by Wendy Leigh
By the afternoon, I’ve been subjected to her boasts for so long that my eyes have glazed over, and I’m only barely awake. Outside the mausoleum, the rain pours down in thick sheets, mirroring my misery, my sense of hopelessness.
Without any warning, Georgiana dives into the kitchen and emerges with a plate of strawberry-iced cupcakes. I take one, and when she isn’t looking, I swiftly rub my finger in the icing and extend it to Pluto, curled up on the couch. He licks it off, wags his tail in delight, then runs over to the desk, nestles underneath, and falls asleep.
I gaze longingly at the laptop from afar and wonder how I will ever manage to get over to it, chained up as I am. But even if the chain were long enough for me to drag myself all the way there, how could I ever conceivably crack Georgiana’s password, log onto my e-mail, and send an SOS to Robert?
Before I can answer my own question, she spies the direction of my gaze, races over to the laptop, and switches it off.
“And don’t think that if by some miracle you ever managed to make it all the way to the desk, you would be able to guess my password,” she says.
“She always uses her own special word, so you never will,” Tamara says, with a smirk.
Then, to my surprise, she and Georgiana suddenly start to busy themselves around the mausoleum, cleaning and tidying so frenetically that I wonder whether they are about to throw a party in here.
Then Tamara puts on a raincoat, rain hat, and galoshes and stomps over to me.
“Gonna get our good friend from JFK,” she says. She puts a bowl of water at my feet, plus a plate of oatmeal and a spoon, checks that my bonds are still secure, then laughs and says, “But of course you won’t be going anywhere, will you, Miss Bitch?”
Then she scoops up Pluto and heads to the door.
“Hang on, Tammy; Gigi is seriously allergic to dogs!” Georgiana says, and Tamara stops dead in her tracks.
“Damn, I forgot! Can’t have Pluto in the car with her, then,” she says, and dumps him at my feet.
“There, there, baby, Mommy won’t be long. And bad Auntie Miranda will look after you real well, won’t she?” she says, and digs me in the ribs.
“Fine, Tamara,” I say, and try not to look pleased that I will finally be alone in the mausoleum with just Pluto for company.
I start to calculate how much time I have before they get back from the airport: First they have to get to the secret passage and cross the lake, and then when they reach the other end, there’s the ride to the airport, then parking the car. After that, they’ll have to wait ages at immigration for Gigi to come through customs.
Say about three hours. Three hours to get it right.
For what seems like the fiftieth time in the past three days, I case the mausoleum. Difficult given that I’ve only got a few feet in which to maneuver. I am so frustrated that I could scream. Then—miracle of miracles—I suddenly hear a phone ring close by me. A phone!
Pluto barks excitedly.
“Fetch, Pluto, fetch!” He races around the mausoleum as if his tail is on fire, but neither of us can figure out where the sound came from.
Then the phone rings again, and I realize that it’s coming from the couch.
I strain my neck, and there, stuffed down the side of the sofa, is an iPhone in a purple rubber case.
And I thank God for that. Rubber. Soft and malleable. Malleable enough for a dog to bite into it.
It takes me an hour of “Fetch Pluto, fetch” before the little poodle valiantly comes through, snaps his teeth around the phone, and drops it at my feet.
Almost there, Miranda!
Just as long as the battery hasn’t run out.
The screen saver is a JPEG of the Union Jack. Unlikely that a New Yorker like Tamara would opt for that. So this must be Georgiana’s. But what in heaven’s name could her password be?
She’ll never guess Georgiana’s password, Tamara’s taunting words echo in my mind.
So Georgiana’s pattern is to use words, not numbers, as her password.
I keep a check on the wall clock as I enter word after word into the phone:
VIOL for violet.
ORCH for orchidée.
GENE for Geneva.
GIGI.
TAMM for Tamara.
ROBE for Robert.
GEOR for Georgiana.
No luck.
Nothing.
In the eleventh hour, I have a brain wave.
The old violet seller. The violet seller who pinched Georgiana’s nipple and gave her her first sexual thrill.
I take a deep breath, cross my fingers, and type in four letters, S-A-K-S, and hey, presto! I’ve cracked her password.
But what do I do now?
They’ll be back any second now, so there’s not enough time for me to call 911 and explain my plight in detail. If my luck doesn’t hold and they burst into the mausoleum while I’m still on the phone, I’ll have Tamara’s Glock aimed at my guts, pronto.
Log onto my e-mail and e-mail Robert?
Same difficulty as calling 911: lack of time.
Call Robert?
If he suddenly hears my voice after receiving that lying letter, he might just hang up on me instead of listening to what I have to say.
Only one alternative: text him.
My hand shakes like a leaf as I type in the number of his emergency phone, the phone he sometimes has on, but not always. There are no guarantees he’ll see this, but I have to try. After all, what are my alternatives?
I type in the words “Prisoner in the Mausoleum. M,” press send, then delete the message afterward.
Then I kick the phone under the couch for Georgiana to find when she gets back.
At that fortuitous moment, Pluto barks like a mad dog, and I love him for the warning. I curl up in a ball and pretend to be asleep, just as the mausoleum door swings open.
Tamara hurtles in, grabs Pluto, and ties him up in her bedroom.
“Sorry, baby, Mommy has to keep you away from Auntie Gigi, otherwise she’ll break out in hives all over her pretty face,” she says.
Then Georgiana steps through the door, trailed by Gigi, all tumbling red hair and hourglass curves. Gigi, the monster who sent the purple wreath to Robert and almost destroyed our love before it had a chance to fully flourish.
“Mes chéries, c’est merveilleux ici!” she says, casting her shrewd doe eyes around the mausoleum.
Just to avoid engaging in any meaningless dialogue with any of them, I pretend to be asleep. From then on, I am subjected to the endless chatter of the three Les Orchidées graduates, amid their giggles and the chink of what I guess are champagne glasses.
All at once, Gigi claps her hands with so much delight that I get the distinct impression she has just won the lottery.
“Now I cook lunch for all of us, the French way,” she announces.
Then she pulls out a large tin of foie gras, one of snails, and another of snail shells from the bottom of her case, and at the same time, a black leather corset and a single-tail whip spill out on the floor. With a giggle, she crams the last two back into the case again.
Then she bustles around preparing lunch while Tamara and Georgiana watch a rerun of Scandal in the living room.
When she’s done, she sets the table. “Musique,” she says. “We must have musique!” She fishes an iPod out of her black crocodile Kelly bag.
“Shall we let her have lunch with us?” Tamara asks, nodding her head in my direction.
Georgiana fixes her with a fierce look.
“Use your head, Tammy. She won’t be much good to us if we starve her to death . . .” she says.
“And I’m so very looking forward to seeing the little salope put in her place and on her knees to us, and not to him anymore . . .” Gigi says.
Just give me time, bitch. He’
ll be here, it will be over for the lot of you, and I’ll be free!
I watch the clock and stealthily count the minutes since I first sent the text to Robert.
Careful not to betray my tension, I take my place at the table and wish that I were anywhere else but here. But I still can’t help but perk up a fraction when Gigi serves us escargots in an herb and garlic sauce.
Until now, though, she hasn’t said a word to me directly, hasn’t even acknowledged that we’ve met before, never mind that she deliberately tried to turn Robert against me in Geneva.
At the memory of that purple wreath, an escargot sticks in my throat.
I manage to gulp it down, then turn to her.
“So did they force you to send it? Or did you come up with the idea of destroying my life all on your own?” I boil with anger.
Gigi narrows her eyes at me.
“Ma chérie, you underestimate me. Ten seconds with you and Robaire in the boutique, and the way in which he ate you up with his eyes, I knew that you had him by—what do they call it—ah, yes, his essentials. And that you were in danger to derail all our plans.
“I knew tout de suite to call Georgiana, even while you were still in the shop and making the show like some Hollywood movie star. So I followed her commands immédiatement; I arranged to bug the hotel suite that very night, then had the wreath delivered there. Et voilà! The fairy tale est fini,” she says, and before I have a chance to react, she turns up her iPod as high as it goes to drown me out.
Through the rest of lunch I sit there and face Georgiana and Tamara, with Gigi next to me, as the iPod plays romantic song after romantic song.
“I recorded a playlist just for you, Georgiana, chérie,” she says, “and one specially for you, Tamara,” she adds.
Tamara’s playlist, as it turns out, tells a story:
“Native New Yorker.”
“It’s Only Make Believe.”
“Love for Sale.”
“Big Spender.”
“Milord.”
And a series of French and Italian songs, none of which I recognize. Periodically Gigi dashes back into the kitchen to present yet another French delicacy to us.
“And now for you, Milady Georgiana,” Gigi says, with a mock curtsy, after she has flambéed the last crêpe suzette and served one to each of us in turn.
Georgiana’s playlist opens with “She,” then is followed by “All in Love Is Fair,” “You’re a Lady,” “Where Do You Go To My Lovely?” then a long series of songs in praise of beautiful women, and ends with “I Am What I Am.”
“So full of courage, so full of defiance, so very you, my Georgiana,” Gigi says with a loving smile.
Then she turns to me.
“And now a special song for you, ma chérie!”
Then the first words of the song ring out.
“Le ciel bleu . . .”
And I turn chalk white.
“So your instincts were correct, Gigi! ‘Hymne à L’Amour’ was some kind of a love pact between Miranda and Robert. And her reaction just now proves it!” Georgiana says. “Robert knows she hasn’t left him! Signing the letter ‘Ciel’ was her signal to him that she hasn’t left him at all.” She jumps up from the table.
“My phone! Where the hell have I left my phone? I need to set our back-up plan in motion,” she says, while I sit there shaking with terror. And more so when she finally finds the phone, snatches it up, and turns it on.
Whereupon the message bell rings. A text message.
“He knows! Robert knows, and now he’s coming after us. We’d better get out of here right now,” Georgiana says.
My heart plummets.
Out of the mausoleum?
I’m dead! If we leave the mausoleum now, Robert will never find me!
Chapter Eight
Outside the mausoleum, it’s pitch-black. They’ve inexplicably dressed me in my gold L’Wren Scott dress, and I shiver from top to toe. I don’t know how long it’s been since they chained me up to this marble pillar, but I don’t care about the cold. I know that every moment we spend inside the mausoleum will bring Robert another moment closer to rescuing me.
He will be here soon, I know he will. I’d stake my life on it. And that isn’t just a figure of speech—it’s a reality, because if he doesn’t get me away from Georgiana and her evil accomplices soon, once I’ve finished writing Georgiana’s autobiography, they’ll kill me. I’m certain of it. And I don’t want to die. Not like this, not at the hands of a coven of madwomen.
The mausoleum door swings open and first Georgiana, then Tamara with Pluto in her arms, and finally Gigi emerge, each with a suitcase, and all with grim expressions on their faces.
I know why. The argument between the three of them erupted when I was still inside the mausoleum, and I guess it still hasn’t been resolved. The longer it goes on, the better it will be for me. Anything to keep us here on the island, where Robert can find me.
Finally, it’s agreed between the three of them that because Gigi flatly refuses to travel in the same car as Pluto, she and Georgiana will make the journey to our ultimate destination—wherever that is—in Tamara’s car, which is parked close to the exit of the tunnel, on the mainland.
And after Tamara and I make it through the tunnel to the mainland, the car service they ordered for us will be on standby to spirit us directly to our mysterious destination.
But however hard I strain to hear the now-whispered conversation taking place between my captors, I still can’t work out exactly where we’re all headed. The only thing I learn is that they are leaving my suitcase filled with designer clothes inside the mausoleum. But that’s the least of my problems.
I hear them say that a particular job has been allocated to Tamara to carry out before we leave the island.
“Ma chérie, you are so brillante at le dirty work,” I hear Gigi declare, whereupon Tamara shoots her a look fit to kill.
“And I’ll never forget that winning goal you scored at basketball when Les Orchidées played Les Roses, Tammy,” Georgiana says, and I have no idea what the hell she’s insinuating.
“And Tammy, I know you want to knock her out right now, but you can’t do that yet. Just so that you won’t be tempted to disobey me, I’ll leave the dart gun for you on the other side of the tunnel. You can shoot her with it, and as soon as she passes out, drag her into the cab, and tell the driver she’s drunk and passed out. That’s why we dressed her in that gold dress. Partying too much, remember?” she goes on.
How the hell will Robert be able to get me away from Tamara once she drugs me again?
“We’ll meet you there in a few hours, but be sure that the job’s done and you don’t leave any traces,” Georgiana says. Then she and Gigi walk toward a wooded area of the island and out of sight.
Leaving me alone with Tamara.
Without a word she marches away, still with Pluto in her arms until both of them disappear from view.
Surely she isn’t disobeying Georgiana? Surely she isn’t leaving me here alone? At that thought, my spirits lift. If she leaves me here, I know it will be just a matter of time before Robert gets here and I’m safe at last.
Ten minutes later, she’s back again, only this time without Pluto, and my heart sinks. She glares at me, then unties me from the tree and drags me yards and yards away from the mausoleum.
Is she going to drown me in the lake? Or are we headed toward the tunnel and off the island? Either scenario is a nightmare, and neither of them leads me back to Robert and to safety.
To my relief, I hear Pluto’s bark. He’s tied to a tree in a clearing on high ground, overlooking the mausoleum. Within moments, I’m tied up to the same tree. And I watch as Tamara stomps back toward the mausoleum.
It’s so dark that I don’t see her fling the first bottle through the mausoleum door, but I do see the flame of
the gasoline-soaked wick in the darkness. And then another, and another, as she throws Molotov cocktails, bomb after bomb, into the mausoleum.
There is an almighty boom and the sky lights up orange.
The air is filled with smoke.
In moments there’s a second boom, and an inferno of flames shoots out of the mausoleum and into the sky.
Tamara is beside me now, untying me first, and then Pluto.
“Like fireworks, bitch?” she yells, then starts to drag me away in the opposite direction, her right hand wrapped around my leash, her left around Pluto’s.
Toward the tunnel, I guess.
But what if Robert knows that it exists? What if he is even now in the tunnel, coming closer and closer, about to rescue me?
What if he isn’t?
I gulp a big mouthful of air, take a calculated fifty-fifty risk, and sink my teeth into Tamara’s left hand.
She lets out an almighty yelp, drops Pluto’s leash, and in a flash he runs away from her, toward the water. Just as I had gambled that she would, she chases after him, leaving me here unfettered and unsupervised.
I sprint as fast as I can in the other direction, praying that I can find the tunnel entrance, or somewhere to hide, anywhere.
I end up by the edge of the lake. But I’ve got no idea how deep the water is, and I can’t swim, so what’s the point of plunging in?
Tamara is still frenetically calling Pluto and seems to have forgotten all about me. Or at least, I pray that she has.
I head into a group of weeping willow trees by the water.
And then—and I can’t believe my ears—I swear that over the screech of her voice, I can hear the slow, rhythmic motion of a boat approaching the island. Not a boat. A flotilla of boats.
I don’t have X-ray vision, I don’t have night-vision glasses, but I bet my life that my rescuers do.
So I tear off my dress and wave it as high as I can above my head, hoping against hope that the glitter of the gold will alert my rescuers and lead them to me.
Just as I sigh in relief and feel that I’m safe again, Tamara rises up out of some nearby bushes and charges at me. As she wrestles me to the ground, I fight as hard as I can to resist her, but her strength is almost superhuman and I can’t. Over her shoulder, to my joy and relief, I see Robert at the head of his private army of ex–military men, all armed to the teeth, advancing toward us, their weapons cocked and ready to fire.