Love You Dead (7 page)

Right now she felt no sunshine in her heart.

Months wasted.

As the effects of the champagne began to kick in, she gradually began to cheer up a little. ‘Never look back, girl. Only forward!’ she said aloud, drained the second glass, then
emptied the remainder of the bottle into it and drained that, too. She flushed the cigarette butt down the toilet and rinsed out the glass, then sat on the edge of the bed. Walt Klein was history.
She was now totally focusing on her next target, Rowley Carmichael.

She liked the name Carmichael a lot. She could already visualize her signature.
Jodie Carmichael.
Much classier than Jodie
Klein
would have looked.

And she liked everything else about Rowley Carmichael a lot, too. Most of all his listing, at equal number 225, on the most recent
Sunday Times
Rich List.

She took an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table, cut it in half with the knife provided, and bit into it, hungrily. Then, chewing, she opened the lid of her laptop, and smiled as she saw
that another email from Rowley had come in.

Several months ago she had spotted his online advertisement:

Even though she had been engaged to Walt Klein, Jodie had responded using her maiden name. She was registered, under different names, with several online dating agencies for wealthy singles. She
had, electronically, kissed a lot of proverbial frogs. But it was that one on
Rich and Single
that had caught her attention, a couple of months back. She liked the ‘and maybe more .
. .’ To her trained eye, it had a subtext of a certain element of desperation.

Desperation was good.

She’d read it through a couple of times more, then pinged a carefully constructed email back, accompanied by a demure photograph, taken after she’d skilfully applied make-up,
attached to the profile she had just created for herself:

Rowley Carmichael had replied less than an hour later.

Since then, in preparation for Walt’s eventual demise, she had secretly and very carefully been reeling Rowley Carmichael in. Now he was ready. And she was free! She never kept all her
eggs in the same basket; although Walt appeared vastly wealthy she’d always had a plan B, and that was to get rid of him as quickly as possible and move on.

She yawned. It was just after 4 p.m. and it would soon be growing dark outside. She was increasingly feeling the effects of jet lag – and the champagne. At the same time she didn’t
want to waste an evening in New York – you never knew what might happen. Maybe she’d meet someone for a one-night stand. Right now, she didn’t much care who, so long as he was
good-looking and not a slobbering geriatric like Walt. This was a city of singles bars famed for one-night stands. That’s what she fancied right now. A one-night stand with a hunk, who would
screw her brains out for a few hours. God, she’d not had decent sex for – a year. More than a year.

And the good news was that one of the city’s hottest singles bars was right here, downstairs in this hotel.

She set her alarm for 6 p.m., lay back on the bed and crashed out.

Shortly before 7 p.m., showered and wearing the most revealing outfit she had with her – a short black dress and black leather ankle boots – Jodie perched on a red
chair at the long, darkly lit bar and ordered a Manhattan. She was slender and beautiful, with all the confidence to go with it. She had styled her dark hair in ringlets and was classily – if
just a tiny bit too revealingly – dressed.

But her best asset of all had always been her eyes. They were wide, cobalt blue and crystal clear. You-can-trust-me eyes. Come-to-bed eyes.

Dangerous eyes.

She sipped her drink slowly, pacing herself. But sooner than she had anticipated, all that was left of it was the maraschino cherry at the bottom. Already she was feeling a warm glow from the
alcohol. As she raised a hand to signal one of the bartenders, she became aware of a figure beside her, a man easing himself onto the next chair.

‘Allow me to buy you another?’ he asked in a richly charming voice that was part American, part mittel-European and part very drunk.

She shot him a glance. He was in his late thirties or early forties, with Latino good looks beneath short, black tousled hair and beautiful, almost impossibly white teeth. He wore a black jacket
over a white shirt, with a gold chain round his neck. And he looked wasted, either on drugs or booze.

‘Sure,’ she said, smiling back. ‘A Manhattan, straight up, with two cherries.’

He ordered two, then turned back to her. ‘My name’s Romeo,’ he said.

‘Juliet!’ she replied, thinking on her feet.

‘You are kidding?’

‘Nope!’

His eyes widened in a smile. Large, hazelnut irises. With very dilated pupils, she noticed. He was definitely off his face on something.

‘
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon!
’ he said, theatrically.

‘
Who is already sick and pale with grief!
’ she replied.

‘You know it?’ he said with astonishment. ‘You know Shakespeare?’

‘Of course!’

‘Well, I am impressed. Romeo meets Juliet in a bar! How often is that going to happen?’

‘Meant to be!’ she replied, locking eyes with his. ‘So what’s your full name?’

‘Romeo Munteanu.’

Their drinks arrived and he raised his glass. ‘
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
’

‘
Be not her maid, since she is envious.
’ Jodie tilted her head. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I think anyone would be envious of us at this moment. The two most
beautiful people in all of New York seated in a bar together.’

‘So you’re a modest man, are you, Romeo?’

‘Truth before modesty!’ He clinked his glass against hers and they drank. ‘So what brings you to this city?’

‘Family business,’ she said. ‘You?’

‘Business, too.’

‘What business are you in?’

‘Oh, you know, import–export. That kind of thing.’

She picked up on his evasive tone. ‘Sounds interesting. Where are you from?’

‘Romania – Bucharest. Have you been there?’

Locking eyes with his again she said, provocatively, ‘Not yet.’

Their drinks slipped down easily and quickly and he ordered a second round.

‘So do you work for a Romanian company?’ she asked.

‘International,’ he said. ‘International company. I travel constantly. I like to travel.’

‘Me too.’

He lifted one cherry out of his glass by the stalk, held it up in the air and moved it towards her mouth with a quizzical look.

She closed her lips around it, pulled it clear of the stalk and chewed it, tasting the sweetness of the marinated fruit and the tang of the bourbon and Martini Rosso.

Twenty minutes later, as he drained his third Manhattan – and Jodie hers, too – he said, suddenly, ‘Do you do coke?’

She nodded, feeling reckless from the drink now. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’ve got the best stuff ever – like – I mean – the
best
, you know? Up in my room.’ He nodded at the ceiling. ‘That is – if you’re
brave enough to come to a stranger’s room?’

‘Fortune favours the brave, right?’

‘Does that come from Shakespeare, too?’

She smiled. ‘
Fortune and men’s eyes
.’

‘Uh?’

‘Sonnet Twenty-Nine.
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state
.’

He looked at her, bemused, for some moments. ‘Not only are you very beautiful, you are a font of knowledge. What else do you know?’

She stared back into his eyes. ‘I know how to drive a man I fancy wild in bed.’

‘Indeed? And I believe I know how to satisfy a woman.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, it is so.’

‘So show me!’

Ten minutes later, entwined in each other, Romeo and Juliet kissed passionately throughout the entire short journey of the elevator up to the fifty-second floor. Still
partially entwined, they stumbled along the corridor to the door of his suite.

Inside, he led her to a sofa, then picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of vintage champagne from room service to be sent up urgently. He hung up and disappeared for several minutes through
double doors into another room, then returned with a plastic bag full of white powder, a drinking straw and a knife.

He made several lines of cocaine on the glass surface of the coffee table, lifted the straw to his nose, ducked his head down and sniffed up one entire line. ‘Whoohaaaaa!’ he
whooped. ‘Whooohaaaaa! I tell you, this is the best! The best in this whole city!’ He handed her the straw.

Just as she took a tentative sniff, the doorbell pinged.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone in!’

As Romeo went to get the door, she heard the rustle of paper, then a voice saying, ‘Thank you, sir, have a great evening!’ Moments later Romeo reappeared holding a silver tray with
the bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, two flutes, a bowl of nuts and another of olives. He set them down on the table, next to the cocaine, kissed the back of her neck and sat down beside
her.

