Perfect (25 page)

F  I  F  T  Y  -  T  H  R  E  E

“Alma!” I said. “My God, you scared me to death.”

The fake Cambridge and Delhi Durbar parure necklace dangled from my hand like booty scooped from a trunk in Ali Baba’s cave.

“Give them to me, Margaret.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said give them to me.”

I don’t know what kind of gun she was holding, but it was big—almost as big as mine, the elephant stopper—and was made even larger by the presence of a silencer. Her hand was as steady as a rock.

“What do you mean? This is the evidence I needed, Alma. Look.” I held out my hand. “I found them, the queen’s jewels, right here in Sebastian’s safe. And now they can be returned, and he can be brought to justice.” I continued to lay the fake pieces in their cases. “You know, none of this would have happened without your help. I imagine the queen will even give you a medal for your assistance.” My breath and hands were steady in spite of having a gun pointed at my head for the first time in my life.

“I already have lots of medals,” she said. “Put the jewels down. I spoke with an Inspector Thomas Curtis this afternoon. I told him his agent was here on the scene, I even described you to him and he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he said he had no inspector on the scene.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’ll have to take that up with him. He wanted to know where Mont-St.-Anges was and I told him, but I’m afraid I left out a couple of key coordinates. We don’t need any police help here. We handle our own affairs.”

I felt an icy presence behind me, as though a grave had opened. Sebastian. He stepped silently up beside me.

“Sebastian,” she ordered. “Please be so kind as to take the parure from Margaret Whoever-she-is and remove that pink diamond pendant from her necklace while you’re at it.”

“Alma.” He licked his lips. “Please put that gun away. It’s not necessary.”

Alma’s eyes were dark and cold and I suddenly realized with complete certainty that she actually intended to kill me.

I opened my mouth to speak, but for a second, no words would come out. “Wait a minute,” I finally blurted. “Are you telling me you’re in this together?”

“Sebastian,” she warned.

“Alma,” I said, “why are you doing this? For heaven’s sake, you’re the richest woman in the world. The jewelry you have on tonight is far superior to these pieces.”

“What do you know about jewelry? What do you know about being crippled and spending your life in a wheelchair?”

“Nothing. But I know you could be making a difference in the world.” The whole time I was talking I was trying to figure out what to do, but kept drawing a blank. “Instead you have some silly little butler steal things for you?”

“I am not a silly little butler,” Sebastian snapped.

“Alma,” I said. “Just put down the gun. Let me take Sebastian into custody and let’s forget this happened.”

“Sebastian. The diamond, please.”

“Now, Alma …” He stepped in front of me and held his hand out for the gun. His fear was palpable and I was impressed by his courage.

“Now,” she ordered.

He turned to face me and his hands shook as he unhooked the pink diamond.

I had nothing to lose. I leaned toward him.

“You’re breaking one of the first rules, Sebastian,” I whispered. “You’re trembling. I overestimated you. Forgive me for this.” With that, I jammed my knee into his groin as hard as I could and shoved on his shoulder, making him fall back toward Alma. At the same time, I threw the necklace in her face with all the force I could muster and dove for the floor just as the gun went off.

“Oof,” Sebastian groaned.

I scrambled to my feet and started running. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sebastian crumpled on the floor and then, across from him in a dark corner, behind Alma, I caught a glimpse of Oscar’s unmistakeable silhouette in the dim glow. He’d seen the whole thing and wasn’t making a move to stop it.

“Oh, my God,” Alma cried. “Sebastian. Sebastian, are you all right?”

Out the door I flew. Down the hall. I tore open the door that I prayed led to the back stairs, and I was right. I closed it behind me and ran down the steps as fast as I could. When I got to the bottom I put my ear against the door and listened—only regular kitchen sounds. I took a breath to calm myself, went into the unattended cloakroom and found my cape. Then I walked through the busy kitchen as though I owned the place and down the service stairs to the stable yard.

All the grooms were in the tack room, watching television and playing cards. I slipped past, undetected, and went out the door. The stable yard was dark, filled with sleighs and surrounded by stalls. Black Diamond stuck her head out of her stall and whinnied softly.

“Thank you, you beautiful girl,” I whispered. I crossed the yard and opened the stall door and took her by the bridle. Thank God she still had her harness on, otherwise I’d be in a terrible mess. All I had to do was find our sleigh and hitch her up. Since we’d been the last to arrive, ours was the closest to the entrance.

I worked frantically to get her hitched. It was too dark to be able to see everything I needed to see on the complicated harness. Without warning, the door opened, throwing a wedge of light across the yard. I froze and ducked behind Black Diamond and peeked around her. My heart was beating so hard, if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it could give me away. A groom came out, went to one of the stalls, and spoke softly to his horse, and then went back inside.

Finally, I got all the buckles buckled correctly and all the hooks hooked. I climbed in and off we went into the dark, snowy night—without benefit of headlamps—toward the center of town and the distant heliport.

I wanted to go faster, but neither Black Diamond nor I could see much, so I kept her to a medium trot. All of a sudden, flashing lights appeared through the snow. An ambulance. It must have been for Sebastian. I wondered if Alma had killed him. Wouldn’t that be ironic? And fitting. And grand.

