Lust, Money & Murder (40 page)

Her head spun as she realized the implications. Cattoretti had been watching her back in Bulgaria. He had engineered everything! There were no “coincidences”—he had known exactly who she was all along. He had used unusual expertise to identify fake currency for his own purposes. Gene Lassiter had only been a puppet.

It was Giorgio Cattoretti who had ruined her life.

Elaine heard Cattoretti’s cellphone start ringing from the bedroom.

She felt like jumping in five directions at once. She quickly put the file folders away and shut the cabinet door. Now Cattoretti was speaking in Italian on the phone, his deep voice sounding sleepy. Fumbling with the paper clip, Elaine tried to get the lock closed again, the metal raking noisily along the tumblers.

“
Cara
?” Cattoretti called.

Elaine ignored him, desperately trying to turn the lock. Finally, it rotated back into place.

“Elaine?” he called, louder. She could hear the squeak of bedsprings as he got up.

She quickly smoothed down her robe and picked up the glass of orange juice. She pretended to look out the window at the sea. It was dawn, and the sky was painted with violet and pink hues.

His footsteps were approaching the living room.

She glanced down at the desk.

The top drawer was still partially open!

She reached over to close it, and her eyes locked on something just inside the drawer. A letter opener. It was slim and silver, like a stiletto.

She quickly palmed it and shut the drawer.

“Ah, there you are,” Cattoretti said.

She turned around, sipping the juice. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

He was standing there at the door, stark naked, his penis half-hard and throbbing.

When she looked into his eyes, her heart sank. He knew about the IN GOD WE TRUST flaw. Someone had just called him and told him about it.

She turned away and looked back out the picture window, at the early morning light show.

He walked behind her and slipped his arms around her, his manhood thumping against her bottom.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” he whispered into her ear. “Almost as beautiful as you are.”

She sensed him cocking his head a little, looking down at the desk.

“You know,” he said, “after that phone call, I am wide awake. How about we take a walk along the coastline?”

“It’s cold outside,” she said.

“I will keep you warm,
cara
. Come,” he said, taking her hand. “It is time.”

CHAPTER 3.14

They were moving along a path that ran alongside cliffs that overlooked the sea. They walked side by side, Cattoretti tightly gripping her by the hand.

When they reached a fork in the path, they veered off in the direction of Corniglia, the next closest village. The path widened a little—now there must have been a 200-foot drop down to the sea. Elaine could see the breakers smashing across the rocks below, feeling the thunderous impact in the earth beneath her feet.

Elaine walked mechanically along, possessed by a strange calmness.

He’s going to kill me now
, Elaine thought dully.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.

It seemed that her entire life had been composed of a series of events that all funneled her down this inevitable path. Dozens of vivid memories flooded her mind. Her father, his head hung in shame, standing on the other side of the prison glass. Luna Faye, rising up from the training mat, wiping the blood from her mouth, grinning.
Well done, girl. Looks like, there’s hope for you after all.
And her loyal friend Dmitry, jumping the pedestrian bridge in his taxi, risking his life for her.

And Nick, making passionate love to her…the one and only time they had slept together, in her apartment in Bulgaria.

She walked on, up the cliffs, almost unaware that Giorgio Cattoretti was still holding her hand.

They reached a crest in the hill. Cattoretti slowed, moving towards a rock ledge. The air was filled with brine, and she could hear the waves crashing down against the boulders below.

“Isn’t the view amazing?” he said, putting his arm around her.

She said nothing.

He moved between Elaine and the hill, forcing her to take a step closer to the edge, which was a sheer drop down to the sea.

“How did you do it?” he said softly, looking into her eyes.

“How did I do what?” Her voice sounded small over the crashing waves.

“Change the money.” He paused, his dark eyes boring into her. “I know about the flaw, Elaine.”

She didn’t answer—she glanced down at the thrashing water.

“I gave you everything,” he said, his voice rising. “Everything! And what do you do to show your appreciation? You betray me.”

“You destroyed my life. I know everything you did to me.”

He looked surprised by this. “What ‘life’? You had no life before I found you in Bulgaria.”

He was breathing hard now. She found herself looking into the eyes of another Giorgio Cattoretti, a man she had never met. This was the one who had served time at Attica, had been deported from the United States, and had arranged the brutal murder of everyone who had ever crossed him, and had built an empire through 25 years of theft, bribery and extortion.

Both his hands shot out together, directly at her chest. She reacted as she had been trained, blocking the forward energy and grasping both his hands and driving them backwards, trying to break his wrists.

