It All Began in Monte Carlo (18 page)

Mumbai, where she had lived since she was born, thirty-eight years ago, and which used to be known as Bombay and in fact still was called that by many of its inhabitants, was her favorite home, though there was also a recently purchased small mews house in London's Kensington, not too far from Harrods, where Maha found neighboring Harvey Nichols more to her liking, shoppingwise. Except for food that is. In her opinion there was still nothing to beat Harrods' Food Hall, not even Fortnum's, especially for their pastries; the tiny artistic
mélanges
of chocolate and raspberries on a creamy custardy base. Maha's downfall was chocolate, although she kept herself severely in check. The fact was, Maha would rather eat chocolate than caviar, though she did love champagne with anything.

Her wonderful jewels were still on the dining room table. Now she rewrapped them in their black-velvet sleeves and put them in the canvas travel bag on top of the several other objects, also wrapped
in black velvet. Maha zipped the bag, locked it and hefted it from the table, pulling a face at its weight.

Wherever she traveled, New York to Tokyo, Maha always stayed in top hotels. It would not do for a woman selling quality goods like hers to be seen at a lesser venue. In Maha's opinion, quality always spoke of quality, meaning she lived in a top place because she had top-of-the-line jewels. Soon, though, she hoped to make a permanent move to New York. In fact she already had the condo picked out, in the upper eighties where everyone of “quality” lived or wanted to live. She had been puzzling for years on how to achieve that ambition, stymied at every turn by careless employees without sufficient brains or strong enough nerves to carry through what she demanded from them.

Maha had long ago decided that in her line of work innocence was the best quality a woman could possess. And Sunny Alvarez possessed exactly that innocence.

Maha's exotic jewels were already sold at top stores and boutiques from Tokyo to Paris. Harrods had turned her down, saying they were too flashy for their clientele, something that, since many Indians lived in London, had surprised Maha, whose custom designs were made by craftsmen in Rajasthan and were sold wherever well-heeled tourists shopped. But somehow, however much she had made, it was never enough.

Now, she picked up the discarded shopping bags from Sharon and the Bulgarian's previous day's forays at the sales and stuffed them into the wastebaskets. With a flicker of distaste she tossed in Sharon's lipsticked cigarette butts, and the Bulgarian's tissues. The woman had a terrible cold and in Maha's opinion should not even have been within twenty meters of her hotel suite, but there had been nothing she could do about it.

Next, she checked her closet, noting that her large garment bags and twin suitcases were still locked, and that the clothes she intended to use here in the South of France were newly pressed and hanging neatly on the rails, the saris shelved equally neatly, with a
rack of delicate shoes along the bottom. No mere Louboutins for Maha. Her shoes were handmade on her own last by an exclusive shoemaker in Milan, where she went twice a year to pick out a new collection. For her, Louboutin was merely commercial.

In the spacious marble-lined bathroom she began arranging her cosmetics, and perfumes—actually, perfumed oils brought from India and which she found more subtle, personally blended to her exquisite taste. She put them in neat rows on a clean washcloth, something the chambermaids usually did but which she had told them she preferred to do herself. She did not want their hands touching her personal things.

There was the black kohl she used to emphasize her eyes, the bronze dust with the hint of sparkle for her cheekbones, the subtle understated tinted moisturizer and the deep cerise and bare-beige lipsticks that she alternated, depending on the color of her sari.

Maha wore a sari only in the evening, or for business lunches where she was expected to look more alluringly exotic. At other times, she wore a white linen blouse, black pants and a short black jacket, along with her beautiful shoes, made without exaggerated points and with heels just high enough to enable her to walk elegantly without breaking her neck in stilettos. Warmer days, she wore sandals studded with turquoise or other stones, and in winter, elegant calf-length boots. She almost never wore a skirt, having been brought up in a society where it was proper for a woman to keep her legs covered.

Maha did not care anymore about those rules, she simply preferred her own way of dressing, and the black-and-white regime was easy for travel, no need to worry about what to wear since it was practically interchangeable. And for night there was always that gasp of color, the soft swish of silk chiffon, the blaze of a distinctive jewel, sometimes even a flower, an orchid or hibiscus, whose color was reflected in the shine of her glossy black hair, pulled severely behind her pretty ears.

Maha Mondragon was quite something and she knew it. She
was a beautiful woman. A successful woman who had worked her way up from the dire poverty of Mumbai's garbage-ridden slums, and one who was about to become even more successful and attain her dream of joining that upper social strata that, up until now, had managed to exist without her. And she knew that Sunny Alvarez could help her achieve that. It was simple: Sunny needed her; and she needed Sunny. How could her plan fail?

 

 

Sunny was in jeans, a white tee, a drapey red cardigan that matched her daytime red lipstick, and the black sheepskin comfort boots. She also wore medium-size diamond stud earrings that she had bought and paid for herself years ago, and a Cartier tank watch with a white alligator strap. No rings, no other jewelry. Tesoro was with her, tugging on her lead.

Simple good taste, Kitty thought, putting up a hand to touch her own Dior earrings and looking her enviously up and down, wondering why she somehow could never quite achieve that. In her flowery jersey frock and the Louboutins, she felt overdressed. She gave Sunny that little here-I-am wave, hand fluttering, two front teeth gleaming.

Sunny dropped kisses on her cheeks and placed Tesoro on the chair between them.

Kitty's eyes were filled with false admiration as she looked at her. “Beautiful,” she murmured. “Perfect.”

“I don't know about that,” Sunny said, embarrassed. “I just threw on the nearest clothes.”

“But you are
always
perfect,” Kitty said, her eyes still gleaming with something other than admiration. Hatred, perhaps?

“In fact,” Sunny said nervously, “I don't feel perfect or wonderful
or beautiful or any other of those adjectives right now. I kept waking in the night, frightened. I don't know what I was frightened of, just of the dark, I suppose. I was up at five-thirty. I took Tesoro out for a walk and had breakfast at a small café near the scene of the crime.”

“The scene of the crime?” Kitty carelessly dismissed the events of the previous night. She waved over the waiter and ordered a café crème for Sunny and a Red Bull for herself. “Oh, you mean the jewel heist?”

“I mean the
murder.
”

Kitty drank the Red Bull straight from the can. “Murder happens,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “Though not usually around here. I'll bet if you were in New York you wouldn't even have noticed it.”

“Well, I'm not in New York and I am noticing it.” Sunny was offended by Kitty's indifference. “Especially since it happened just down the street from here, while we were in the bar drinking champagne.”

“With Eddie Johanssen you mean.” Kitty took another slug of the Red Bull then wiped her mouth delicately with a paper napkin imprinted in dark blue with the name of the hotel.

Sunny sighed. “I'm sorry for what happened.”

“What's to be sorry for?” Kitty shrugged. “Your lover came to find you and you went off with him. And by the way, I happened to run across Mac a short while ago, right here on this terrace. I hope you don't mind, Sunny, but I took the liberty of telling him I was a friend of yours. I said of course I understood, and I would do anything I could to help.”

Angered, Sunny slammed her coffee cup into the saucer, sending the little gilt spoon tinkling. Tesoro gave a nervous bark.
“You did what?”

Kitty threw her hands in the air, looking shocked. “Did I do something wrong? Ooh, Sunny, I'm sorry. All I wanted was to help.
And after all you
had
left Eddie sitting there, in the bar, with everyone looking at you and Mac, looking for all the world like lovers, and knowing you had simply walked off and left him.”

“I heard you were quick to give him some consolation.”

“Who else was going to pick up the pieces? The poor man looked shattered, as well as embarrassed.”

Sunny hung her head. All Kitty had tried to do was save a bad situation. “Sorry,” she said again, leaning across Tesoro to take Kitty's hand. “I know you were just trying to help, and I know I behaved badly, but it was as though I was in a dream . . .”

“So, did you make love with Mac last night?” Kitty asked, smiling her predatory smile. Tesoro leapt up and bit her wrist.

“Ooh,
look
,” she yelled. “Now I'm
bleeding
.”

