Love is Murder (44 page)

A choking sound came from Dutta’s throat and his eyes went from Cann’s face to Foster’s and found nothing. Cann moved the muzzle to the man’s middle finger and fired again. Again he displayed the result to the horrified prisoner and tossed it away. Dutta’s eyes were wide and his lips were moving but nothing was coming out.

Cann looked over at Foster. “You know what? He’s got eight more of those,” he said coldly. “That’ll take too long.” He stepped up close and rammed the muzzle straight down into Dutta’s groin. “Where is she?”

Girish Dutta couldn’t tell them fast enough.

* * *

“It’s called Execution Dock,” Foster explained to Cann as they sped down Garnet Street toward the Thames, “because that’s where executions took place for admiralty crimes—piracy, mutiny, etc. Most they hanged. Others, depending on the crime, were placed in cells below high tide level and left to drown.” He looked over at Cann, who was staring ahead, fists clenched.

They’d brought Girish Dutta to show them exactly where he had taken Katherine and, they now knew, Beverly. Despite Girish Dutta’s complaints, medical treatment for his hand consisted of a towel wrapping and nothing more. He’d been told to be thankful for that.

They turned right onto Wapping High Street, a narrow road lined with warehouses that fronted on the street and backed onto the river. The large knife pressed into Girish Dutta’s side convinced him to promptly point out the building where Katherine and Beverly were being held. They drove past and stopped down the street. Leaving Dutta guarded by one of the men, Cann and Foster approached the side of the warehouse on foot. The two other members of Foster’s team positioned themselves at front and rear corners where they could observe the other three sides of the building.

Foster made quick work of the door locks.

Inside the building, Sarnath Dutta heard the old hinges creak and jumped up and peered through a crack in the wall. Two men carrying guns didn’t bode well. He pulled a knife from a sheath at the small of his back and dashed back to the trapdoor and pulled it open. Both Katherine and Beverly had managed to get their legs free and were now on their feet but bent over by the chairs to which they remained bound. The water was up to their hips.

Katherine immediately sensed what was happening. “John,” she shouted as loudly as she could. Beverly echoed her. Dutta, hanging from one hand on the edge of the trapdoor opening, dropped into the chamber and slipped on the submerged floor. He regained his footing and leaped at Beverly, grabbing her throat and raising the knife. Behind him, Katherine charged forward and slammed hard into Dutta’s side throwing him off balance. The side of his head struck the hard stone of the wall and he slid down it, his face just below the water’s surface. Stunned, he struggled to raise himself. As he did, Katherine executed a hard side kick to his head knocking him out. He slid back under the surface and Katherine jammed the sole of her right foot into his chest to make sure he stayed there. Then she turned quickly and straddled his upper torso with the chair legs and sat down hard. Beverly saw what was happening and quickly did the same over Dutta’s hips and legs.

Cann reached the opening and immediately swung himself down into the water. For a moment he stood looking around frantically for Sarnath Dutta before he saw the blurred image under the chairs. He reached down and pulled the head up, pressing the muzzle of his weapon against its temple. There was no movement and he let go. The body sank back into the water.

John quickly untied Katherine and they both helped free Beverly of her bonds. Foster’s people lowered the ladder and they all scrambled out of the pit and headed for the relative warmth of the sun. Once outside, John wrapped his arms around Katherine and pulled her close. They held each other for a very long moment. “You okay?” he asked after a while.

“I am now.” She looked down at herself and then at John. “We need to get out of these wet clothes.”

“That’ll work,” John smiled.

Katherine’s laugh was interrupted by Beverly. “Can we get to CPS?” she asked, still stunned by what had just occurred and her role in it. “Will they still let me take the children?” She looked desperately at Katherine. “After this?” She pointed back at the building.

“The less said the better,” Sir Robert Foster interjected pointedly. He gestured to his team and they went back inside. “We’ll clean this up. You go on.” He turned to Beverly. “You must understand. This never happened.”

Beverly looked at Katherine, who nodded. After a moment, Beverly did the same.

