The Secret Heiress (10 page)

In less than a minute, roaring rockets zoomed into the sky and burst into brilliant displays of multicolored light. The light began to fill the night sky, and the crowd gathered at Paradise Rock began to applaud with delight.

 

“Goddamn it!” Nikoletta screeched as the spent remainders of the incendiaries began to shower down on both her and Frans. “The assholes are early!” She let go of the air mattress, all thoughts of Frans gone, and quickly began swimming back toward shore. Frans fought to contain his laughter while swatting at the hot cinders that continued to fall. He gave her a good head start before he slid off the air mattress and swam toward shore, deliberately aiming south of where Nikoletta was headed.

 

The showdown with Nikoletta was soon in coming. Adrian had quickly joined Sugar, Bianca, Angelo, and Honor, who had clustered on the pool terrace to watch the fireworks together.

“Where have you been?” Sugar asked him.

“I was in the men’s room.”

“What happened?” she asked. “The fireworks are early.”

“I—” he started to answer, but Frans joined them, his hair dripping water, his white trousers wet from his soaked underwear beneath them.

“What happened to you?” Bianca asked, taking his arm. “Did you get thrown in the pool or something?”

“I took a quick swim,” Frans replied with a grin.

“Maybe we should go to our room so you can dry off and change your clothes,” Bianca suggested.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Frans said.

“We’ll see you in a bit,” Bianca said to her father.

Angelo Coveri nodded.

“She looks so happy,” Sugar said.

“Here comes somebody who looks very unhappy,” Angelo remarked darkly, extending his drink in the direction from which Nikoletta came.

Her hair, dripping diamonds and water, was plastered to her head. Nikoletta didn’t seem to mind, however. Her gaze was focused on Adrian, and although the expression on her face was neutral, there was fire in her eyes.

She crossed her arms across her chest, pushing her golden fish-scale-encrusted nipples directly at him. “Why was the fireworks display early?” she snapped.

“I’m so sorry, Niki,” he said. “I didn’t realize my watch was off. Way off, as it turns out.” He pretended to eye his watch as though it were to blame. “With all the traveling lately, somehow or other I reset it incorrectly when I went through all the different time zones.”

“Niki, darling,” Honor filled in smoothly for her brother, “aren’t you going to say hello to your guests?”

Niki glared at Honor momentarily, then relented. “Hi, Sugar,” she said. “Thanks so much for coming to the party.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, sweetheart,” Sugar said. “It’s everything a party should be.”

“Yes,” Angelo said. “A lovely party.”

“Thanks,” Niki said sourly.

She turned back to Adrian. “I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. An hour and a half off is a serious miscalculation, Adrian. What if this had been a business deal, huh? It might have made the difference between winning or losing.”

“I realize that, Niki,” he said, trying not to smile, “but it was an honest mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“Darling, he’s passed through a thousand time zones in the last few days,” Adrian’s sister said in his defense. “From one continent to another. Surely you can understand.”

“He travels like that nearly all the time, Honor,” Niki said with an edge, “and if he can’t do something as simple as turn his watch back, how am I to rely on him to conduct business on my behalf?”

“It won’t happen—” Adrian began, but he didn’t finish his sentence. At the edge of the terrace appeared a lean and muscular paparazzo with a beard. He was raising his camera with both hands. Yet Adrian spotted an unusual metal glint below the camera, of a round silver silencer. As Adrian watched, the camera lens shifted its aim, and he saw the paparazzo raise the revolver directly at Nikoletta.

Adrian instinctively gave Nikoletta a hard shove with his elbow, knocking her down onto the terrace. Grabbing one of the flaming tiki torches placed all around the pool terrace, he lunged at the man. The paparazzo stumbled backward as Adrian thrust the tiki torch into his stomach. Adrian threw down the torch and leaped on him, trying to wrest the revolver from the paparazzo’s hand.

Suddenly a shot rent the air, and Honor saw blood splatter the stone terrace. She let out a bone-chilling scream, and Angelo stepped forward. Yet it was Adrian who rose to his feet and stood over the would-be assassin, placing a foot on each of the man’s arms.

“Take this,” he said, handing the gun to Angelo.

The assailant spit up at Adrian’s face. “I missed this time,” he snarled, “but next time we won’t miss. What happens to me doesn’t matter.”

“Has somebody called security?” Adrian asked, trembling a bit now that the harrowing near miss was over.

“They’re coming now,” Angelo said.

While some of the partygoers had run into the clubhouse to escape the gunfire, others had gravitated to the scene. The PPHL security detail pushed their way through the crowd, shouting for them to move out of the way.

“Niki okay?” Adrian asked.

“I’m fine,” she said at his side, scowling at the man who had tried to murder her. “But I hope he won’t be.”

“Don’t you worry,” Adrian said grimly. “We’ll take care of him.”

Honor put an arm around Niki’s shoulder. “I think you need a drink,” Honor said, still trying to calm her own frazzled nerves. “And maybe a change of clothes.”

“I’ll have a drink,” Niki replied, shrugging off her arm. She shouted to the gathered crowd, “Spread the word, everyone. The party will continue as before. We won’t let some two-bit holdup man or whatever he is ruin my party.”

Shouts of glee greeted this announcement, and the music started again. The violence was over. Dancing, drinking, and loud conversation resumed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

The PPHL security detail handcuffed the man and put leg-irons on him, then told him to get to his feet. Adrian began going through his pockets.

“Here’s his passport,” he said, holding it to the nearest light.
Kees Vanmeerendonk. Amsterdam, Netherlands,
he read, though he wasn’t sure what to believe. It could well be a false passport. “Hang on to this,” he said to one of the security force.

He continued searching the young man’s pockets and pulled out a wallet. There was little of interest in it, a small amount of money. Then Adrian extracted a piece of paper. It was torn off a larger sheet and dirtied from handling. On it was a telephone number, handwritten and surrounded by asterisks.

Adrian took out his cell phone and dialed the number, but connections on the island were often atrocious and that was the case now. “Take him to the manager’s office,” he told the security detail, “around the back way, away from the guests. I want as few people to see him as possible.”

Kees Vanmeerendonk was escorted away, held under the arms by two of the security operatives. Adrian turned to Honor. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “I want to take care of this.”

“Do you know anything about him?” Sugar asked.

Adrian shook his head. “Not at this point,” he said.

“You want me to come with you, Adrian?” Angelo offered.

“No, Angelo,” he replied. “Stay here with the ladies. I’ll be back soon.” He left, hurrying toward the clubhouse, the nearest building with a landline. He had a hunch that this telephone number might answer some of his questions.

In the clubhouse, he switched on the light in a storage room and dialed the telephone number scribbled on the dirty piece of paper.

He heard a machine click on, then: “Mother Earth’s Children. We do whatever it takes to save the mother. Please leave a message.”

 

 

 

 

U
nknown to the revelers, an ambulance without a siren or flashing lights pulled into Paradise Rock, along with the local police. Because his wound was not mortal, the police took a preliminary statement from Kees Vanmeerendonk before he was taken to the hospital, and they promised him that they would obtain a more complete one at the hospital later.

“I don’t give a damn what you do,” Vanmeerendonk snarled. “I did it, and I’ll try to do it again if I get a chance. And if I don’t, then somebody else will.”

Vanmeerendonk was unceremoniously hauled into the ambulance, still in handcuffs and leg-irons, and taken to the local hospital to be treated for his gunshot wound. He was fortunate that the bullet had merely grazed his side, creating only a raw, bloody gash.

At the local police station, Adrian gave his version of the struggle to Jean-Paul Daigre, who was nursing a large-ring cigar, alternately puffing on it, then rolling and gumming it with his lips and tongue.

“Zealots,” Daigre commented, “whatever their cause or belief, can be very dangerous individuals, Mr. Single.”

“You saw that silencer, and you know they don’t sell them on street corners,” Adrian remarked. “My point being, Inspector, that he’s part of a highly organized terrorist group.”

“I understand all this, Mr. Single,” Daigre said, blowing a large plume of smoke toward the ceiling.

“And don’t you agree, Detective,” Adrian went on, “that it would be highly detrimental to St. Barth’s image if word got out that a criminal like Kees Vanmeerendonk almost succeeded in murdering an heiress to a huge fortune?”

“Of course, Mr. Single,” Daigre replied. “It would be very bad for the image of our island. We are known as a playground for the very rich, and we certainly don’t want to scare them off.”

“So then, you want to make certain that those people know that ecoterrorists like Vanmeerendonk are punished in the harshest possible way if apprehended.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that, Mr. Single,” Daigre said. “Right now Kees Vanmeerendonk is shackled to a hospital bed with twenty-four-hour armed guards stationed there, and as soon as we can move him to the jail, we will. It will only be a few days, the doctors say. After that, you have my word that he will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. A man who has attempted murder on this island is not going to get off lightly—of that I can assure you.” There was no mistaking the tone of harsh determination in Daigre’s voice.

Adrian put out his hand. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

 

When Adrian returned from the local police station, he found Niki in the resort manager’s office, and they walked back to the party together. “You’re a very lucky young lady,” Adrian said. “You could’ve been killed.”

“It’s those filthy ecoterrorists,” Niki snapped. “I’m sick and tired of them and their troublemaking.”

“I think we’re going to have to work on PPHL’s image,” Adrian suggested. “Get the word out that PPHL is an environmentally friendly organization. Which means that we’re going to have to make a huge effort to clean up some of our recently acquired sites.” He didn’t have to remind her that she had negotiated the deals for those plants that were now getting them into hot water with environmental groups.

“I’m not giving in to terrorist scum,” Nikoletta said.

“Don’t you think it would be wise,” Adrian said, “to make an effort to clean up our act?”

“Look, Adrian,” she snapped. “I don’t want to talk about this now, okay? It’s my birthday, and I want to enjoy it.”

“All right,” he said. “I’m sorry this has interfered with it. I didn’t mean—”

She stopped and turned to him. “Don’t you think you’ve already done enough tonight? Setting off the fireworks display early?”

Adrian knew that it was useless to point out that he’d probably saved her life tonight, shoving her out of the way of an assassin’s bullet. “Yes, the mistimed fireworks. That’s the point I’m taking away from tonight.”

 

Bianca lay entwined in Frans’s arms, basking in the warmth of his body heat and the scent of their lovemaking. She felt his lips brush across her cheek.

“I love you, Bianca,” he said solemnly. “More than you’ll ever know.”

She turned to him, a smile on her lips.

“We should celebrate,” he said.

“What?”

“Our love, Bianca, of course.” He grinned. “Let’s have some champagne. Just the two of us. We don’t need to go back to the party, do we?”

She slowly shook her head. “No. No, we don’t.”

Frans slipped his arm from around her and got out of bed. He padded to the minifridge and opened it, looking inside. “I can’t believe it. There’s no champagne. Not even a split.”

“I guess we had the only one earlier before the party started,” she replied, sitting up in bed. “I’ll call room service.” She dialed the room service number and let it ring repeatedly. “Damn. There’s no answer.”