Sunny passed her a couple of napkins to blot up the tiny drops of blood where Tesoro's teeth had nicked Kitty's wrist. “Bad dog,” she said, but she thought Kitty deserved it.

“I'm mortified you think I did the wrong thing,” Kitty said, with that little upward glance, easy tears trickling. “You know I would do anything to help you, Sunny. And Eddie.”

“So what did Eddie say? After I left?”

Kitty's small blue eyes hardened. “I shouldn't really tell. Not now you're back with Mac.”

She was right. Sunny knew she should go and apologize to Eddie, say she was sorry and take it from there. My God, what did she mean,
take it from there
. . . was she crazy?

Maha came out of the hotel and walked past the terrace to her waiting car. In one quick glance, she took in Kitty Ratte sitting next to Sunny. Ignoring them, she stepped into the car and was driven off.

Kitty did not even notice her because right behind came the famous Allie Ray. And with her was an overweight woman in a green plaid skirt, green blouse and a gray cashmere shawl. Kitty decided she must be Allie's assistant and therefore unimportant. She dismissed her from her radar.

“A day shopping together,” Kitty said, wistfully. “How wonderful. Just the way
we
did, Sunny. Was it only yesterday?”

Guilty, of course Sunny had to ask her to join them. All she'd really wanted was to be alone with Allie so she could sort out her love life. Now not only would Allie have Sunny to sort out, and Pru, she also had Kitty.

 

 

Eddie was on a flight to Germany where a new tanker was being built for a client; not a Greek, they were not so prominent now in the tanker business, but an American of Middle Eastern origins, who had money to spend on such things since he made a fortune from oil.

Eddie's job was to broker such deals. His own family still owned small shipyards in Holland and Scandinavia, where they too had built great ships. Not so many now, though, since deals were so tight, but certainly more than enough, along with the commissions Eddie made around the world and the oil deals, to keep him and his family in style, both in a weekend house on their own small island off the coast of Sweden, and also a large town house in the historic part of Stockholm. The town house was conveniently close for his two small children, a boy, aged five, and a girl, six, to attend one of the best day schools in the area. And also close enough to the action for his wife to spend a great deal of her time hanging out at parties with “friends.”

When Eddie first met her, the pretty Jutta looked like every man's dream of a Swedish girl, a natural almost-white blonde, with large blue eyes fringed with blond lashes that gave her a look of perpetual youth and on which she never used mascara. She had an
even smile and a lean athletic body. Jutta was a champion skier and looked wonderful on the slopes, a blond vision in the marine-blue ski suits she always wore because they matched her eyes. With her handsome husband, they looked the perfect couple.

That was why nobody could understand when they split up. “Why?” her friends asked Jutta. And “Why?” his friends asked Eddie.

“Because it's over,” Jutta told them with an indifferent shrug. “Because it might never have been,” Eddie had said, with a slightly different perspective on things.

He didn't blame her; he traveled so much, and as a woman left alone with two small children Jutta was forced to become independent. Such love as they once had for each other had dwindled and on Jutta's part disintegrated into anger. Now, even though she no longer loved Eddie, she did not want him to be with someone else. Jealousy, not love, was making her vindictive.

Eddie did not understand that. He was willing to be generous, give her the house on the island, as well as the town house, and a great deal of money, though she wanted a lot more. All he wanted was shared custody of his beloved children. That was the catch. Jutta was claiming
sole
custody, with visiting rights only one weekend each month for him.

“After all,” she had said in her written statement to the court, “Mr. Johanssen is away so much he barely sees the children anyway. Why should anything change now? It would only upset their routine. Their emotions are involved here.”

Matters were now in deadlock. Eddie loved his children. They were the most important part of his life. He had his work, and he had his kids. And that was it. That is until he met Sunny Alvarez on a flight from L.A. to Paris and his life took a U-turn. She wasn't the first woman he'd become acquainted with since he and Jutta had split up a couple of years ago, but she was different.

The flight attendant stopped to ask if he would like something
to drink. She was attractive, with a warm look in her eyes as they met his. Eddie thanked her, refused the drink and, leaning back, thought about Sunny.