He screamed, bringing his knee up into her thigh, knocking her off balance. The next thing she knew both his hands were around her throat. He had pushed her back a little more over the cliff edge—her left foot was kicking wildly over empty space. Now she held onto to him, determined to carry him over the edge with her.

Elaine felt her face turning purple, his thumbs pressing into her windpipe. She let go of him. In a flash, she reached behind her back and grabbed the letter opener, which she had slipped into the elastic clip in her bra.

She plunged it into his left eye.

He let out a blood-curdling scream, staggering backwards. He yanked out the blade, bellowing like a bear, and flung it down, holding his palm over his eye socket. Blood spurted between his fingers. He began swinging wildly with his free hand, trying to force her over the edge of the cliff. Elaine backed away, then slipped and fell. She clawed at the loose dirt and plant roots, trying not to slip any farther. Cattoretti tried to stomp on her hands.

She grabbed his ankle and yanked hard. He fell over on his side, kicking at her, and they both nearly went over.

“You goddam bitch!” he spat, groaning in pain.

They were both on their feet again, circling each other on the edge of the cliff, Cattoretti still holding one hand over his bleeding eye—he was in agony. He kicked her hard in the shin. She whirled around and tried to kick him in the head, but he ducked and her foot only grazed him.

He looked down and saw the bloody letter opener a few feet away.

When he bent to reach for it, Elaine whirled around again and kicked him square in the chest.

His body flew through the air and disappeared over the cliff edge, a look of horror on his face.

Elaine kicked him with such force that she lost her balance, and she fell again, this time slipping even farther down the precipice. She clawed at the loose rock and dirt, but only found herself sliding farther towards the rocks below.

“Help!” she wailed, above the pounding surf. “Help me, please!”

The slightest movement made things worse. Even her heaving chest caused her to slide. She dug her fingernails into the dirt, closing her eyes as loose earth and pebbles fell in her face—she could hear the hungry waves smashing beneath her.

“Help me, please!” she gasped again, her voice growing weaker. She wanted to live.

There were footfalls along the path. Someone was coming.

“Hold on!” a voice shouted. “Don’t move!”

Elaine hugged the cliff edge and pressed her face into the dirt, making as much contact as she could with the ground, trying not to slip any farther.

A pair of strong male hands reached down and took hold of both her wrists.

“I’ve got you!”

The voice was familiar…but it couldn’t be.

She looked up, and she found herself staring into the face of the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Nick carefully pulled her up, little by little. Finally, her knees found purchase on some rock edges, and she scrambled back up onto the path and out of danger.

Elaine hugged Nick with all her might. “I thought you were dead!”

He hugged her back. “I was wearing a Kevlar vest. You didn’t notice?”

“No,” she said, hugging him tighter. “I was too happy to see you.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve stayed alive by playing dead. What happened to Cattoretti?”

Elaine motioned over the cliff—she couldn’t look. She gazed up into Nick’s eyes. “How did you get out of the dungeon? How did you find me?”

“Tony let me out. He told me you were at a villa somewhere in the Riviera, but he didn’t know exactly where.” Nick smiled.
“
He said, ‘Tony don’t like this place no more,’ and that he was leaving.”

Elaine laughed, wiping her tears. “Oh, Nick, I love you so much! I’m never letting you go.”

“I’m never letting you go, either.” He slipped his arm around her waist and peered briefly down at the waves crashing over the rocks. “Come on, let’s go synchronize our DOPS.”

EPILOGUE

Elaine Brogan and Nick LaGrange live in an old country house in the Provence region of France. They have two children.

Their housekeeper and cook, Tony, engages in never-ending battles with the local
dilettantes
about the inferior quality of French cuisine and the French people’s “odd ways.”

A Moscow taxi driver named Dmitry found a briefcase in his trunk with $50,000 in it. There was a note that said, “Thanks—your friend forever, Janet.”

Interpol and the Secret Service located Cattoretti’s printing press and destroyed it. Luigi and a number of Cattoretti’s staff were sent to prison.

At present, Giorgio Cattoretti’s body has not been found.

----------------------

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Passion, Power & Sin
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A LETTER TO MY READERS

Hello, Dear Reader!

I hope you enjoyed this book. More Elaine Brogan thrillers are on the way. In the meantime, it’s likely that you’ll enjoy many of my other novels I write in a variety of genres—thrillers & suspense, romance, young adult, and horror. As I say on my website, my goal has always been to write novels that are so engaging and entertaining that you can’t stop reading after a couple of pages—“unputdownable” books. You can read all my book descriptions and read/download free Chapters at
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Mike Wells

Oxford, UK

June, 2011

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS