It All Began in Monte Carlo (38 page)

She stepped back into the room, letting the heavy curtains fall back into place, then stood uncertainly by the table where she had eaten her sandwich, so peacefully, only hours before. It had been cleared but someone had left a pitcher of juice and a glass, and a box of French cookies. Liu. The kind with chocolate on one side. They were a favorite but, nervous, she was not interested.

She couldn't stand this, being alone in the middle of the night. She should call for a servant, ask for tea; Lapsang souchong . . . No, maybe green tea . . . It was odd now she thought, remembering all the chai lattes she had drunk in those times in Malibu Starbucks when life was normal and she was not afraid; odd how Starbucks had appropriated the Indian word for tea . . .
chai
. . .

An old-fashioned tapestry bellpull was next to the bed. Another vestige of Raj antiquity, she guessed, giving it a hefty tug, though she did not hear an answering ring. Perched on the edge of the bed again, she ran her fingers through her tangled hair; she must look like hell. She took her BlackBerry from the night table and speed-dialed Mac's number. The call did not go through. She tried Allie's
number, then Ron's. So much for high-tech India; her phone did not work.

She looked at the closed doors leading into her room. There was no sound of a servant's hurrying footsteps. Perhaps she'd been wrong to call in the middle of the night, but she was frightened. She needed help.

Getting up, she slipped her feet into her red Converse high-tops and strode to the door. She would go find someone, tell them she felt ill, that she needed help, she needed hot tea, needed to know she wasn't alone.

The brass door handles were long and narrow, horizontal against the pale wooden panels. Sunny pressed down on the one on the right. It didn't move. Okay, so it must be the other. She pressed the left. It did not move either. She jiggled first one then the other. The doors were locked.

Real fear hit her now, hot down her spine, burning like acid in her throat; sweat sprang from every pore, her hair was suddenly soaked with it. Panicked, she ran back to the safety of the bed, tripping over the rug. Groaning, she picked herself up, climbed back onto the safety of the great puffy bed. And felt an arm come from behind and snake around her neck.

 

 

“Do not utter,” an Indian voice whispered so close to Sunny's ear she felt his warm breath. “Not one word must you utter, not one cry or a scream.” She felt the thrust of a knife point against her ribs. “You will come now, make no sound, or other people will die too.”

Die too . . . ? Other people . . . ?
Sunny's brain was charged with the adrenaline of fear, the fight-or-flight mode humans inherited from their primal ancestors. Crying out would not help, she understood that . . . if she were to survive she must keep her wits.

A cloth was wrapped round her head, she could hardly breathe, could not see . . . There was a ripping sound, he must have torn the curtains from the bed, then she was being wrapped in them, spun round and round, a mummy in the muslin fabric. Her elbow was held in a tight grip.

“Walk,” the man said, in his singsong Indian lilt. “Walk with me. Do not say anything or we are all dead.”

We are all dead
. What did he mean . . .
we . . . ? who else . . . ?
There was only Rahm Singh in the house, and the female servants she had met. Perhaps they did not live here, they must have their own quarters on the grounds, or in town. And none of them knew about the jewels, she was sure of that. Only Maha knew.

But anyway why would they want to steal the jewels? Why want
to kidnap her? Maha was simply returning her precious necklaces and jewelry to Mumbai to be refashioned. They could steal stones like them from any jewelry bazaar, any dealer, right here. Why go to all this trouble?

She was slammed up against something hard, metal. The heat of an exhaust pipe seared her shin and she almost cried out in pain, stopping herself just in time. Suddenly she was lifted up, tossed helpless into what she realized must be a flatbed truck, she could feel the metal ridges underneath some cloths flung over the floor. He was standing over her. She smelled his garlicky breath and the spiciness of his skin as he wrapped duct tape over her already-covered mouth, over her eyes. Panic forced a soundless scream . . .
She could not breathe . . . She was going to die . . . Oh Mac, Mac I don't want to die, help me Mac . . .

The muslin was loosened so he could bind her wrists; her ankles were tied. It wasn't rope he used, though; it had a strawlike texture and smelled the way it used to when her Mom baled hay for her horses back home, at the ranch near Santa Fe. He was a countryman,
oh God, oh God, don't let me die . . .