“You’ll get your kids,” Katherine reassured her. “But we need to change. We can’t go like this.” She turned to John. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Yup.” He caressed her cheek and smiled. “But only a little. You wouldn’t be you otherwise.”

“Will you come with us?” Beverly asked sincerely.

“Of course,” John answered. “Like I told Katherine,” he said, though he was looking at Foster, “I always love a happy ending.”

* * * * *

IN ATLANTIS

Alexandra Sokoloff

This is a delicious fairy tale, complete with a lady and a Prince Charming. But its ending is nowhere near the traditional happ’ly ever after. ~SB

It was true what they said, the water really was that color, that you see in the books.

Melissa stood on the white sand beach of Paradise Island—real white sand, soft as whipped cream under her feet—and looked out on that dazzling, jewel-like, multihued blue. The winds were gentle, and the sun warm and caressing… .

And it made not the slightest bit of difference.

Because it was also true what they said about a broken heart. There was absolutely such a thing. It did feel as if her heart had been shattered like glass, and now the broken pieces were moving around in her chest. Too sudden a move or a breath and the jagged edges cut her flesh, racking her with new pain.

Three weeks ago she’d been counting the days until her wedding. And then, the oldest story in the book—Facebook, to be exact.
No harm in friending that high school crush, oh, no.
She would bet every cent in the resort casino that hers wasn’t the first broken marriage, or almost-marriage, in Facebook history.

Her grief came in waves, like the sea.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to feel anything again,” she’d told her now-ex-bridesmaid, Annette.

Annette had grabbed Melissa’s purse and rummaged for a credit card, which she proceeded to use to book an air and hotel package to the Bahamas.

“There. I made it easy, it’s the Atlantis. They do everything for you. Just go. Bake in the sun. Have Coco Locos. Have fantasies.”

And somehow, here she was.

Tiny Paradise Island was just off the main island of New Providence, and the Royal Towers of Atlantis seemed to take up a good quarter of it, a
massive twenty-four-story coral-colored resort complex with “Atlantean” ornamentation: leaping swordfish and whorls of shells and tumbling waterfalls of fountains and 141 acres of water rides with names like “The Surge” and “Serpent Slide.” An unlikely cross between the mythical underwater paradise and Disneyland.

In Melissa’s present condition, the Atlantis was so overwhelming that the first day she was in danger of never leaving her room, never in fact leaving the bed. But ultimately she decided that even a ten-minute walk around the hotel was better than slow death by HBO, so she forced herself to dress—Annette had even packed for her—and foray out of the room.

The staircase spiraled down to a circular mall of marble, lined by boutiques displaying clothing that would cost her a year’s salary per item. She passed Prada, Gucci, the Columbian Emeralds store. No one looked at her; she felt invisible, rather like moving in a dream.

The mall opened onto an opulent mirrored lobby…and the centerpiece stopped her in her tracks: a massive crystalline sculpture that seemed to blend the elemental energies of sun and ice.

A
Chihuly,
she recognized right away, as her eyes followed the lines of silver-white crystals up to the skylight.
What I wouldn’t give for that,
she thought, drinking in its beauty at the same time that she was assessing its value at easily two million.

Art history was a terrible background for anyone looking to make an actual living. But she’d managed to parlay her degree and her passion into a job as director of a nicely endowed museum on a state college campus. She had enough of a budget to book shows she really cared about: Egyptian antiquities, photography collections, a fantastic impressionist show just last year.

But a Chihuly was something she could never afford. She stifled a surge of resentment that a glorified mall should end up with a piece of work this fine. No one was even looking at. The casino was even more dazzling; more Atlantis themes with sea monsters and ancient temples prominent in the decor. There were more Chihulys, too, a shining globe of blue and white shells, a fiery burst of orange and red, like lava curling up through water.

She first noticed the man because he was looking up at the art rather than down at the roulette table; he was the only one in the casino besides her who seemed to be aware of the gigantic sculptures suspended above the tables. Everyone else was in that gambling haze, or zone, they probably called it, that hypnotic rhythm of the tables and machines. But the man was gazing up at the brilliant sworls of glass.

