The Charmers (12 page)

“Please, just ‘Boss.' And to answer your question, I have a place here, a villa up in the hills. I come here often. In fact it's my favorite home.”

Verity's eyes widened, she was impressed. “So, exactly how many homes do you have?”

He smiled. He liked her innocent smart-ass attitude, but chose to ignore her question. “And what are you doing in this part of the world, then, Miss Verity?”

“Running away from my cheating husband.” As always Verity wished she'd thought before she'd spoken. It had just slipped out. She bit her lip, staring down at the dog who'd flopped, limp as a rag in the heat, between her feet. “Sorry, I shouldn't have told you that. No need to go into my problems, spoil your nice holiday.”

“You are certainly not doing that. In fact, Verity, you have made my day.” He took a long drink of his lemonade, signaled the waiter for more ice. It's not often I get to meet a pretty girl.”

Verity gave him a skeptical upward glance that meant she certainly did not believe that. “Take another look around this terrace, Mr. Boss,” she said with a smile. “There's dozens of them, most hoping to meet Mr. Right, and that he's rich.”

The Boss laughed, he was enjoying her. He reached out and tucked a stray strand of corn-blond hair away from her face where it was in danger of dipping into the glass of Perrier. “I certainly qualify for one of those conditions,” he said. “Not boasting, mind you, but I'm a property developer down here, and it's a rich man's world, in case you had not noticed.”

“I had noticed. My friend, the one I'm staying with, Mirabella Matthews, inherited a wonderful old villa from her late aunt.”

“You must mean Aunt Jolly.”

Verity stared at him, astonished. “You
knew
Aunt Jolly?”

“Everyone knew her. She was here, on and off, for many years, quite old when she passed, I believe. And left it all to a niece she barely knew.”

It had not occurred to Verity to question how well Mirabella had known her aunt; all she'd heard was the Harrods story with the throat-choking velvet-collared princess coat and the dropped cream bun. She took a gulp of her Perrier. “Very generous of her, I'd say.”

“Or foolish. It depends on how you look at it.”

She sat up straighter in her faux-wicker chair. His tone was cold, dismissive. “Well, Mirabella looks upon it as a stroke of good fortune. And my good fortune was to meet her on the train coming down here.”

“Running from the cheating husband?”

She nodded, sighing. “You'd be surprised how many more cheaters there are than charmers.”

“Then we must hope that next time you find a charmer,” he said with a sudden smile of such warmth that Verity was indeed charmed.

“Hopefully,” she said. Then, getting quickly to her feet and unwinding the dog lead from the table leg, she said, “I must be on my way. So nice to have met you Mr.… er…”

“Boss,” he said.

She glanced suspiciously at him, as though he might be laughing at her. No, he was nice. She liked him. “Y'know what, Boss?” she said. “
You
are one of the charmers.”

“I hope that means you'll come to the party I'm giving tomorrow night. My villa, the one you can see from here, the Villa Mara. You make a right off the up-road, can't miss it. Eight. Black tie.”

“How very James Bond,” Verity said. She had not enjoyed herself with a man so much in years. “I'll be there.”

“Oh, and bring your friend, Mirabella. After all, we are close neighbors.”

“Yeah, sort of like Chad Prescott.” She tugged the dog's lead, edging from the table.

“Sort of,” the Boss agreed. He knew Chad Prescott.

 

20

The night of the party, the Villa Mara, on top of its own hill overlooking the Mediterranean, could surely have been seen from outer space, illuminated so extravagantly, so spectacularly, that every rosebush was defined in soft pink, every tree under-lit so its branches spiked into the dark blueness of a sky that seemed also to have been lit by the monied hand of the host.

The Boss had inspected everything an hour before his party was to start; checked the all-so-important lighting, the premier necessity for atmosphere, he'd always found. He'd seen that the tables were properly draped in simple white linen in classic style; that the white-cushioned chairs had golden chiffon bows tied around their backs; that the seventy-foot turquoise pool glittered like a jewel in the twilight; that crystal gleamed and silver shone and the bar was big enough to accommodate every guest, and stocked everything any guest could possibly want. Including, of course, Roederer Cristal Rouge. He believed it was every woman's favorite champagne. Nothing like a slender flute of pink to elevate her sense of well-being, while at the same time possibly loosening her morals.

He was alone now, before the guests arrived, in the anonymous square concrete bunker directly on the seafront he called his own place, and where no one else was permitted access—without, that is, a direct personal invitation from the Boss himself. Which meant those invited were there on spurious business of an illegal and possibly lethal kind.

He was sitting in his big leather chair in front of the screen that showed the entirety of his villa: every room, every part of the grounds, almost every blade of grass and grain of sand, even the waves hitting the beach. He knew he could never become careless, take his life for granted. Enemies and danger always lurked, always would for a man in his position who had earned his wealth by eliminating anyone that stood in his way. Somehow they seemed to end up losing their businesses, their homes, their wives, their reason for living, and even occasionally, their lives. He had never tried to count how many enemies he'd had but it no longer mattered. He had come out the winner; whomever had opposed him remained at the bottom of the heap. A few he had permitted to continue running their lives just for appearance's sake, building here and there, usually on the Costa del Sol where things were easier.

Outside, the waiters waited, and a quartet played softly, the pianist plucking jazzy chords that suited the quiet moment before the guests arrived.

The Boss adjusted his black silk bow tie in the mirror, thinking that as he had grown financially and therefore was more powerful, last-resort measures against rivals or enemies were rarely used. Those days were over; he was a sterling member of the community, a philanthropist who gave lavishly to causes that would get him publicity, make him known as a “good” man to those who counted in that world he craved and yet to which, despite his lavish charity, he still did not belong. It was, he thought—still looking in the mirror at his reflected self that gave no clue as to his true self—as though he was permanently locked out of the world he considered paradise. He and Orpheus. Good company, he supposed.

But it was the women he was really thinking about, those elegant creatures who would soon enter his door in their couture gowns, jewels gleaming at slender throats, with coiffures that had taken hours to construct, simple as they looked; in tall heels that lengthened their legs even though the shoes were killing them; silks gleaming, tulle fluttering, chiffon flowing soft over their bodies, hiding their secret selves. Some of them he knew could be bought for the price of a jeweled necklace, or a few weeks' pampered vacation on a yacht in the Aegean; for a dinner on his arm at Paris's best restaurant where she would be treated like the goddess she might suddenly have imagined she had become. Until reality was forced upon her and she found she was lucky to leave with her life intact, if not her body.

The Boss enjoyed violence, he enjoyed the knife against the throat, the threat. For him, sex was aways better with a threat, he had found that out long ago. And besides, afterward, money took care of everything.

But with these new women, the writer, Aunt Jolly's heir, who was the new owner of the Villa Romantica and its land, the place where he'd planned to build his fourteen-story condos and make more than just a few millions over a short period of time, plus her silly little blond friend who was overeager to be liked and who he had charmed at the café; now
there
was a challenge. A challenge he would face tonight, with the help of the Russian, of course, though that bastard had not lived up to his promises. Still, in lieu of anyone better, he was being given a second chance. The Matthews woman, whose name he must remember was Mirabella, would be taken out this time. No mistakes could be made. And the little blond darling? Well, perhaps another role could be found for her, for a short time, anyway.

 

21

Chad Prescott

Chad left his house at two minutes to eight. Precisely at eight, he parked the Jag convertible in front of the Villa Romantica, slung his long legs out the door, and strode up the shallow front steps. He was greeted by the small brown dachshund, which, it seemed, liked to show its teeth to visitors. Chad did not fancy having a piece of his tuxedo trouser leg torn off right now. God knows he wore it rarely enough but it had served him well over the years and he was not yet ready to buy a new one.

“Good dog,” he said, not meaning it, but the dog seemed to take it the right way and backed off, tail wagging, snarl gone.

