ANGELA STRETCHED OUT ON the hot tiles along the edge of the pool and peered over the top of her sunglasses to get the attention of the waiter. He circled behind the chaise lounges so as not to cast a shadow on any of the guests and then dropped to one knee beside her.
“Ahh, Signorina. Be careful. The sun is very high. Your skin…”
She smiled. “I don’t suppose I could get you to rub some oil on me.”
The young man tried to look serious. “I think you may need it. You’re already getting a little pink.”
“Where you’re looking, I’ve always been pink,” she said, making a point of following his glance down under her bikini top. “And on your way back, could you bring a bottle of mineral water. Ice cold.”
“Of course, and some extra ice.” He looked as if he might walk on the water in his haste to fetch the suntan lotion.
The hotel was built into a cliff on the Amalfi Coast, with rooms above each other so that every guest would have an unobstructed view of the Mediterranean. The swimming pool actually projected beyond the cliff line and had no visible edge to contain the water. Instead, the water flowed over the top on the seaward side, dropping into a catch trough that was there to keep sun worshipers from falling off the cliff. From inside the pool, it seemed as if the water were flowing gently into the sea, which was actually five hundred feet below.
She glanced through the door that opened out from the small, intimate lobby. It was empty, as it had been for the past hour. There was just the desk clerk, leaning his elbows on the counter, trying to appear alert while actually sleeping. Angela tasted the first hint of apprehension backing up into her throat.
Today was supposed to be the day. This pool, at this hotel, at exactly twelve noon. An exclusive hotel, with a reputation for assuring the total privacy of its guests. An international clientele, with no particular loyalty to the laws of any country. A view that looked down on the world’s finest watering holes and on a sea that led everywhere. It was the perfect place for two multimillionaires to begin their lives of luxury. But so far, Angela was the only one who had arrived.
She checked her watch and found that it was after two. Had something gone wrong? She was about to run through the list of all the possible legal and physical disasters, but then the smiling waiter appeared, the oil and water in his hands, the towel draped over his arm. He was trying to disguise his anticipation with the bored professionalism of a physician.
He unhooked the clasp of her bra and pushed the straps off her shoulders. When he had oiled her the day before, he had managed to stretch two minutes of work into nearly half an hour. Angela had found the massage exciting and his suggestions of why he should visit her room amusing. Heck, maybe she should invite him to Sardinia.
His hands and his voice began having their effect. She felt herself relaxing into a dark, hypnotic abyss, soothed by the heat of the sun and the touch of a man’s hands moving under her arms. Without meaning to, she let herself drift off to sleep.
She was awakened not by a sound, but by the silence. His melodious voice had gone still, making her aware of the water tumbling over the pool’s edge. And his touch was different, more medicinal and less arousing. Angela blinked her eyes opened and was reassured by the shadow that was still hovering over her and spilling out across the tiles. But then she was suddenly aware that the shape of the shadow was different. She rolled over abruptly, clutching the untied bra against her breasts.
“Ah ha! It’s you. Thank god, I was beginning to worry.”
Emily sat back on her heels. “You didn’t look terribly worried to me.”
Angela sat up, reaching back to reclasp the top. Emily stood and walked to a table, set out in the shade of a tall pine. She took off her wide-brimmed straw hat and tossed it on the table, smoothed the colorful skirt she wore under a white, sleeveless blouse, and sat. Angela wandered up next to her, pulling on a beach robe.
“Want some bottled water?” she asked.
“Seems weak for a celebration,” Emily said. “Maybe a bottle of champagne.”
Angela smiled. “Why not? We can afford it.” She signaled to the waiter and sent him to find the best bottle in the house. Then she settled next to Emily.
“You were absolutely right,” Emily said, after panning the horizons of the view. “Totally spectacular.” Then she asked, “Had you been here before?”
“Just by way of the Internet,” Angela said. “It looked great when I suggested it, but it was really incredible when I first stepped out of the lobby. As soon as I saw it, I knew we had picked the perfect place to meet.”
“Absolutely perfect,” Emily agreed.
The waiter raced toward them, carrying a dark bottle with shiny tinfoil surrounding the cork and dragging a chrome-plated ice bucket. He set two glasses in front of them, and began twisting the wire off the cork.
“Does he have time to wait on anyone else?” Emily asked.
“I try to keep him busy. In fact, I thought I might bring him with me for a few months. I could use someone who speaks the language.”
“Get a phrase book. You won’t get attached to it, so it will be easy to throw away when you move on to France.” Emily raised her glass and held it to the sun so that it came alive with color. “Where do the bubbles go?” she asked.
“Wherever they want,” Angela said. Then she gestured a toast. “Congratulations. You really pulled it off.”
“It had its moments,” Emily admitted.
Angela reached for the bucket to pour refills, but the waiter appeared almost magically and did the honors. “You know,” Angela said as soon as he had backed away from the table, “you might want one of your own. I could ask if he has a friend.”
Emily laughed. “I have underwear that’s older than he is. You’d have to ask if he has an uncle.”
They drank again and then Emily settled back with her face in the sun. “It had its moments,” she repeated softly. “It seemed so simple, but I doubt if I could ever do it again.”
“I’m amazed you could do it all,” Angela added in genuine admiration. “When you first came to me, I thought you were up to some sort of trick. Something to break up Walter and me and get your husband back. And then, when I realized you were serious, I thought you were crazy. I mean, to have yourself kidnapped…”
“It had to be that way. It had to be set up so that even if everything went wrong, I would be in the clear.”
Angela remembered their first meeting when Emily had suddenly appeared at her apartment. She had expected hysteria and then threats. Instead, she had listened to a very orderly presentation of how she could have everything she wanted, without having to put up with unwanted affections and submit to the tyranny of sexual harassment. By working together, they could force Walter to rob his own bank and then turn the money over to them.
Angela had picked holes in the plot, only to learn that Emily had already stitched them closed. How could they hire kidnappers? They wouldn’t know where to find those kinds of people. Emily had the answer. Her charitable work involved her with many desperate people. She had already identified a team of petty crooks who would do the actual kidnapping and she had just reviewed the file on a woman con artist who could be persuaded to mind the victim and keep her comfortable and safe. “We had never met,” Emily explained. “But her record showed an absolute genius for making money without ever doing anything violent that might attract attention. Most of the judges she appeared before had decided she was harmless and dismissed die charges.”
Angela had looked at it from every angle. Emily was the one who would be in danger, while she would have very little to lose. And yet she would be getting half the reward. It was too good to be true. And things that seemed too good to be true had a way of turning out that way.
“You remember that at first I didn’t like the idea,” Angela said.
Emily nodded. “I remember. I thought that maybe you really were in love with Walter. I was suddenly worried that I might be cutting my own throat.”
“You were worried.” Angela laughed. “All I could think of was that you were the scorned woman, and that hell hath no fury. I kept trying to figure out exactly what fury you were planning for me.”
“What convinced you?” Emily wondered.
Angela thought. “Walter, I suppose. He kept telling me what a wonderful person you were. Gradually, I found that I liked you. Besides, I really didn’t have much in the way of choices.”
Emily was surprised. “No choices? I thought you were the rising star of the banking world.”
Angela laughed sarcastically. “I was, as long as I went along with Walter. But if I had told him the truth and turned him down, he would have been too embarrassed to keep me around. He wouldn’t have wanted to see me every day, knowing that I didn’t worship at his shrine. Sooner or later, he would have found some way to get rid of me. Something nice, like the Paris branch, or an office in Hawaii. But something distant and dead-end.”
“There are other banks,” Emily reminded her.
“Not when you have left someone else’s fast track without an explanation. It’s like a big, private club. When you tell one of them to fuck off, you tell them all.”
“So even though Walter thought he was the best thing that could possibly happen to you …?”
“He was the worst. And there was nothing I could do about it. There was no way I could be his trophy and still have a life of my own. That’s why I loved your little scheme. It got me what I wanted and Walter what he deserved. It was absolutely perfect.”