And very quickly after she noticed him looking at the Chihuly, she couldn’t help noticing how noticeable
he
was. The kind of man that you always hoped would be slanted just that way against a roulette table. Dark curly hair and coolly assessing eyes, tall and elegant in a suit cut so well she was instantly aware of every muscle of the equally cut body inside it.

She watched him, invisibly…until she realized what she was doing and was horrified at herself.

After everything you’ve just been through—this man? The roulette equivalent of a pool hustler?

A cocktail waitress stopped in front of her with a tray full of drinks, and Melissa reached and drank too fast. The rum made it easier to breathe, and she didn’t flee after all. By the end of her second she was indulging in a fantasy of
stepping up to a table like an old pro, exuding a sly knowingness as she coolly played her rounds… .

And of course, of course, the man at the roulette table would be admiring her play… .

Her reckless thoughts turned racing.

And what? What?

This was exactly the problem with Danny, the problem for maybe your whole life, this infallible radar for bad boys.
She watched the spinning roulette wheel and was suddenly so dizzy she knew she was going to be sick.

She barely made it out of the casino, barely managed the elevator. In her room she pulled open the French doors and stood swaying on the terrace, hands gripping the railing as she stared down at the black waves below… .

She backed suddenly away, through the doors…where she crawled into bed and slept for sixteen hours.

* * *

When she woke up, everything was different. A breeze played gently through the room and she felt a surprising lightness.

She rose up out of the bed, walked to the open doors and stepped onto the terrace.

Bougainvilleas in red and purple and orange grew lushly in stone planters. Turquoise sea stretched to infinity beyond the lagoon. She breathed in the salt and flower scent of the air, and felt a profound calm come over her.

It occurred to her that she could simply stay, never go home, run her credit cards out while she wandered the resort until some new plan evolved or she was arrested, one of those. The thought of just giving up all semblance of responsibility was intoxicating.

What’s the percentage in being good, anyway?

And it was clear, as clear as the water of the harbor, that she really didn’t care what happened to her anymore. Somehow that made her feel the most alive she’d felt…maybe in years.

Inside she put on one of the more daring dresses Annette had packed for her, a shimmering backless coral sheath. She looked at herself in the mirror and felt expensive and reckless.

When she got off the elevator
she made a wrong turn and discovered something wonderful. Down that quiet corridor off the mall was a gallery. And the exhibit was “Lost Treasures of Atlantis.”

There was no one else in the gallery; fine art apparently not being quite the draw of the casino or the waterslides. Of course the artifacts inside had nothing really to do with Atlantis, which didn’t, after all, actually exist. But whoever had curated the exhibit had created a lovely fantasy of what artifacts might have existed in that oceanic world: rough-cut gems, vaguely Minoan creatures; gold carvings of mermaids and tritons; jeweled sea monsters; chalices.

And one that caught her and held her as if she had always known it: a gold shell, encrusted with diamonds and emeralds and what she thought was topaz but the description card identified as yellow diamonds. The shell opened, like a box, and was lined with velvet, and something opened in her heart, seeing it; it seemed to her the most beautiful thing she had ever encountered.

* * *

She daydreamed about the piece while she took her first real walk on the beach that day, and was aware of men noticing her. The shell had given her some of its fire; somehow she was no longer invisible.

That night she dreamed about it, dreamed of a dim, cool underwater palace, where she sat, dressed in silk, on a throne of fire and ice and held the jeweled shell in her hands. The dream was so vivid she felt a physical pain, waking up to the real world.

She dressed and hurried down to the gallery, anxious to see the shell again.

But when she stepped through the door, there was someone else there, standing in front of the glass case.

The man from the casino. This time in a white shirt as elegant as his suit had been, and casual trousers that were equally expensive, equally fine. He was even more attractive in profile, dark, encompassing eyes, aristocratically chiseled features softened by a sensual mouth—