Trust Me II (64 page)

She silently
slipped off the bed and stepped across the dirty, ragged carpet to the bathroom where she closed the door and sat on the toilet. Several minutes ticked by before she felt relieved and able to return to the room outside. She glanced down to her wrist watch; it was still green. Surely by now Creighton knew where they were. The Suburban had been replaced by a blue pickup shortly before they turned into the hotel parking lot, but she wasn’t sure if they had been followed or not, she hadn’t seen the truck, SUV or Suburban again. At least she had the comfort of knowing she was still within range of Creighton’s tracking technique.

Opening the door quietly, she peered out to see both Sabrina and Bachmeier still asleep. His phone had fallen out of his pocket and lay a few feet away from him
. She stared at it for several long seconds before walking over to it and picking it up. She pushed the button to turn it on; amazed that he had such an expensive phone when he looked and smelled like he just crawled out of the sewer. She flipped through the texts and found the ones he had been reading on the trip, but they were all in Italian. She couldn’t make out anything more than the name Ashford and Dijon.

Bachmeier s
norted as he shifted on the bed, and she quickly sat the phone down where she had found it and moved back to the bed beside the sleeping girl. She quietly took the pen and added to the note on the wrapper then slipped the cuffs back around their wrists again. She closed her eyes just as the phone began to ring and stirred as though just waking up when Bachmeier growled angrily, cursing under his breath in German. He retrieved the small device that made the horrid twinkling sounds and opened it.

Sandra listened for several minutes
to a conversation she couldn’t understand and watched as he pushed the button and tossed the phone to the chair, falling back on the bed with a heavy groan. Sabrina was awake and staring at her, but she chose to ignore her; she wanted to get this over with, whatever
this
was and go home. With a heavy sigh she stretched her arms, deliberately rattling the cuffs against the metal frame, nearly smiling as Bachmeier raised his hands over his head.

“Stop that damn noise,” he moaned.

“I would be happy to, if we were unfastened.” Sandra smiled to herself as he moaned a bit louder, then walked to her side and slipped the small key through the lock
and tossing it to the bed next to her. She was surprised that he hadn’t realized they were fake cuffs and it made her wonder where he had picked them up at.

“There, now shut the hell up.” He
lay back on the bed and pulled the pillow over his head. Sandra stared at him in amazement; they could walk right out the door and he wouldn’t bother trying to stop them. He had a hangover that would likely stun an ox, but she still was not in the mood to escape, not just yet.

“We need to eat,” she said, perhaps not as loudly as she would have preferred, but the words caught his attention nevertheless.

“How the hell much does one person eat?” he growled, tossing the pillow aside.

“We haven’t had any real food since yesterday afternoon,” she began. “What do you expect?”

“I suppose silence from you is too much to ask for?”

“Let us go and I’ll leave you in silence,” she insisted, knowing he was ignorant to the fact that she had already been up and that they had been unfastened most of the night.

“If it meant shutting you up, I would kick your arse to the street, but it’s not up to me. I’m not the one calling the shots.”

“
Your Italian friend would be angry, is that what you mean?” Perhaps his hangover would prove beneficial to all of the them. As though realizing what he had said, he tossed the pillow aside and stood up, swaying slightly as he tried to regain his composure.

“That’s not any of your business,” he snapped, then instantly groaned again. “You’ll be meeting your host soon enough.”

“Where are we going?” she asked again, repeating her question from the night before.

“
Somewhere quiet and out of the way,” he said, then opened his eyes wide as he stared at her, suddenly aware of all that he had said that morning.

“
Why?”

“You’ll find that out soon enough. Now get up so we can leave.”

“What about breakfast?” Sandra asked again. “I highly doubt you’ll get the money you want from my husband, if we’re not around because of starvation.”

“Get
ready and I’ll be more than happy to buy her highness a bagel.”

“I want a real breakfast; I don’t like bagels.”

“For the love of Christ, shut the hell up!” he yelled at her and gripped his head in his hands as he fell back to the bed. Sandra rolled her eyes and motioned for Sabrina to go use the bathroom, then sat with her legs folded as she stared at him. He didn’t care what was happening around him as the girl shut the bathroom door and locked it. It wasn’t until the toilet flushed that he returned to reality and sat up on the bed.

“Don’t worry, she’s not crawling out of the tiny little window,” Sandra insisted, halting his actions of running in to find Sabrina on the toilet.

“How can he put up with you and your constant talking?” Sandra smiled a half sincere, half disgusted grin to the man.

“Food, now,” she ordered when Sabrina entered the room again.
Sandra smiled as he growled and took up his jacket and phone.

“Fine, but you are buying.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She felt alert and happy that they stopped for the night; now that she had a clear mind, she could deal with anything that came her way.

Breakfast was eaten as slowly as they could possibly manage. Sandra ordered fruit filled crepes with eggs, sausage and orange juice, while Sabrina had wanted something small, but ordered the same thing with the insistent glare from her sister-in-law. Bachmeier ate toast and drank enough coffee to launch a boat, but never once left to use the toilet. By the time they had finished eating, he had drunk a full pot of hot, cheap coffee and Sandra smiled to herself. Maybe it wouldn’t be her making the excuses to stop this time.

They left the small restaurant that sat between the hotel and
a pub and walked back to the room, but instead of going inside, they went around the corner where a grey four door Ford sat. He opened the door with a key under the front wheel and smiled at the confusion on the women’s faces.

“Just in case we were followed,” he said with a yellow smile. Sandra ignored the look
as he reached for her hand to cuff it again, but she jerked it away quickly.

“I’m sick of this stupid game of yours,” she snapped. “I am not going to spend the rest of this trip fastened like a criminal. You can lock the doors like last time, but you’re not going to use those things again.” Bachmeier narrowed his gaze on her and looked like he was going to hit her, when she drew a deep breath and folded her arms across her chest.

“Get in,” he ordered and waited as they climbed into the back seat before switching the child locks again and closing the door. He followed suit with the opposite door then climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.  At least the car was clean and looked to be newer inside than out. The engine was very quiet and as they drove around the side of the building, she looked out to see the familiar white SUV, but there was nobody inside. She glanced back to see Morris step out of the café and look down toward the hotel rooms. They had no idea of the car change.

Fear began to creep into her chest as she realized they were on their own, no guards to follow them and nobody to protect them. She looked at the back of the man’s head, but he didn’t seem to notice where her attention was as he drove back up to the main highway. She remembered reading about the Channel Tunnel years ago when it was first opened and frowned. Paris was only about another hour’s drive, perhaps less, and then what?
The only thing she knew about Dijon was Miriam’s clinic was there. A part of her hoped that was where they were going; Creighton could get into the security system and watch them, but another part of her dreaded the idea. Perhaps Miriam was involved in all of this after all. Sandra knew they had to come up with some kind of a plan to stall them until Creighton or Morris was able to catch up to them. The note she left in the room may never reach the right people; the maids could throw it away or it could lay under the bed for weeks or even months, unnoticed and untouched.

A few minutes into the trip and Bachmeier growled, shifting
uncomfortably in his seat. The coffee was getting to him and he was becoming more frustrated as the time progressed. Urgency had a way of making its presence known and he had no choice but to pull off into the parking stall of a gas station.

“We need some drinks,” Sandra said as he stopped the engine.

“No,” he said.

“I’ll buy you some beer or wine if you let us get some sodas.”
Bachmeier hesitated for a brief moment before growling and getting out of the car. He opened Sabrina’s door and waited as they climbed out.

“Make it the best damn beer they have, and I want some cigarettes too.” Sandra rolled her eyes as they entered the store and watched him hurry to the back of the building where the bathrooms were located.

“Go call your parents,” she told Sabrina quickly. “Tell them to let Creighton know we changed cars.”

“But he’ll catch us.”

“I’ll stand watch, now hurry. I’ll start getting the things he wants.” Sabrina nodded, swallowing hard and went to the small payphone on the wall beside two video games.

Sandra collected the juice for her and Sabrina and several bags of chips, crackers and chocolate before going to the cooler with the beer. There were single bottles, cans and cartons with glass or aluminum cans, she just didn’t know which one to get. Thinking about how the coffee affected him, she smiled and took a carton with
a dozen twelve ounce dark brown bottles and carried them to the counter. Sabrina joined her barely five seconds before Bachmeier stepped up behind them. She placed a package of gum on the counter when he narrowed his gaze to her, covering her absence from Sandra’s side.

They paid for the items with her card and carried them back to the car and once again climbed into the back seat. Bachmeier lit a cigarette and opened the front door, sitting down behind the steering wheel.

“You can’t smoke that in here,” Sandra argued.

“Why the hell not?” he asked, turning in his seat to stare at her, a deep frown pulling across his bushy brows.

“Because I’m allergic to the smoke,” she lied. “If you want me going into anaphylactic shock, then continue to smoke, but otherwise get the hell out of the car.” He turned to look at Sabrina as if questioning the other’s comment.

“It’s true,” she said shyly. “If you don’t get the smoke away from her, she’ll end up in hospital.” Bachmeier growled, cursing under his breath as he stood up out of the car again and
slammed the door shut.

“Are you really allergic?” she asked Sandra with a curious stare.

“No, I just don’t like the smell,” she smiled in reply. “Were you able to get in touch with your parents?”

“They weren’t there, but I left a message. I just hope they check it
; mum sometimes will go for days before she checks the machine.”

“
Did you understand anything about that phone call he had back at the hotel?”

“I don’t speak Italian as well as Creighton, even though I’m dating
Giovanni, but he said something about meeting up in Dijon and that he wanted this done with.” Sandra frowned deeply.

“Miriam’s clinic is
in Dijon,” she said, remembering the trip she had taken with her husband on their honeymoon.

“You don’t think she’s the one he’s meeting, do you?” Sabrina asked in a dry tone, filled with a mixture of anger and fear.

“I don’t know if she speaks Italian, but it would make sense. They are family, even if they aren’t blood and he was caught in her clinic. What better way to hide than to use the excuse of being out of the country?”

“But the papers were saying she’s holding book signings and interviews all over America. She couldn’t just hop on a jet that would bring her back here that quickly and not be missed. What about the news shows she’s been on? They are all live.”

“Unless she taped them earlier,” Sandra said. “She could have used any excuse in the world to pre-tape the interviews and give herself extra time to get back here. Hell, for all we know, the entire trip was pre-recorded. She left long enough for the signings and then came back. That would explain the phone calls and the long distance instructions.”

“I didn’t know Miriam very well, but I always liked her, at least until her father tried to kill Crey
, but to do this? What reasons would she have?” Sandra shook her head.

“I don’t know but it could be anything; jealousy, anger, revenge for some unknown reason. Look at him; he wants revenge for shooting Creighton, now tell me that’s a sane reason for what he’s doing.”

The door opened a few minutes later and Bachmeier stepped back into the car, the smell of smoke lingered on his clothing, but she didn’t care. Her mind was racing with new thoughts. She liked Miriam and she seemed sincere when Creighton told her about her cousin’s arrest, she even passed the lie detector test. There was something amiss here and that did not set well with her anxieties already screaming in her brain.