The truck was thrust into creaking gear, bumped off down the road. Was it the driveway ? If so then surely the gatekeeper would be there? He would see her, he would help. But the truck did not stop at the gate, it must already have been open. Now they were curving down the long hill.

 

 

Ferdie and Giorgio waited until Rahm Singh had walked back to the house before getting out of the car. Silent, with a wave of an arm, Singh conducted them inside, via the kitchen entrance, separate from the guest quarters, and also separate from Maha's palatial sleeping rooms. He was unaware that from behind the fretted wooden screen dividing the kitchen the three silent women servants watched.

Singh went to the butler's pantry and took the bag from its hiding place. He walked back, put it on the white marble table, then stood, looking at the two men.

There was an air of richness about them that he envied, in the fineness of their custom-tailored tropical-weight suits, their Italian cotton shirts, their imported shoes. Rahm Singh did not look anything like them and he wanted to.

“Where is the woman who carried the jewels?” one of the men asked.

“She is taken care of.” Rahm Singh had not yet dealt with her; he'd been caught off guard by the speed of their arrival.

Giorgio raised an eyebrow. “Who else knows about the diamonds?”

“Only the Mondragon.”

“Not the woman?”

“I promise you, she will know nothing.”

Rahm Singh unzipped the bag and took out a necklace, heavy gold, swirled and studded with large cabochon rubies.

Ferdie picked it up, turned it over, studying the smooth gold at the back. He took a metal tool from his pocket, inserted the tip beneath the largest ruby and prised it from the setting. The fake ruby had been hollowed out and came off like a shell from a nut, revealing the diamond hidden beneath. A diamond of such pure quality it glittered like Venus, the star of the heavens, under the single overhead lamp.

Ferdie grunted with pleasure, examining it. “Not that large, but of course excellent quality.”

Rahm Singh zipped the bag back up. He sat at the table with the bag on the floor next to him. “The others are even finer, but first I need to see the money.”

“Then there is nothing else to discuss,” Giorgio said. But it was Ferdie, the ex–polo player known for his speed, who leapt at Rahm Singh. He stuck the metal tool into his neck with such force the Indian's chair fell backward and his yellow-and-red turban fell off. Blood spurted like a fountain from his aorta and Ferdie quickly jumped out of the way.

Giorgio got up and the two stood looking down at him. A gurgle came from Rahm Singh's throat as Ferdie leaned over and grabbed the tool. He tugged at it but it did not come out. He pulled again, but it was stuck deep in muscle and flesh and bone. Blood washed over his hands though it was no longer spurting because now Rahm Singh's heart had stopped pumping. He was dead. A great mass of the blood surrounded the Indian's head, congealing in his long, oiled black hair and on the marble floor.

Giorgio picked up the bag and thrust the necklace and the remains of the fake cabochon back in it. He put the diamond in his pocket, not noticing the trace of blood it left on his beautiful, tan,
tropical-weight, custom-tailored suit that Rahm Singh had so envied. Then they left the kitchen, got back into the long black car and drove off.

The three silent women behind the fretted wooden screen could not cry out when they saw Rahm Singh murdered. Instead, terrified, they ran on bare silent feet out into the night. However, since Maha had taught them to read, they did have the presence of mind to note the car's number before they ran on, fast and terrified, the way they had when they were children of the slums.

 

 

Sunny rolled from side to side, smacking up against the metal at every curve, every swerve. The smell of the sea rushed at her again, that marshy odor tinged with salt and overlaid with the sweetness of the sugarcane sold at those seafront stalls. She heard the cries of children, the ones that never slept, the ones huddled in heaps like homeless puppies, thin and frightened and already aware of death . . . the way she was now.

The truck changed its course. Sunny lifted her head, gasping for breath; the hood over her face choked her, she rolled over onto her stomach, banged her head on the wheel hump, sobbed silently. Mac would expect her to get herself out of this but she did not know how. Would she ever see Mac again?
Oh yes, yes, please God,
my
God,
Maha's
goddess, any god in this country who loves mankind, who loves India, who loves us all . . . help me.

