Authors: Sandra Marton
Miranda looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Are you crazy? I'm not going to New York."
"But you just said—"
"I said I knew what Eva's motives were in asking me to come home." She turned up her coat collar; the wind was picking up and there was a faint promise of snow in the air again. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to oblige her."
"Dammit, Beckman! Are you naturally stupid or just pretending to be an idiot? Don't you understand what's happening?"
"Someone's threatened to hurt me. Of course I understand."
"Hurt
isn't the word I'd use to describe our friend's intentions," Conor said sharply. "Whoever this is wants to do more than that."
"There are lots of crazies in this world, O'Neil. If everybody jumped each time one of them said boo—"
"Let me lay this out for you, lady. There's a lunatic walking around who's pulling Moratelli's strings. He wants to off you but first he figures on some fun and games. A little torture, maybe, a little rape—"
She flinched under the impact of his words. Good, he thought fiercely, let her flinch if it means she'll finally accept how serious this is.
"Must you be so descriptive?"
"I can be a lot more descriptive, if I have to. He knows where you live. Either he or Moratelli, maybe both of them, have been inside your apartment. And I don't have a clue as to who this bastard is or why he's after you."
"So, what are you saying? That you can play detective better in the States?"
"Yes, dammit, I can! My hands are tied here. I'm not a French citizen, I don't have access to—to the things I need."
"No."
"Have you heard anything I said?"
"Yes, I heard you and no, I'm not going home." Miranda's eyes met his. "Maybe
I
should lay this out for
you
, O'Neil. I am home. I have a life here. I have a home, a career, and friends."
"You have an apartment, a job you could do anywhere, a girlfriend who's idea of permanency is the latest man in her life and a lover who's so busy trying to turn himself into an international movie star that he's barely got time to fit you in."
Miranda stiffened. "My," she said frigidly, "you have been a busy little Boy Scout, haven't you!"
"Miranda, use your head! Call Eva, tell her you're coming home."
"You do the phoning, Mr. O'Neil. Call your employer, tell her what she can do with her heartwarming invitation and tell her, too, that I'll do my very best to keep from becoming the sort of headline that might make her cringe."
Her eyes were shiny again; her lashes glistened with tears. One last phony smile and then she turned and walked briskly away.
Conor jammed his hands into his pockets, looked across the street and jerked his chin towards Miranda. A tall, average-looking man moved out from a doorway, dodged into the gutter and trotted towards him.
"Don't let her out of your sight," Conor said. "If you see trouble coming—"
"Hit my beeper. I know, I know."
Conor waited until the spook had fallen in behind Miranda. Then he took his phone from his pocket.
They'd have to do it the hard way, after all.
* * *
Two days later, Miranda stood in front of the ticket booth at the Eiffel Tower, looking towards the Champ de Mars, checking the faces of people as they approached and tapping her toes with impatience.
Where was Nita? She was always late but today she was setting an all-time record.
And why were they meeting here? The Tower was the heart of Paris and magnificent, but they'd both been here before, on their own as tourists and at least two or three times for fashion shoots. Still, Nita had been adamant about meeting here today.
"We have to go up in the Tower," she'd said mysteriously. "There's something I want you to see."
They weren't going to see anything if Nita didn't get here soon. Miranda glanced at the sky. Clouds were rolling in over the city. Visibility wouldn't be good.
"There you are!"
Miranda turned and saw Nita hurrying towards her, tall and striking in a hot pink cape that went clear down to her ankles.
"There I am?" Miranda said, offering her face for an exchange of quick cheek-to-cheek air kisses. "I don't want to upset you, my friend, but I have been here for half an hour."
"Did you buy our tickets?"
Miranda waved the two
billets
in the air. "Yes. Now, are you going to tell me what we're doing here?"
Nita grinned, looped her arm through Miranda's and hurried her to the stairs.
"Be patient, girlfriend. You'll find out, in a few minutes."
"Wait a minute. You're going to pass up the elevator?" Miranda stared at Nita. "I don't believe it. What's going on?"
"We're only going to the second level and I'm too excited to wait for the elevator. Come on, come on—if I can do it, so can you."
It was windy, and cool, and they were the only two people taking the stairs. Nita groaned when they reached the first level.
"High heels weren't made for climbing," she said. "Just give me a minute."
"Nita," Miranda said, "this had better be good."
"It is. It's wonderful."
"Uh-huh."
"Go on, don't believe me. I promise, this is going to be something very, very special."
"What? Stop being so mysterious."
"I'm not being mysterious, I'm being dramatic." Nita huffed as they began climbing the stairs again. "Nothing wrong with a little drama, is there?"
"There is, when I've had a long and trying day."
"Poor darlin'. Your friend, the gorgeous American hunk, givin' you trouble again?"
"He's not my friend and he's not, as you so subtly put it, a hunk. He's a pain in the
derriere."
"I think you've got the man wrong, girlfriend. He seemed really nice the other day, when he came to see... Oops!"
"O'Neil went to see you?"
"Damn! I knew you'd be pissed. Look, he just asked me a few simple questions."
"About me," Miranda said coldly.
"Yeah. Well, about us. When we met, how long we know each other... stuff like that."
"Did it ever occur to you I wouldn't like the idea of you talking to that man behind my back?"
"Oh, give me a break! It's not like we discussed your bra size! The whole thing took five minutes. I told him that you were my best friend in the whole wide world and that was it."
"I still don't like it."
"Well, that makes two of us." The women reached the second level of the Tower. Nita breathed a sigh of relief, took Miranda's arm, and drew her to the railing. "I get the feeling you haven't told me everything, you know? Trouble, you said, but I figure it must be pretty bad trouble if O'Neil's still around."
"It has nothing to do with me," Miranda said, wishing she believed it. "It's this ambassadorship my stepfather's up for."
"Yeah, that's what your Mr. O'Neil told me. Said there were problems and that he's just doing his job, looking out for your interests and keeping you safe."
"Safe?" Miranda laughed. The wind snatched at her hair and she scooped it back behind her ear. "You want to hear his idea of safe? The jerk wants me to pick up and run. Go back to the States, he says."
"Go back to the States?" Nita squealed with delight and threw her arms around Miranda. "Oh, that's wonderful news, girlfriend, wonderful! I am so glad to hear it!"
"Don't be silly! I'm not—"
"And we'll be friends forever, right? No matter where you or I live."
"Nita, you're not listening to me. I never said—"
"Look, there it is!" Nita's voice rose excitedly. She grabbed Miranda's sleeve, tugged at it and pointed west. "Look!"
"Look at what?"
"Way over there, see? That grey building? The one with the black roof and the chimney pots?"
"All the buildings in Paris are grey, with black roofs and chimney pots," Miranda said, making a face. "Which one am I supposed to be looking at?"
"That
one. With the red flowers in the window box."
"Red flowers?" Miranda shielded her eyes with her hands. "How can there be flowers in the window box? It's the middle of winter!"
"They're not real flowers, silly, they're artificial." Nita sighed, flipped up the hood of her hot pink cape and snuggled into it. "Carlos says it's up to the artist to create his own environment."
"Carlos?" Miranda looked at her friend. "Who's Carlos?"
"You see how out of touch you are? Carlos just happens to be the love of my life. I met him at that party we went to last week." Nita smiled slyly. "I'd have introduced you but you cut out early and went off with the guy you keep insisting isn't a hunk."
"He isn't, and I didn't..." Miranda blew out her breath. "Never mind," she said. "Just tell me about Carlos."
"What's to tell?" Nita said dreamily, and launched into a five-minute description that covered everything from Carlos's brown eyes to the way he wanted to paint her, naked on the beach in Tahiti. "I am," she sighed, "head over heels in love!"
Miranda grinned. "Uh-huh."
"Go on, scoff. Carlos is the man I've been looking for my entire life."
"Sure he is."
"You don't believe me?"
"I'd love to believe you but I've heard the story a thousand times before. Well, with bits and pieces changed." Miranda smiled. "I don't think you've ever had a guy wanted to paint you on the beach at Tahiti."
"Not just wants to," Nita said, her voice rising with excitement. "Is!"
"Is what?"
"Carlos is taking me to Tahiti! Isn't that wonderful?"
"Well, sure. A couple of weeks in the sun, while the rest of us shiver in the cold..."
"No, no, you don't understand. We're going to live there."
Miranda stared at Nita. "Live there?" she said, bewildered. "You? And Carlos?"
"Isn't it wonderful? Oh, wait until you meet him! This is the most terrific man in the world! We clicked, just like that, and the very first night, after we'd..." Nita blushed with unaccustomed modesty. "Well, after we'd done it, we were talking and Carlos said, what's your deepest, most secret, wish? And I said, no, you have to tell me yours first, and he said, well, he'd always wanted to go to the South Pacific and do the Gauguin thing." She giggled. "So then I said, wasn't it amazing but my deepest, most secret wish had always been to fall crazy in love and set up housekeeping on an island in the South Pacific!"
"I thought your deepest, most secret wish was to marry the Sheik of some oil-rich kingdom and bathe in a tub full of L'Air du Temps," Miranda said dryly.
Nita nudged her in the ribs with her elbow. "You aren't listenin', girlfriend. I am in love. L-O-V-E. Do you understand?" She took a breath. "It was all just talk, anyway. Carlos said he was the same as all artists. Lots of dreams but no money, and I said, well, that was okay, because I was worried about leaving you. I mean, we've been friends for such a long time, and now you're having all this trouble—whatever
that
means."
"Nita, slow down. If he's broke, how's he taking you on vacation to Tahiti?"
"Well, that's the miracle. He's not broke anymore. Carlos got this letter from some
mucho mysterioso
bunch of folks that gives out grants to artists, telling him he'd won a humongous grant!"
"But—but what about your work?"
"What about it? Listen, I'm damn near a living fossil, same as you. I've got, what, maybe another year or two left?"
"You're sure?" Miranda said slowly, staring at Nita, trying to feel happy for her instead of feeling what she did feel, a selfish, awful sense of loss. "That you love this guy?"
"I sewed a button on his shirt last night," Nita said with a soft smile. "Tonight, I'm gonna cook him dinner."
Miranda smiled back at her. "Well, I have to admit, that does sound serious." Her smile tilted. "And the money? I mean, he's not planning on doing a trip on you, is he?"
"My God, this girl is such a cynic! It's absolutely legit. I saw the letter he got, telling him he'd won this grant. It came hot on the heels of my chat with your Mr. O'Neil." Nita threw her arms into the air. "Oh, Miranda, I just can't believe everything came together like this, you deciding to go home, then Carlos getting this money... Isn't it all just wonderful?"
"Wonderful," Miranda said, and blanked her mind to the sudden, absolutely ridiculous thought that Conor was somehow, someway, involved in this.
It was worse than ridiculous.
It was insane.
* * *
At ten that night, Miranda was curled up on the sofa with Mia in her lap.
She was watching TV or trying to, anyway, when the telephone rang.
The noise made Mia jump. Miranda jumped, too. Who would phone her so late? Jean-Phillipe, maybe. She hadn't heard from him in a couple of days, except for a hard-to-hear message he'd left on her voice mail yesterday, something about suddenly having to stay away a little longer. That was what she thought he'd said, anyway; there'd been too much background noise to be certain.