The emergency lights whirled closer. I knew it was an ambulance, but as far as my horse was concerned it might as well have been the Monster from the Black Lagoon or Godzilla coming to eat her up. She’d been raised in this valley and had never seen nor heard a motorized vehicle, and certainly never seen flashing red and blue and white lights, nor heard a siren. She went completely crazy. As the ambulance passed us, she screamed and reared, and then bolted down the road in a dead run. She was uncontrollable. I held on to the reins and the front edge of the sleigh for dear life as it swayed wildly behind her, frightening her even more. I knew there was a sharp corner coming up, so I tightened my grip. She never slowed her stride. We galloped full speed into the corner in a total panic. The harness snapped and the sleigh was instantly airborne. I sailed into the air like a doll.

F  I  F  T  Y  -  F  O  U  R

The landing knocked the wind out of me and I lay, deep in the snow, trying to get my breath and make sure I was still alive. The sleigh lay on its side a few meters away. Black Diamond was nowhere to be seen and I supposed she was probably back home by now. I tried to move but a searing pain shot up my leg.

“Ow,” I yelled into the wind. This was a legitimate ow, not my pretend one from my fall in front of Robert Constantin’s house. Something was seriously wrong.

I made myself as comfortable as I could. Someone would find me sooner or later, and while I waited, I tried to figure out exactly what had happened and how the hell I was going to get out of here now.

I’d overestimated Sebastian and underestimated Alma. How incredibly bizarre—the richest woman in the world needing to possess stolen jewelry. Money does terrible things to people and she’d let the bitterness and resentment at being an invalid consume her. What a total waste of life. Once I’d gotten over my little bout of being somewhat starstruck when I’d first met her in Paris and realized that she had a bitter, angry, unkind side to her, I forgave her that because of her life in pain and in a wheelchair. Never in a million years would I have imagined anything like this. And, she’d completely outmaneuvered me. She’d planned to get rid of me from the moment I mentioned Prince Frederick, Sebastian, and the jewelry. She’d set me up. Gone out of her way to befriend and assist me. To bring me to Mont-St.-Anges so she could control and eliminate me. I shivered. It was just too bizarre to comprehend.

And where did George figure in this? I couldn’t even imagine.

“I bet this has gone on for years,” I said out loud into the empty silence of the night. I wondered if some of the pieces she’d been wearing like that incredible, unforgettable diamond bead necklace tonight, had been stolen for her by Sebastian.

Poor Sebastian. He’d made a deal with the devil and gotten in over his head. I wondered if he was all right. I hoped Alma hadn’t killed him.

In spite of my long fur wrap, it was getting very cold sitting there in the snow and still, not a single sleigh had gone by. Finally, down the way, I saw the ambulance’s headlights, and as they drew closer, I started to yell and wave my arms.

“Help! Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Thankfully, the lights hit on the overturned sleigh and then me in the distance.

The paramedics waded through the snow. Once the formalities were over—Was I all right? No, something’s happened to my leg—they retrieved a stretcher. After much whimpering from me—I’ve never handled pain well at all—they laid me on it and carried me to the open doors of the van where Sebastian Tremaine lay on a stretcher, a thick dressing on his left shoulder. He was bawling like a baby.

“Oh, good heavens,” I said as they slid my stretcher in and locked it into place. “What have we here?”

“Sorry, madam,” the man said. “But there’s only a short way to go.”

I nodded and tried not to burst out laughing. Before we left, they salvaged my two travel satchels from the storage box on the back of my broken sleigh and placed them inside the bay door before slamming it shut and leaving Sebastian and me alone.

“Well, well, well,” I said. “Look at you, all shot up. Rather overplayed your hand, I’d say.”

“Oh, shut up.” He sniffled and tried to get himself under control.

“I’m afraid your brilliant career is over, Bradford.”

He looked at me wide-eyed.

“That is your correct name, isn’t it? Bradford Quittle, most recently of the queen’s service? I think your next stop will be Wormwood Scrubs. I bet they have a lovely cell all ready with your name on it.”

“I’d die before I’d go to that hellhole. And you’re wrong. Alma will protect me—she has to. I know too much. And besides, I’m the only one who can get her what she wants.”

“So it was you who broke into my chalet.”

“Of course it was me—she was longing for that bow pin in your fur hat.”

“Does Robert know about this?” I asked.

“Good heavens, no. Robert lives on the moon.” Sebastian moaned. “My shoulder is killing me. I can’t believe she actually shot me.”

“Why does she do it?”

Sebastian looked at me as though I’d just asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “Because she’s insane. Literally. Why do you think George keeps her out of the spotlight? She’s mad as a hatter. You think Cookson the butler is there to serve her? He’s her attendant. She really should be institutionalized. She certainly was off her dope tonight—Cookson will have hell to pay for that. As far as I know, she’s never done anything like this before. I can’t image how she got her hands on a gun. I wonder if it was mine. Owwww,” he whined again. “This hurts so much. They should have given me more morphine.”

In my opinion, he’d had plenty. He was starting to slur his words.

“How would she get your gun?”

