She then flicked her long legs up over the top of the balcony.
“Who the Hell are you?” I asked.
“Watch your back, Alice,” she said. “Whenever you feel a breeze on the back of your neck. It will be me.”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” I said
She shook her head. “It’s not me, you need to watch out for, Alice.”
With that she pushed off the balcony and ran down the sloped zinc roof through the driving snow, whipping flakes into her face like needles.
I ran to the balcony. She was fast running down the side of the building and vanishing into the storm.
I felt a shadow cross over me and turned, raising the gun.
“Whoa there!” Michael shouted as he held his hands up to his face.
“She got away, Michael.”
“So I see.”
I strained to listen on the wind for the sound of sirens, but heard nothing.
“Are the police on their way?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We can’t call them.”
“Why not?”
“We have to get out of here. As soon as Sui Lee’s people discover we’re still alive, they’ll come for us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m sorry, Alice.”
“I can call my office.”
“What the Hell can an escort agency do to help?”
“They’re not...” I paused to think this out. Could I admit to working for a private detective agency? Blow my cover after I’d just risked my life to ingratiate myself with Michael Maddox?
His eyes narrowed, “They’re not what, Alice?”
“Never mind. What now?”
He sighed.
“I can’t trust the police.”
“That’s ridiculous. We have to report this.”
He rested both his hands on my shoulders.
“If you knew how powerful my enemies are,” he said, “you’d agree with me.”
“What is this all about, Michael? What did you do?”
“I can explain everything once we’re underway. OK? But for now you have to trust me. It’s just you and I. From this moment on we are on the run.”
FIFTEEN
Alice’s Journal
“Let me see that,” Michael said and touched my ear.
Pain shot through my head and I felt dizzy.
He gently led me inside. In his bathroom he found a first aid kit and began to clean and dress the wound with a sticking plaster. His expert touch was gentle.
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve had a few scrapes in my time.”
I turned to him. “More disgruntled lovers I should know about?”
“Keep still,” he playfully admonished. He then glanced at his watch.
“How much time do we have?” I asked.
“I should call my driver,” Michael said. He dialed his cell phone and spoke. “John, be ready in ten minutes. I’ll tell you when I see you. Watch your back.”
He hung up.
I walked back to Michael’s bedroom. I walked over to his bed. I pulled a sheet over Rosa’s naked body.
Michael walked into the room.
“Did she have any family?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I regret to say I didn’t know all that much about her. I prefer it that way.”
“She was just for sex?”
He looked at me as if wanting to explain, but simply shook his head. “Find something sensible to wear. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
He started dialing his cell phone again.
I hurried back to my room. In the walk-in closet I found a pair of jeans, a rack of skimpy tight t-shirts and a few flimsy short jackets, but nothing in the shoe range that qualified as sensible for a snow storm.”
I slipped out of the dress and lay the torn fragments on the bed. I pulled on the jeans and turned to pick out a t-shirt.
Michael stood in the open doorway. I gave a jolt and crossed my arms over my naked breasts.
He smiled. “Sorry. Time to go.”
I pulled on a t-shirt and grabbed a jacket. “What’s your plan?”
“Car to airport and then jet the Hell out of Paris.”
“And the police?”
“Once we’re safely away I’ll let my lawyers do the explaining.”
I gave out a stuttering sigh and nodded.
He walked to me and squeezed my shoulders. “Everything will be fine. Trust me.”
“Tell it to Rosa,” I said.
We left Rosa alone and I followed Michael out of the suite. Immediately he stopped dead. He pushed me back into the suite.
“What is it?” I asked.
He put one finger to his lips. “Two men, in police uniforms coming this way,” he whispered.
“But if they’re police, that’s OK, isn’t it?”
He ran through the suite and I followed. He led me out onto the balcony.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “We can’t follow Sui Lee’s escape.”
He pointed to a fire escape. A staircase that ran along the side of the building.
We took the stairs just as a pair of figures appeared at the entrance to the balcony.
We raced down the steps as Michael dialed his cell. “John, meet us around the side by the fire escape.”
A shot rang out and ricocheted off the metal frame work of the stairs by my head.
“Don’t stop,” Michael called out and held out his hand to me. I brushed it aside and pushed him onward.
At the floor of the fire escape I looked around for the limousine. It was nowhere to be seen.
“He should be here by now,” Michael said and for the first time since Sui Lee killed Rosa, he lost his cool. “God damn it.”
Another shot rang out. I pushed Michael into the shadows. “Where’s the car?”
“This way.” He led me around to the back of the hotel and down a long ramp to the underground car lot. Shrouded in darkness. At the far side, a limousine with blacked out windows sat with its engine running and its headlights on.
We ran toward it.
Michael opened the rear door and told me to jump in. He followed me in and slammed the door shut as two shots rang out.
“OK, John, hit the gas.”
