wanted, she went after. And she got it. Now she had got him. Forever and ever, amen.
Chapter 73
Lola
The Fiat shuddered to a stop on the wrong side of the road, slamming me against the dash with a terrific thump. My head hurt as I turned to look at Miss N. She was looking at me and seemed okay. I flung my arms around her, weeping into her neck, still murmuring, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“It’s all right, my dear,” she said, adjusting her glasses and patting her hair into place. I guessed like me she was waiting for her heart to stop racing. “Everything will be all right now,” she added confidently. I wished I could believe her.