“Out of my bedside table, I guess. I have a few of them in there. Self-protection only of course,” he added quickly. “I haven’t ever shot anyone.”

“Of course. How long has Alma been this way?”

“Forever. George doesn’t want a hint of her condition getting out to the public, so they keep her heavily medicated and restricted to a very, very tight circle of friends. Even her close friends think she’s just a little zooey because of her arthritis medication. They don’t know she takes about ten Fluanxols a day for schizophrenia. Lucy Richardson knows, but she’s just as crazy as Alma.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

“This is all a game to Alma, something to keep her entertained, and she just happens to own the ball and the playing field.”

“Does George know everything?” I asked, praying he didn’t.

“You mean about the jewelry?” Sebastian shook his head. “No. He hasn’t a clue. He works all the time and then they get together for meals. If she turns up with a new bauble and she’s happy, he’s happy.”

“Why are you doing this, Sebastian?”

“For the money, of course. I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”

“Oh?”

“Well, for starters, who are you?”

But we’d arrived at the hospital and just at that moment, the back doors of the ambulance were opened and Sebastian and I were taken in opposite directions at the emergency room.

“Good-bye, Sebastian,” I called as I was wheeled into a treatment room. “Good luck.”

F  I  F  T  Y  -  F  I  V  E

A doctor and a nurse appeared, followed immediately by a portable X-ray machine. Pictures were taken.

“What’s your name?” the doctor asked as he hung the films over light boxes.

What to say. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. What on earth was the name I’d used to reserve the helicopter?

He turned to look at me. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

“No, no. I’m fine.” I laughed. “Except for my leg, of course.”

“Your name.”

“Millicent Rogers.”

The nurse made a note.

“Mrs. Rogers, you have sprained your ankle, not broken your leg.”

“Aha. I might as well have broken it, it hurts so much.”

“You’re lucky. It’s quite a minor sprain, actually. Should heal quite easily and quickly.”

He gently lifted my shin and ankle and laid a stretchy socklike bandage beneath them. Then he tightened the sock around and carefully pressed the Velcro into place.

“I’d like for you to spend the night so we can keep you under observation in case you have any problems.”

“No. I’m fine, really.” In fact, all I wanted to do was lie down, my ankle was killing me. If this was a minor sprain I’d hate to experience a severe one. But I was on a march and I had to stay the course. “It’s late and I’d like to sleep in my own bed.”

“I understand. I would do the same.”

He gave me a bottle of painkillers and his cell phone number. “Call me if you need anything. May we call a sleigh to take you home?”

“Please.”

He helped me to my feet and handed me a pair of crutches. “Have you ever used these before?”

I shook my head.

“There’s not much to it, once you get the rhythm. Try crossing the room and back.”

After a couple of unsure steps, I easily got the hang of it. The jewelry in my pocket swung back and forth beneath my skirt and banged into my thigh like a bag of sand.

“They look quite smart with your gown.”

“The latest thing.” I smiled.

He draped my cape over my shoulders and carried my satchels to the waiting sleigh. “I’d like to see you again tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”

I nodded. “I’ll be here.”

“Have a good sleep.” He waved and went back inside.

“Heliport, please,” I told the driver, and swallowed one of the pills without any water.

The helicopter was about five times larger than the little one I’d flown in on, which made me feel much better, as did the weather, which was still clear. They put me in a special wheelchair sort of affair to get me up the steps, and helped me into my seat and fastened my seat belt as though I were a hundred years old. I let them.

The passenger cabin was warm and comfortably fitted out with soft navy blue leather seats and all the communications and entertainment bells and whistles that important people and executives require. I put my wounded leg on the seat opposite me and closed my eyes. I was almost safely out of Mont-St.-Anges, only moments to go. The engine came to life and seconds later we shuddered off the ground like a big ungainly bug.

I sat up and looked out the window. I wasn’t even slightly afraid. In my pocket, the queen’s jewels—the real Cambridge and Delhi Durbar parure and the Lesser Stars of Africa—poked into my leg, reminding me they were there. We gained altitude quickly as we flew down the valley and passed far above the Naxoses’ castle and Robert Constantin’s chalet, both of which were still brightly lit. I could only imagine what had happened when Alma had finally summoned help, once she’d pocketed the phony parure, the Lesser Stars, and my pink diamond.

What would she tell George and Robert? It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Here’s what she would say: She and Sebastian had caught Princess Margaret trying to rob Sebastian’s safe. Alma had accidentally shot Sebastian, and Princess Margaret had escaped.

I wondered if Oscar had moved from his dark corner.

I wondered if any of the guests would grow curious why there would be no investigation of a missing Princess Margaret, no all-points bulletin, no hot pursuit. But there wouldn’t be. George would smell something awry, he would instruct Cookson to take Alma home and give her an injection immediately, and the entire affair would be swept under the rug. It either never happened. Or it was a lark.

Moonlight peeked through the broken clouds and hit the steep cliffs as we made our way through them. They looked beautiful and mysterious and while I couldn’t see what was ahead, I knew the pilots could, and tonight, that was enough for me.

The pain pill took hold and I nodded off as we zipped our way to Geneva.