There was noise all around now. The truck was weaving through a crowd; she heard voices chattering, shouting, raucous, heard the racket of metal shutters being raised, of heavy things being lifted from vehicles and thrown out onto the street; laughter; yelling; running feet. The truck swerved then cut quickly sideways, tossing her against the metal again. Sunny groaned.

With a great crashing of gears, it jolted to a stop. The backboard
was unlatched, dropped down with a clang, someone jumped up. He stood over her, breathing hard, grabbed her arm, hauled her to her feet, jumped back down, dragging her with him. Her thighs scraped on the metal edge and she felt blood run down her legs. She told herself to ignore it; she must keep her head; must try to remember where she was being taken, what was happening . . .

He untied her ankles, told her to walk. The returning circulation was almost as painful as the scrapes on her thighs. Her feet sank into mud. There go the red Converse sneakers, she thought, and almost laughed at herself for behaving like a woman at a time like this when she might be going to die.
No. No. No.
She would
not
die. She would
not
let them kill her. She would
not
let them win. She wanted to go home, to Mac, she wanted to see Tesoro again, she wanted her life . . .

“Steps,” the man's voice said in his stilted English. “To walk up them please.”

He was saying
please
? Something had changed, she didn't know what, but there was a different feeling in the air.

“Now, in here.” He thrust her forward into silence and suddenly Sunny knew she was alone.

She stood perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, listening. Being alone was more frightening than being with her captor. She almost wanted him back again, at least maybe he would take the duct tape off her eyes and the hood covering her head and the fabric that wrapped her like a mummy.

 

 

“There was no need to be so rough with her,” Maha said to the man, in the Hindu dialect they both understood.

“There were others in the house,” he said. “What else was I to do? The gatekeeper was already dead.”

Maha sighed. “I understand.”

“I could not have the woman cry out, she would not have come willingly, and I knew there was evil going on.”

“And you are not evil?” Maha looked at him, knowing he was but she'd had no one else to do this job.

He held out his hand, rubbing his fingers together. “The money,” he said. “I did as you asked. She is here.”

Maha handed him a drawstring cotton bag. He opened it, counted the money carefully, glanced once at her, nodded, then left. She heard the clash of gears as the rusty truck took off again, back down the alley, back into anonymity. No one would ever know. Except Maha.

She stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the helpless woman, her hands bound, her body wrapped in bloodstained white muslin, a hood over her head, eyes blinded and mouth silenced with duct tape. Maha thought for a moment about Sharon Barnes; about the woman in Paris; about Yvonne Elman; about Rahm Singh.

Finally, she stepped toward her.

Sunny could smell her perfume, that gentle Indian oil she used. It was sweetly familiar, faintly spicy, of cedar and musk and amber as well as tuberoses and jasmine. It was the scent of a beautiful Indian woman. Maha's scent.

Maha unwound the muslin from her body, pulled the duct tape from her mouth, eased it gently from her eyes, took the hood from her head.

Sunny stood, eyes still closed, taking deep breaths.

“I could see that you recognized me, even with your eyes closed,” Maha said.

“You are unforgettable,” Sunny said.

“I hope not.”

Maha cut the rope that bound Sunny's wrists and again Sunny smelled that sharply sweet scent of hay. “It was a man with horses that tied me up,” she said, and heard Maha laugh.

“You are not the detective for nothing.”

Sunny forced her eyes open and Maha stepped back, watching her as she took in the empty room, its ornate crumbling carved plaster cornices, its splintered teak floors, the arched windows with the broken panes and a glimpse of a withered plane tree outside; the door hanging off its hinges, the gust of wind bringing the smells of the bazaar into the derelict house.

Finally, Sunny looked at Maha. A different Maha from the one she knew. This one was dressed the way a village woman might, in a plain cotton sari worn over a round-necked top with no fancy jeweled pins holding it in place. She wore plastic flip-flops and her hair, her magical long shining black hair, was dragged back into a bun. Maha took the end of the sari and draped it over her head, hiding her face, so that only her eyes showed.