The waiter reappeared to empty the rest of the bottle into their champagne flutes. Then he stood like an expectant puppy with an empty dinner dish.
“Send him for something… anything,” Emily suggested.
“Another bottle,” Angela told the young man and he raced off again to do her bidding.
Then it was Angela’s turn to satisfy her curiosity. “What I never was sure of was how you could be so certain of me. I mean, suppose I had been truly in love with your husband. I could have just left you with the kidnappers. There was no reason why I had to call them and tell them to set you free. I could have been rid of you without the bother of an ex-wife. No messy divorce. No property settlement. I could have had Walter, everything that belongs to Walter, and the whole hundred million for myself. You were taking quite a chance putting your life in the hands of the other woman.”
Emily laughed. “May I say how proud of you I am that you didn’t give into your natural greed. But actually, I never saw myself in danger. The lady con artist I picked would do anything for money, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly. Once she figured out the call wasn’t coming, she would have let me go. Certainly, for a price. And then I could have mentioned that I had heard my kidnappers talking to you and that you were the mastermind behind the whole affair.
“But I never thought that would be necessary. I figured you were as badly abused by Walter as I was. I never thought for a second that, as they like to say in court, his advances ‘were welcome.’ ”
The waiter came back with a fresh bottle of champagne and a bowl of salted nuts. As he involved himself with the cork, Emily reconsidered her earlier advice. “Maybe he would be better than a phrase book. There are so many things he can do without you even bothering to ask.”
Angela was still concerned. “But you were wrong about the woman. She damn near got you killed. All the while I thought you were relaxing comfortably, enjoying our revenge, and you were actually hanging by your thumbs.”
Emily thought. “I guess I was wrong about her. I gave her more credit than to be playing house with a violence-crazed gangster. But she turned out to have the same failing that we all seem to share. We do make some very dumb decisions when it comes to the men we hand our lives over to.”
“This guy was really bad,” Angela said sympathetically.
“Worse than anything I could ever have imagined. Once he came on the scene, I gladly would have called the whole thing off just to get away from him. When Friday came and went I thought that Walter must have decided not to pay. I realized that if you had double-crossed me, you were going to get away with it. I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way around that pervert. And Walter’s blundering had eliminated any chance that I would be able to offer them money. By Sunday night, I was sure the whole thing had backfired on me. I was sure I was going to die.”
“We almost didn’t make it to Sunday,” Angela added. “It almost ended on Friday. Friday was a disaster. They had set a trap for the kidnapper and I walked right into it. That’s why I couldn’t call them to have you set free until Monday.”
“Well, you didn’t call a moment too soon. Do you know what was happening when the telephone rang?”
“No. What… ?”
“I was being led downstairs to the basement where he was going to blow my brains out. I was hoping that he would just shoot me. My biggest fear was that my last memory of earth was going to be getting laid by that sick bastard.”
“It was that close,” Angela said in amazement.
“That close. But it still wasn’t over. I guess you heard about his using me as a shield while he tried to shoot it out with the police.”
“No!” Angela’s eyes were wide with amazement. “I had no idea.”
“It had its moments. We certainly earned our money.”
“Indeed we did,” Angela joined in. “But now comes the real challenge. How are we going to spend it?”
Emily glanced around. “Obviously, you’ve had a head start.” She focused on the waiter. “It looks like you’ve already found someone to help you spend it.”
“Oh, no,” Angela said. “That would make me just like Walter. Paying for a great-looking companion to massage my ego.”
“We don’t need trophies,” Emily agreed.
The young waiter filled their glasses from the new bottle and then moved off to a discreet distance, awaiting their next command. They sat in silence, taking in the incredible seascape that lay at their feet, already beginning to pick up the dazzling tint of the setting sun. Emily lifted her champagne and let it sparkle in the full prism of color. “One final toast,” she proclaimed. “What should we drink to?”
“That’s easy,” Angela answered. “To the man who made all this possible.”
“To Walter,” they said together.
They sent the empty glasses tumbling like snowflakes down into sea below.