Текст книги "Forever And A Day"

Автор книги: Ann Gimpel

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Published By: Taliesin Publishing, LLC,

400 Gilead Road, #1617, Huntersville, NC 28070

www.taliesinpublishing.com

Forever and a Day

Copyright © 2014 by Ann Gimpel

Digital Release: July 2014

ISBN: 978-1-62916-065-8

Cover Artist:  James Caldwell

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Forever and a Day by Ann Gimpel

Tamara MacBride has a much bigger problem than hiding her shifter side from the world. By the skin of her teeth, and with a smattering of Irish luck, she manages to kill her sister’s murderer. Escaping from the scene of the crime is proving much harder than she anticipated. Just when she thinks she might be safe, her cab driver shrieks and slumps over the wheel. She cowers in the back seat, too scared to run, expecting the next bullet will be for her.

An unknown assailant terminates Lars Kinsvogel’s target. Pleased by the outcome, after all dead is dead, Lars exchanges the glitz of Monto Carlo for a nearby airport intent on collecting the private plane he left there. He’s no sooner arrived when a cab jumps the curb. His instincts blare a warning, but Lars ignores them and trots over to investigate. There’s not much he can do for the cabbie, but his passenger is still very much alive—and absolutely stunning. It takes some tall talking, but she agrees to come with him.

Espionage operations and runaway love travel halfway around the globe as Tamara learns to accept her shifter side, and Lars embraces what’s been missing from his long life. Initially reticent to trust one another, it takes a series of crises and a near-fatal accident for them to take a chance on love—and each other.

Acknowledgements

As always, thanks to Georgia Woods and Lisa Dugan. My content editor for this story was the eagle-eyed Debbie Gillen. I owe everything I know about commas to all the manuscripts we’ve worked on together! Thanks, Debbie! You’re a great teacher.

Chapter One

Lars Kinsvogel sucked in an annoyed breath. Anxiety and greed thickened the air in Monte Carlo’s Place de Casino, and he stifled a choking sound. Damn his hypersensitive shifter senses. If it weren’t for them, the desperation hovering around him wouldn’t be quite so palpable. Casinos were always like this, though, a haven for the rash and reckless. What had likely begun as a harmless pastime turned into hardcore addiction for an unfortunate few, forcing them to return again and again despite diminishing returns.

Hope springs eternal. All the poor sods need is one more spin of the wheel, another hand of cards… Lars looked up, right into the croupier’s beady gaze.

“Would monsieur like to place a bet?” The croupier grinned with all the warmth of a hammerhead shark, displaying a mouthful of bad teeth. What was it with the French and their aversion to dentistry? Lars shook his head and made shooing motions with one hand. He’d have to either join the baccarat game soon or move on, but he could get away with loitering for a few more minutes without drawing undue attention to himself.

His target, a powerfully built man with Asian features revealing his half-Chinese ancestry, had an arm slung around a striking brunette. Maybe she was one of the hookers who worked the casino circuit, maybe she was a steady thing for the man. Lars considered it and decided she could be both. Around five feet eight, she had a lush, curvy body, hair cut into a stylish bob that fell a few inches past her shoulders, and memorable eyes the color of a restless ocean. A short, black sheath hugged her like a second skin. Open nearly to her waist, it displayed half her full breasts. Even though Lars’ appraisal was surreptitious, he forced his gaze elsewhere. The woman was sex incarnate, and he didn’t need anything diverting him from his objective.

Jaret Chen pressed chips into his companion’s hand and urged her to pick a number. He gave one of her breasts a familiar squeeze, which earned him a smile, perfectly rouged lips stretching over impossibly straight teeth—and a slight shake of her head. Color stained her tanned skin. Lars realized he was looking at the woman again, wondering how her breasts would feel beneath his fingers. She seemed uncomfortable with Jaret’s frank exploration of her body, so she probably wasn’t a pro. For some unexplained reason, Lars felt relieved. The woman was too elegant to earn her living lying on her back.

He snorted to himself and studied the flashing display above the baccarat table. Maybe the woman wasn’t French. That might explain her perfect teeth—and her discomfort with having her body mauled in public. At least she held Jaret’s attention. So far the drug dealer hadn’t spared him so much as a sidelong glance. Lars had never met the man, but knew a great deal about him from an extensive dossier provided by The Company, Lars’ international security employer. Deeply involved in the heroin trade from the Middle East, across the Mediterranean, and into Europe, Jaret was one of the principals in a large operation—and Lars’ current project.

He sized the man up. Maybe six feet, he had a barrel chest. Strongly muscled arms strained against the fabric of his cream-colored silk dress shirt. His art deco tie had been loosened. Dark eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and straight dark hair cut short blended with his business attire. For all intents and purposes, he was indistinguishable from the phalanx of wealthy—and wannabe wealthy—men circulating through the casino. Lars glanced at his own cream-colored silk shirt and black linen pants. With the exception that his tie was still firmly knotted, he and Jaret were dressed as twins.

Guess neither of us wanted to stick out in anyone’s memory.

Lars glanced at his Rolex. Close to midnight and time to move on. He’d seen enough. Now it was a matter of figuring out where and when to strike. These things always went more smoothly when they were nearly invisible. He melted into the crowd and made his way outside. The casino fronted the French Riviera; Lars stood looking out at the Mediterranean for long moments. The water was quiet tonight, waves barely slapping the white sand beach. His cell phone, set on silent, vibrated against his hip, and he tugged it from a pocket to look at the display.

Private. Damn! Could be anyone.

Lars punched the answer icon, held the phone to his ear, and waited. No need to say anything until he knew who was on the other end.

“Are you somewhere you can talk?” Lars inhaled sharply as Garen LeRochefort’s voice came through the phone’s speaker. Another shifter, Garen had founded The Company hundreds of years ago. The mechanics of the spy game had changed drastically between the late seventeen hundreds and modern times, but the basics—kill or be killed—hadn’t altered much. Everyone who worked for The Company was some type of shifter. Lars’ animal form was a mountain lion, Garen’s a wolf.

Lars loped farther down the beach until he cleared several couples engaged in deep, hungry kisses. “What has happened?” Something must have, or Garen wouldn’t have risked contact.

“You need to leave.”

“But I have not—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Garen cut in. “I’ll explain when you’re back in the office on a fully scrambled line.”

Lars thought about his twin engine Piper Seneca waiting at the Nice airport, twenty-four kilometers from Monte Carlo. It gave him freedom to come and go, and was much cheaper to operate than the business class jets he also owned. “Maybe I could still—”

“No!” The one word thundered so loud, Lars moved the phone away from his ear. “Don’t even go back to your room.” Garen hesitated. “Old friend. Trust me on this.” The line went dead.

Lars stared at the iPhone’s display and dropped the cellular device back into his pocket. He’d been compromised. He wasn’t certain quite how, and a part of him was curious as hell. He kept walking, swinging in a wide circle to head back toward the Hotel de Paris. Garen had said not to return to his room, but if he were careful, maybe he could learn something critical that would help their side.

“Ja, forewarned is forearmed,” he muttered. Keycard in hand, he let himself into a side door of the rambling old structure, got his bearings, and started cautiously up a stairwell. His suite was on the second floor, at the very end of the wing facing the Mediterranean. He’d always loved the old hotel with its thick, patterned carpets and antique lighting and furnishings. Staying next to the walls, he used a bit of shifter magic to cast a don’t look here spell. It wouldn’t keep someone determined from seeing him, but it didn’t require much magic, either.

He entered the second floor a few doors from his own and scanned the empty hallway, his senses on high alert. Midnight was early in Monte Carlo, a city where people frequently stayed up through dawn and slept the day away, so he fully expected to see other guests, but the hall was mercifully empty. He padded silently toward his door and examined it, wishing he’d set a trap. He inhaled, trying to sort scents, but there were too many to make sense of. He could leave, just walk away like Garen had almost ordered him to, but Lars had never been a coward, and he was more intrigued than frightened. He’d spent years worming his way out of dicey situations. This was just one more, and he was damned if he’d walk away from his things. Not unless he had to.

He took a deep breath, tugged his guaranteed-not-to-set-off-metal-detectors .32 caliber revolver from its ankle holster, and shoved the key card into the slot in the door. A tiny electric motor hummed and the deadbolt snicked out of the way. He turned the latch, kicked the door open, and turned from side to side scanning the sitting room of his suite, gun at the ready. Lars waited in the doorway, barely breathing, and then he heard a muted click, followed by an unmistakable whirr, and knew.

A bomb.

He cursed in German, not knowing if he was more annoyed with the turn of events or with himself for not taking Garen’s advice and getting the hell out of there.

•●•

Tamara MacBride pushed the betting chips back into Jaret’s hand. “Sure and I’m not feeling like wagering just now,” she murmured. “Why don’t you do it for me?”

He shot her an odd look. “But you like to gamble.”

You only think I do. “Something we had for supper didn’t quite settle. Would you mind if I sat somewhere?” She swayed a bit on her feet to make her statement more realistic and sent a weak smile his way. In truth, she was a bit nauseated. Between sweat and greed, the air in the casino stank of humanity’s darker side. Expensive colognes added a queer edge, their rich scents intensifying as their owners’ anxiety rose. If she hadn’t been a shifter, she might not have noticed, at least not as much. So far, she’d done a decent job hiding what she was from Jaret. She aimed to keep things that way.

He ran a thick index finger down the bare skin between her breasts. “We could return to our rooms.”

She crinkled her face in what she hoped looked like an apology and did her best to ooze regret. “Better wait until my tummy settles.” He was arrogant enough he had no idea how repulsive she found him. Thank all the bloody saints, she’d managed to keep any sexual activities between them tamped down to nothing because of his heroin habit. According to a bit of Internet research, she supposed he could probably get hard, but the drug suppressed orgasms. At least so far, he’d been much more interested in his next shot of dope and drifting off into an opiate-induced dreamy void than in bothering her for sex.

Jaret returned his attention to the baccarat table. “I’ll just be over there.” She pointed to a row of padded Louis Fourteenth chairs with bowed legs. Jaret nodded absently. His pupils were very small, so he was still fully under the influence of his last shot. That meant she had at least a couple of hours before he’d need to leave the casino.

Tamara tottered to a chair on ridiculously high heels. They made her feet ache, but Jaret liked it when she dressed like a fancy woman, and pleasing him was high on her list. She settled onto the plush seat and slipped her shoes off. A waiter stopped and arched an inquiring brow; she ordered club soda. Rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers, she made a grab for her courage. So far, her plan had gone off without a hitch. The only thing left was to finish things off.

The waiter handed her drink over, along with a bowl of salted nuts, and she set both on a nearby chair. The ebb and flow of noise in the crowded room eddied around her. A quick glance at Jaret reassured her that he was still deeply engrossed in gambling—his second favorite addiction, right after heroin. He didn’t care much for women, other than as window dressing and so the other men would see him as some sort of stud.

Tamara sipped her fizzy water and pursed her lips together. It was a long way from Dublin to Monte Carlo, and she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her sister. She bit her lower lip. Poor Moira. Dead at twenty-five. The coroner’s report had listed a drug overdose as the official cause of death, but Moira hadn’t been an addict. Her only crime was falling in love with Jaret Chen. Tamara had no idea how her sister had actually died, but she knew in her bones that Jaret was responsible.

She drained half her water and chewed absently on a handful of cashews. Their entire family had been devastated by Moira’s death, particularly her da. Tamara could still see his swollen, blotchy face at the funeral as he and three of her four brothers lowered the casket into the earth. The glass in her hand made an odd noise; she set it down before she broke it by accident. Moira had been a cat shifter, just like Tamara. Why the hell hadn’t she claimed her animal form and killed the son of a bitch bent over the gaming table?

I’ll never know. She unclenched her jaw before her teeth cracked. She’d waited a few months so Jaret wouldn’t be suspicious, and then searched him out. When he’d made a comment in passing that his last girlfriend had been Irish and had the same last name, she’d shrugged and blessed every goddess in the Celtic pantheon that Moira had never told Jaret anything about her family.