The door stood open. Moths and other small night creatures fluttered around the lamps that stood on each side of the hall, and which Chad recognized as being from the deco period; their square black shades had surely never been changed since they were bought. A pair of malachite-topped tables, the likes of which would not be made today, were set on narrow gilded legs with lion feet, surely dated from the turn of the century. Rugs were flung carelessly across the marble floor, each a beauty of Eastern workmanship, in silk or the finest wool, their colors faded into a harmonious blur. A pair of love seats in a muted green brocade that brought to mind the first pale leaves of spring, faced each other across the hall, framed in gilded wood that also brought to mind a great deal of expense.

Nothing was cheap in Aunt Jolly's house, which, of course, Chad remembered from the several visits he had made to take tea with her. Which is how Aunt Jolly had described it in her invitations.

Please come and take tea with me at four this afternoon,
was exactly what she'd written, and he had come here and drank the Earl Grey she'd poured from a silver pot, refilling it from a matching pot of water set over a small burner to keep it hot. Aunt Jolly was old school, and she respected the past. Chad was deeply troubled by Aunt Jolly's violent death. And especially by the fact that the so-called Colonel had so far done nothing about finding the perpetrator.

He stood on the front steps, looking into the hallway, remembering the old woman who had cared for this villa, who had known all its secrets, had known all the people from the past, and who'd told him she wanted him to have it. “After I am gone,” she had said.

Of course Chad had protested that it was not right, said what about her family? But she had reiterated, “I have reason to believe it would not be safe for my niece to inherit the villa. There are people out there, developers they call themselves, who would ruin this place, ruin this whole countryside, all for money. Whereas a man like you, Doctor, can take care of yourself, take care of things.”

Naturally he had asked what Aunt Jolly meant, and her answer, in the precise high voice that matched her precisely attired person, was that no doubt he would find out, and anyhow the niece had her own life, her own place in the world.

“As do I.” He recalled his reply, now.

“Indeed.” She'd handed him a Wedgwood cup and saucer, offering a plate of Garibaldi biscuits. English to the core, he'd thought, eyeing those biscuits.

“You are a man who knows how to look after himself,” she said. “You have faced enemies in jungles and remote villages, in outposts of countries most of us never go to. You have the instinct to protect yourself from danger. My niece, Mirabella—Lord knows how she got that name, her mother was on the stage—well, Mirabella does not have a single self-protective instinct in her entire body. Though she writes about it, of course. Detective stuff, you know.”

Chad did know. In fact, surprisingly, he'd read a couple of them, alone in the lamplight on his sofa, far from the jungle villages, glass of wine in hand, a smile on his face. He'd always guessed who'd done it—of course, but that wasn't her point; it was
how
and
why
he had done it. Chad appreciated that.

Having tea with Aunt Jolly, he'd eyed his hostess over the edge of the cup, seeing beyond her age to the beauty she had surely been. She was in her seventies then but her face was unlined, no sag to her neck and definitely no plastic surgery. Simply good genes. Beauty never disappeared, it simply grew softer with time.

“I want you to have this.” She'd handed him a piece of blue writing paper torn from a pad. “I put everything in here, so there'll be no problem. Mirabella gets my money, but you get the land that runs contiguous with yours. And the villa of course. On condition it is kept exactly the way it is now. I love this place, it's always meant ‘home' to me. And family. I'd like to think it will always be the same because you own the land next to it, you are the only one I feel I can trust to do this. I believe you care about it, just the way I do.”

At this point she had put on her spectacles and eyed him keenly for a long moment. He'd shifted under her glare, not knowing what to say, how to accept such a responsibility.

“Don't worry,” she'd said. “All I want is for Mirabella to be safe. I don't want her to go Jerusha's way.”

“Jerusha?”

“Jerusha was her great aunt. And a murderer, you know.”

He stared back at her, stunned.

“Oh, don't worry, it was a long time ago. Back in the thirties. Killed her lover, shot him, or so they said. I don't believe it was ever proved. Still, it ruined Jerusha, ruined her career. She was a star, y'know, musicals, a singer, dancer, a great beauty. So they say.”