Then, without warning, he grabbed the straw from her and sucked up another line, followed by another. Shouting out ‘Whooohaaaaa!’ he hauled her to her feet and began kissing her
wildly. So wildly it alarmed her.

She tried to back off. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Hey! Gentle, OK?’

‘Don’t
gentle
me. I know what bitches like you want!’ His voice was slurred. ‘You like it rough, yes?’

‘No.’

He pushed up her skirt and fumbled for her underwear.

‘Hey!’

He shoved her back, violently. She stumbled and crashed into the wall. He was pressing himself against her, pulling her knickers down.

‘Stop!’ she said, increasingly frightened by his sudden mood switch.

He was grinning demonically now, his eyes glazed with alcohol and the drug. ‘You want it, bitch. You want me to fuck you hard, don’t you? You like it rough.’

With one hand he held her against the wall. With the other, he was unbuckling his belt. His eyes were crazed, he was scaring her.

She headbutted him, on the bridge of his nose. He staggered backwards and sank down onto his knees, blood spurting from his nostrils, his face a mask of confusion. Instantly, she lashed out as
hard as she could with her right foot, the pointed toe of her Louboutin catching him beneath his chin, snapping his head sharply up and shooting a loud grunt from deep inside his throat.

His eyes stared, unfocused for an instant, then closed. He fell backwards and lay still.

Shaking, aware she had drunk far too much, she staggered forward and looked down at him. He was out of it, but still breathing. Blood streamed down his cheeks from his busted nose and onto the
carpet. She grabbed her clutch bag from the sofa, rubbed her head which hurt and, glancing at him again, walked quickly over to the door.

Then she stopped, realizing the opportunity she now had. She turned and went through the double doors he had gone through some minutes earlier, into a large bedroom with a walk-in closet leading
off it. She peered around in search of his wallet. There was an open, partially unpacked suitcase on a metal and leather stand close to the bed. She rummaged through it and at the bottom found
another plastic bag full of white powder. It was sealed shut.

Her nerves jangling, she looked over her shoulder.
Might as well take it
, she decided, and put it into her clutch bag. Then – and she had no idea what made her do it – she
dropped to her knees, lifted the vallance of the bed and peered under it.

And saw a large Louis Vuitton suitcase.

She ran back to the doorway. Romeo was still totally out of it. She returned to the bed, pulled out the case, popped the two catches and lifted the lid.

Despite her drunken state, she began to shake with excitement.

It was packed with bundles of new $100 bills wrapped with paper bands.

Shit!

She looked over her shoulder again, closed the lid, snapped the catches shut, then picked up the case and went back cautiously to the doorway.

The Romanian hadn’t moved.

She glanced at the opened bag of cocaine on the table, tempted to take that too. But he had slit it open messily and some of the powder had spilled onto the table and floor. She let herself out
of the door as silently as possible and closed it behind her, then gripping the case tightly, sprinted along the deserted corridor towards the fire exit sign. She hurried, stumbling, down the bare
concrete steps for ten floors until she saw the number on the door of her own floor.

42.

She pushed the fire door open. The corridor was empty. Stepping out, she strode along it as nonchalantly as she could.

Moments later, safely back in her suite, she switched on the lights, closed the door and slipped on the safety chain.

Her heart was hammering, her brain racing.

Music was playing on the television and the curtains were drawn. She looked around warily, her nerves all over the place. The turn-down service had been, she realized.

Hurriedly, she put the suitcase on the bed, then began to check the money. It was in bundles, each wrapped with a paper band marked $10,000. She counted twenty. Jesus! $200,000. A very nice
surprise and sweet compensation after the shit she had been through in Muscutt’s office today.

She removed the bundles of bills and stashed them, spreading them between her own three large suitcases, interweaving them with her clothes, as well as putting some in her hand luggage. She was
wondering whether to take his case with her, to avoid it being found here, then stopped and decided to check it for any tracking device that might be in it.