“MacBride’s a common enough name in Scotland and Ireland,” she’d informed him with a coy look, before asking, “What happened to her?”

“Who?” He’d looked the soul of innocence, the bastard.

“Sure and you know, your last girl pal. I’d hate to think she might come back to claim you.” Tamara had held her breath then, torn between not wanting to hear whatever lie he came up with and being desperate for information.

He’d shrugged. “Hard to say quite what happened. Guess she dumped me.” He’d made a sour face then and muttered something disparaging about women under his breath. That had been two months ago. In the intervening time, she’d inveigled her way into his life. Because she was attractive, pleasant, and never made any demands—easy enough since she couldn’t bear the sight, or stench, of him—he’d allowed her into his inner circle.

She closed her teeth over her lower lip. The only thing she hadn’t done was kill him. It would be easy enough. He slept like a dead thing because of his drug habit. She could do the deed and be out of their bedroom, and on her way, hours before anyone discovered his body. She’d never formally registered as a hotel guest. Jaret had had his reasons for wanting her invisible. Apparently he’d never guessed she might have her own.

So, why haven’t I finished this?

The answer bubbled up and it sickened her. Nothing in her chosen profession as a freelance photojournalist had prepared her for wholesale slaughter. She was a coward, plain and simple. Killing in her mountain lion form was one thing. It felt…natural. Not that she’d ever killed anything except game to eat, even shifted. To take a life, in a cold-blooded, carefully thought out manner, repelled her. She’d dreamed of shoving her knife into Jaret’s carotid, even circled him while he slept, blade in hand, but in the end she hadn’t been able to force herself to strike.

Her hands ached because she’d balled them into fists. Once she uncrimped her fingers, blood welled where her nails had sliced into her palms. Either I do this thing, or I need to leave. An unpleasant thought surfaced. She was in so deep, he’d never just let her walk away. Maybe that had been Moira’s undoing. Sick to death of playing third fiddle behind Jaret’s addictions, maybe her proud sister had issued an ultimatum and ended up with enough heroin in her bloodstream to kill a moose.

The more she considered it, the more certain Tamara was she’d hit within spitting distance of the truth. She gazed at her lap and pulled the gaping front of her dress closer together. There wasn’t any choice. Not really. He’d never let her go, so she had to latch onto enough moxie to finish him off.

“Another drink, mademoiselle?” The waiter was back; he stared at her half-exposed breasts, a lascivious grin not far from the surface.

She nodded. “Scotch. Single malt. Twenty years old, or more.”

“Very good, mademoiselle. Anything to go with it?”

What could she order that wouldn’t blow her upset stomach story? “Um, crackers, with some brie.”

The waiter walked away. She stared after him. In a very distant way, he looked like the Teutonic god who’d been eyeing them from across the baccarat table earlier. The tall, blond man had been broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. His eyes were a cool, icy gray, and his facial bones damn near perfect, with a square jaw and pronounced cheekbones. He hadn’t smiled, but she imagined his teeth would be very straight.

Why can’t I have someone like that in my life?

Because I’m a shifter, goddammit. It’s a big secret to keep.

Yeah, and to keep on keeping it made her weary. She’d given up on a normal life when the first change had come on her shortly after she hit puberty. There were laws to ensure shifters didn’t get out of hand. It was easier to hide what she was than to embrace it. Her parents, both shifters themselves, had hammered that point until she was sick of hearing it.

The waiter had just stopped by with her drink and crackers with cheese when Jaret joined her. “Feeling better, I see.” He pried the glass from her hand, swallowed half its contents, and raised his eyebrows. “Expensive.”

“I can pay for it. I still have a little money.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, no. Wouldn’t dream of that. You’re my woman, aren’t you?” At her pleasant nod, he went on, “I take care of my women. Good care of them. Come on.” He tugged her to her feet.

“Wait. My shoes.” She bent and fished them from beneath her chair. Hanging onto him, she balanced first on one foot, then the other, while she slid her feet into the pumps. “Okay.” She grinned broadly. “All ready.”

“Do you want to bring the crackers along?”

“Sure. Why not?” She gripped the plate in one hand and curved the other around his arm. He finished her drink and steered them out of the casino toward the stairs that led to the Hotel de Paris.

Tonight, she told herself. Before tonight’s over, he’ll be dead. Moira can rest in peace, and I’ll be out of here.

Chapter Two

Shock ran through Lars as he stood in the open doorway of his room; he clacked his jaw shut. Someone had planted a bomb with a timer. Running on instinct, he yanked the door to his suite closed seconds before an explosion rocked the floor. He’d just jammed his gun out of sight when two hard-eyed men dressed in the casino’s signature black shirts, blazoned with a red fleur-de-lis, raced into the hall. It figured the hotel would use the casino’s security squad since the Place de Casino was right next door and managed by the same corporation.

“Monsieur. What happened?” The red haired guard loped to his side and stared at Lars with penetrating green eyes. Around fifty, he looked like he’d seen a lot. Lars knew better than to try to feed him a line of bullshit.

He ginned up a rattled expression. “Damn if I know. I had just opened the door to my suite when I realized I had forgotten my jacket in the casino. I pulled the door shut and turned to leave.” He tossed his hands skyward. “The whole building shook.” Lars jerked a thumb toward his room. “It sounded like something exploded in there. Is that even possible? My things…”

The other guard pulled out a small electronic device, traced the sides, top, and bottom of Lars’ door, and muttered, “No fire. No poison gas.”

“Maybe we should get the dog,” the first guard said.

“Dog?” Lars infused anger into his tone. “If your implication is I have something illegal in my room, I resent the hell out of it.”

The second guard, a balding thirty-something with brown hair and mud-colored eyes shrugged. “Resent all you wish, monsieur. We see a lot here. The Mediterranean is a prime entry point for drugs from Africa and the Middle East.”

Lars drew himself up. “May I go back into my room? See what has been damaged? I had a very expensive laptop, my clothes, the keys to my airplane.”

“You own an airplane?” Guard number one exchanged glances with his cohort.

“Yes.” Lars reached for his back pocket and found himself staring down the barrels of two .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols. He held his hands up. “Whoa, easy there, boys. I was just going to show you my passport and my ID. We are on the same side here.”

“We’ll get them for you.” Guard number two moved behind Lars and extracted his wallet and passport case. He flipped open the passport and handed Lars his wallet.

Lars pulled out a business card with The Company’s logo and handed it to the guard who wasn’t examining his passport. A radio crackled. The red-haired guard spoke into it in French, telling the man on the other end everything was under control.

“Now that you know who I am, may we at least open the door to my suite to assess the damage?” Lars asked, taking his passport. He returned it to his back pocket, along with his wallet.

The first guard waved Lars’ card under his nose. “What exactly do you do for this international security company?”

“Electronics. I program computers.” Lars cocked his head to one side. “Though I hate to admit it, I am quite the desk jockey. Coming here was my first vacation in over a year, but it will be ruined if my laptop was trashed.”

“You live in Heidelberg?” the second guard asked. “German national?”

Lars nodded. “Yes to both. You saw my passport.”

The guards exchanged another glance. The redhead raised his eyebrows in a quizzical expression, and then used his own key card, obviously a master, to unlock the suite’s door. “Stay back,” he instructed Lars, “until we’re certain there’s no further danger.”

It chafed, but Lars did as he’d been told and waited while the guards swept through his rooms. He heard a long, low whistle. That did it. He stepped inside. The balding guard hunkered next to a circular pile of shrapnel. Lars tightened his jaw, grinding his teeth together. Not a bomb. Not exactly. Compressed air, and enough shrapnel to kill him—if he’d been standing in just the right place. Even if he hadn’t, flying debris would likely have wounded him. Lars had used similar devices. They were handy because damage was localized to a small area.

Once I was incapacitated, they would have let themselves in here and finished me off. