The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (9 page)

Their eyes met across the table. “I want you out of San Francisco. Away from the danger.”

Bea’s eyes darkened with fear. “You mean, you think he might come back for me? He might try again?” It was a thought that had gone through her own mind many times.

“You’ll be safe with Millie,” Phyl reassured her. “No one will know you or what happened. Soon you’ll be in Paris. And that’s another thing. I thought maybe in France you might start to remember.”

“And what then?” Bea whispered, terrified. “What if I remember who I am? And who tried to kill me?”

“All you have to do is call and I’ll be there,” Phyl promised. “You can count on me. Anyway, I’ve been invited to attend a medical conference in Paris next month. That’s not too long to wait. And it gives me something to look forward to. Seeing Paris and you and Millie.”

She told Bea she had booked her on a flight to New York on Thursday. Only two days away. “So there’s no time to change our minds,” she said firmly because she knew Bea didn’t want to go. And she knew, too, how empty her apartment would seem without her. She hated to lose her, even though she knew she was doing the right thing.

She took a photograph of Bea before she left, looking tall and elegant in her new mint green pantsuit, clutching the kitten under her chin with both hands, like a little girl. She was smiling tentatively, and there was a worried look in her eyes, but Phyl thought she looked dazzlingly pretty. She bought a silver frame and placed the picture on the table by her bed. As though it were a picture of her own daughter.

“Don’t take Millie on face value or you’ll never last a day,” were her final words as she put Bea on the plane to New York. Bea soon found out why.

9

M
anhattan had ground to a halt in a torrential downpour aggravated by hurricane-force winds. Buses and cars stacked up at the broken traffic lights, and taxis were an impossibility. Bea was forced to walk ten blocks to her future employer’s Fifth Avenue apartment building opposite Central Park. Nevertheless, soaked and windblown, she managed to arrive exactly on time.

The Renwick apartment took up an entire floor, and as Bea stepped from the elevator, Millie herself flung open the door.

“What kept you?” she demanded, sweeping impatiently from the lofty gilded hall into a gold-brocaded drawing room. She waved an imperious arm for Bea to follow. “You’re late. I hope this isn’t a regular occurrence with you? The blasted butler just quit and the housekeeper ran off last week with some of my best jewelry and there’s a new Filipina in the kitchen who can barely understand English. I declare, I’m just about to go out of my mind.”

Small and plump with girlish golden curls, she was dressed in an elaborately ruffled cerise dress and high
heels. Her wide mouth was generously lipsticked, her mascara was lavishly applied, and her arthritic hands glistened with large rings in gemstones of every color. She was a cloudburst of color, and the style was entirely her own.

Phyl had warned Bea that Millie Renwick was a rich, spoiled woman of uncertain years. She said the only thing certain in her life story was that there were more years than she owned up to. The details of her past varied to suit the moment and her audience—from orphaned heiress of a grand old family to shrewd businesswoman; from lucky gambler to poor little rich girl.

Millie’s shrewd blue eyes took in Bea’s face for the space of a minute. “Well,” she said in her gravelly voice, “if ever I saw anyone who needed a job, it’s you. You look as though you could use a good meal.” She shook a Marlboro from a crumpled pack. Ignoring the elaborate gold lighter on the table next to her, she took a book of dime store matches from her pocket and lit it. She waved out the match, inhaling with the ardor of a true nicotine addict.

She examined the soaked young woman dripping onto her Chinese silk rug. After a flurry of coughing, she said sarcastically, “What’s Phyl into these days besides psychiatry? The Animal Rescue Service?”

Sticking her chin in the air, Bea turned and squished indignantly back to the door. “I think I had better go.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Millie flicked ash exasperatedly into a large crystal ashtray already overflowing with lipstick-rimmed butts smoked down to the filter. “You can’t live with me and be touchy. Take off your coat and those ghastly wet shoes, and sit down. Here. By the fire. Come, tell me about yourself.”

She flung Bea a smile of such genuine warmth and roguish charm, half apologetic, half mischievous, that Bea found herself doing as she was told. Millicent Renwick was that kind of person she was soon to discover.
One minute you adored her; the next you couldn’t stand her. One minute she was good; the next she was horrid. Just like the litle girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead in the children’s poem.

Bea obediently slipped off her soggy shoes and her wet coat and put them on the marble hall floor, where they wouldn’t ruin anything. Then she returned to the library and sat cautiously on the edge of a gold brocade sofa.

Millicent’s curious eyes, dark as black currants, met hers. “Well?” she said expectantly. “Phyl told me the bare bones of the story, but not all of it.”

“There’s not much to tell. There was an accident. Although the police think maybe it wasn’t. They think someone tried to kill me.” Bea lifted her wet hair from her brow to show the scar running into her scalp as she told Millie the story.

“I’m fine now,” she said reassuringly, anxious for the job. “The only thing is… I don’t remember any of it. And I don’t remember who I am.”

“And the police didn’t help?”

“No one of my description has been reported missing. No one came looking for me. No one seemed to care whether I lived or died. Except Phyl. And Detective Mahoney, of course.”

Millie dragged thoughtfully on the last of her cigarette, then stubbed it out amid the heap of butts in the crystal ashtray. “Well, well, a woman with no past.” She stared at Bea and then smiled and said cryptically, “The perfect companion for the woman with no future.

“You can start immediately by fetching me another pack of ciggies from my room. And then we shall have some tea. Tell the Filipina in the kitchen, Earl Grey for two. And not too strong this time or I’ll kill her. And sandwiches. Smoked salmon and egg salad. Finger sandwiches, no crusts; she knows the way I like them.
And then get on the phone and order me up a new butler. I don’t like answering my own doorbell.”

She glanced at her enormous diamond-studded watch. “And after that it’ll almost be time for the first glass of champagne.” She rolled her eyes heavenward and grimaced. “God, why at my age do I think a glass of bubbly taken before the sun is over the yardarm is the first step on the path to decadence? When I don’t give a damn about decadence. And anyway, it’s not alcohol that’ll kill me; it’s these blasted ciggies….”

Bea moved into the grand fourteen-room apartment overlooking Central Park. Her pretty blue and white room was next to Millie’s palatial suite. “Near enough to yell if I need you,” Millie told her cheerfully. She was sitting on Bea’s bed, watching her unpack, passing critical comments on each garment as she hung it in her closet.

“Mmm, not one for color, are you, dear girl?” she said witheringly, eyeing yet another neutral-toned linen dress. “How do you ever hope to get yourself noticed in beige? I can see Phyl’s influence at work. You know I’ve never seen that women in anything but black and white. I can tell you it would drive me nuts.”

She smiled, wafting away cigarette smoke and added smugly, “I’ve always found the best way to catch a man’s eye is to wear a bright color. Pink preferably. And a few good diamonds, of course. But then, I guess after what you’ve just been through, you don’t want to be noticed right now.” She patted Bea’s hand sympatheticaly. “Don’t worry, dear girl. You’ll be safe with Millie.”

Bea smiled gratefully. She could see that life with Millie was going to be a series of ups and downs, but she knew Millie really was kind under that bullying facade.

“Who needs men anyway?” Millie demanded, holding up a copper-colored sweater that almost matched Bea’s hair and shaking her head disapprovingly. “I’ve
been married three times, dear girl. First to a polo player. Then, in my racing phase, to a jockey. And last to an international playboy. And let me tell you there is nobody less
fun
than
a playboy.
After him I figured three times was enough. Marriage was not for me. Not that I haven’t had the odd little flutter”—her dark eyes twinkled with mischief—“but at least I didn’t marry them.”

Bea laughed with her, and then Millie said impatiently, “Hurry and get changed, dear girl. We’re off to lunch at Le Cirque. Put on the smartest of those ghastly beige suits and a big smile, and prepare to enjoy some of the best food in New York. And make sure you order all the most fattening dishes; you could use a bit of flesh on your bones. And then tonight there’s a fund-raising dinner at the Waldorf. Our President is speaking, you know. I thought it might be interesting, and I bought a table so there will be lots of people to introduce you to.”

Bea’s heart sank at the thought, and Millie caught her apprehensive glance. She said briskly, “Of course you’ll cope. I’ll just tell them all that you had an accident and that your memory is a bit hazy.” She yelped with laughter as she added, “Other than that you are a perfectly normal young woman.”

Bea found herself whirled into two frantic weeks of lunches, fund-raising dinners, and charity balls. She even got used to Millie complaining all the time about her simple taste in clothes, her minimal use of makeup, and her unwillingness to eat a good breakfast.

“You’re as bad as my mother,” Bea retorted one day as she turned down dessert at yet another smart lunch.

“Even your mother would not have turned down dessert at Lutèce.” Millie glanced at her overcasually as she added, “By the way, what was your mother like?”

Panic fizzed up Bea’s spine. She stared blankly at Millie. “I just said that, didn’t I? About my mother. And yet now, when I’m trying to visualize her, trying to
think of her voice saying, ‘Eat your breakfast or you won’t grow up big and strong,’ all I get is that same blank wall in my mind. There’s just nothing there.”

Her voice had risen in panic, and Millie patted her hand soothingly. Phyl had asked her to watch out for any signs of returning memory, but she hadn’t realized quite how upset Bea would get.

“Poor child,” she said in a quiet voice, unlike her usual boisterous high-pitched chatter. “You must feel desperately lonely. And I can tell you I know a thing or two about loneliness myself. We shall just have to cheer each other up, won’t we? After all, we’re off to Paris next week, and there’s nothing like France to put a glow in a girl’s heart.”

Bea surely hoped she was right.

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