The car remained still.
“John?”
Michael reached over to the console and punched a button. The dark glass partition that separated the rear cabin from the driver slid down.
The driver was slumped across the front passenger seat.
“John?” Michael shouted and reached over to the chauffeur. He felt behind his neck.
“He’s dead.”
Bullets pummeled the windshield.
I screamed and ducked down low.
“It’s OK,” Michael shouted.
“How can it be OK? They’re shooting at us?”
“This car is bullet proof,” he shouted back at me and climbed over the front seat.
“Help me, Alice.”
Together we dragged John out of the driver’s seat and Michael climbed in behind the wheel. “Hold on, Alice!”
Michael gunned the limousine straight ahead at the two men wearing police uniforms. They aimed their weapons at us and fired.
Bullets bounced off the windshield in sparks as the limousine tore through the men. With a squeal of tires, Michael flung the limousine around a corner and out onto the main road.
He turned to me. “Say what you like, but I know how to give a girl a good time, right?”
“Shut up and drive.”
He thumbed the satellite navigation console. “Airport.”
It was voice activated and confirmed the destination.
I glanced at the mirror. “Are we being followed?”
He grinned, coughed and winced. “It’s a twenty minute easy drive to the airfield. Think you can take the wheel for me?”
“You want me to drive?”
He reached inside his jacket
and then looked at his blood stained hands.
“I think it might be best,” he said and slumped against the headrest.
The car erratically veered out of its lane and across the road.
“Alice, I’m about to black out.”
SIXTEEN
Alice’s Journal
I reached around the seat and grabbed the wheel. I pulled the car back into the right lane and squeezed through the partition between the seats and sat in Michael’s lap.
I checked the rear view mirror. At this time of night there was only one other car on the road. It was fast approaching from the opposite direction. A black SUV shot across multiple lanes and seemed to head into an obvious collision.
I swerved the car into a violent one eighty turn and clipped the SUV.
The SUV spun on the snow and shuddered to a stop against a set of traffic lights.
The satellite navigation reminded me I was now headed in the wrong direction.
I punched it and pulled the car around and headed back towards the airport.
“Michael?” I shouted. “Michael? Can you hear me?”
He was out cold. I felt along his body. Blood poured from his arm and his forehead.
I looked around the cabin for something to stem the blood flow. I found a silk handkerchief in the top suit pocket of the chauffeur’s uniform.
With one hand on the wheel I wrapped the handkerchief around Michael’s arm and with my teeth tightened it like a tourniquet. It would have to do until I got to the airfield.
I dug my cell phone out of my jeans and scrolled the contacts list until I found Robyn’s number.
After three rings she picked up.
“How’s it going, Alice?”
I heard laughter in the background. I fought back tears and took a deep breath.
“Alice?”
“Robyn, I’m in trouble.”
“What happened?”
“Rosa’s dead. Michael has been shot. I’m heading for the airfield. I think they’re following.”
I could hear Robyn take a deep breath and let it out. “Are you hurt, Alice?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Make sure.”
“What?”
“Make sure you’re not hurt in anyway.”
I felt along my arms and legs and looked at my blood soaked face in the mirror.
“I’ll live,” I said. “But Michael is out cold with a bullet wound.”
“Alice, do you see a police car?”
“What? No, Michael said we can’t trust anyone. Robyn, I just want to get aboard the jet and get the Hell out of here.”
“How far are you from the airfield?”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe.”
“I’ll call the pilot and tell him to expect you,” she said. “Call me back once you reach the airfield.”
She hung up.
Following the satellite navigation directions I drove until I found the airfield. I pulled up at a hangar, next to a private jet. I checked on Michael.
He was very cold and still out of it. I slapped his face and he stirred.
I opened the door and climbed out.
I heard footsteps. A man in a pilot’s uniform ran down the air-stairs and greeted me.
“Help me,” I cried.
“Alice?”
I nodded.
“Where’s Mister Maddox?”
“Inside.”
“Show me.”
As I turned back toward the limousine I caught the pilot’s reflection in the windshield. He reached behind his back and drew a Glock 19 hand gun.
I slammed the door into his knees as he squeezed off a shot.
He doubled over and I kicked him hard between the legs.
I jumped into the limousine and slammed the door shut. I started the engine and brought the limousine around.
I had no idea where I was headed. The only thing I knew was there was no quick escape. I was trapped in a country where I didn’t speak the language. Where I knew no one and where I had to get Michael help soon, or he would die.
SEVENTEEN
Alice’s Journal
As I gunned the limousine along the main road I desperately tried to think where I could take Michael to get help. A hospital was out of the question. If those were real police trying to kill us then we had to lie low somewhere. Somewhere safe. Somewhere out of Paris. Somewhere quiet.
My hands were shaking from the surge of adrenalin coursing through my body. There was a time to reflect on the incident, but that time wasn’t yet. Not if I was to get us out alive.
I searched my mind for what I knew about Michael.
Hadn’t he grown up in the countryside? He talked about visiting it with me.
“Satellite navigation show past journeys.”
Across the screen scrolled a list of destinations. There it was! A pre-programmed journey from Paris to a small village in a mountainous region of Provence in the southern part of the country.
Six and half hours journey time without traffic. We could make it by dawn. Maybe.
I selected the route and turned the car around. I dialed Robyn on my cell phone.
“Alice? Where are you?”
“It was a trap.”
“Oh my God. You’ve got to inform the police or I will, Alice. It’s too dangerous out there for you.”
“Robyn, I’m heading for a small village called...”
The cell phone battery died.
“Damn it!”
I searched Michael for his cell phone. I found it. Shattered by a bullet impact.
So I was on my own. At least for now. I had no idea who was after us. But the first thing I needed to do was make it harder for them to follow us.
EIGHTEEN
Alice’s Journal
Cruising the empty streets I pulled up alongside an SUV. It was parked up around the deserted side of a casino. Within two minutes I’d picked the lock, and figured out how to start the SUV’s engine. What can I say, but some of Nathan’s bad habits rubbed off on me?
There were no street security cameras pointed in my direction that I was aware of. In fact, the hardest part was getting Michael into the SUV. Eventually I rolled him into the back seat. The last thing I needed to do was make a note of the Global positioning satellite coordinates of our destination. And then the tricky part arrived.
Finding a screw driver in the glove compartment, I ripped open the dashboard and prised out the Satnav console. After all, if there were corrupt police officers on our trail then there was no point in advertising our destination.
Finally, I gave a few seconds thought and no more to Michael’s dead chauffeur. I felt it was best to leave him in the limousine. That way at least the authorities would respectfully take care of him. As I shut the door, my gut wrenched. I knew it wasn’t right to leave him alone like that, but what more could I do?
Every minute I delayed was a chance that our pursuers would find us.
Ten seconds later we were on our way out of Paris and heading along the A6 to Michael’s childhood home.
Part of me was thrilled at the prospect of learning what made the man the way he was. In my heart I hoped I’d gain his intimate confidence to the degree he’d tell me his secrets. But though I knew discovering the secret formula he’d stolen was the one priority that might keep me alive, I also wanted to know more about the man and why he acted so strangely around me.
As dawn approached the satellite navigation led me along a mountain road with breath taking views of the countryside. Fields of green, bright yellow sunflowers and purple lavender laid out like vast carpets before me.
I turned off the mountain road and followed a dirt track until we came to an isolated large stone farmhouse set in a hillside.
The final leg of the journey was under a long archway of trees. The dapple sunshine splayed out across the windshield and for a few second I dared to think that this would be a wonderful hiding place for the two of us for as long as I could make it so.
“Y
ou have arrived,” the car’s Satnav announced.
As a precaution I pulled up in the shadows of an old crumbling barn. Then I looked over at Michael.
I’d stopped the car for no more than thirty seconds every half hour to check on Michael and loosen the tourniquet as required. The blood loss had been significant, but he was semiconscious as I attended him in the backseat for the final time.
“Where are we?” he croaked.
“You’re home, Michael.”
I found a bottle of water in the chauffeur’s glove compartment and held it to his lips as he sipped and then choked. Patiently, I persevered until he drank half the bottle.
“Do you think you can make it to the house?”
He nodded slightly.
“Will there be anyone home?” I asked. “A housekeeper, perhaps?”
He shook his head and then nodded.
“OK, I’ll be right back.”
I ran to the house and knocked at the big wooden door. No answer. I tried the handle. Locked, as expected. The windows were all covered in locked shutters. Even if I could pry one open, I was conscious of giving the appearance to the casual visitor that no one lived here.
I ran around to the back of the house and found all the windows and doors similarly covered and locked. But a break-in here would be less conspicuous. I ran back to the SUV and found a tire jack. I used it on a back window shutter and pried open a window. From there I crawled into a large airy kitchen and dropped to a terracotta tiled floor. I ran through the house and opened the front door.
I got Michael over my shoulder and helped him slowly walk the few steps to the house. I sat him in the first available chair in the lobby.
The next most important thing was to hide the SUV. A nearby bar took care of that.
Returning to Michael I found him a little more lucid.
“I can’t believe you thought of this place,” he said with a weak smile that seemed to take all his strength, “let alone get here in one peace, Alice.”
“Michael, I need to fix you up. Are there any medical facilities here?”
He closed his eyes and slumped in the chair. He was out of it again and looking dangerously pale.
I searched the house and found a medicines cabinet in a small room off the kitchen. Apparently Michael Maddox was a bit of a hypochondriac. There were more drugs here than in a doctor’s surgery. With this kind of luck maybe we had a chance.
Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 2) Page 6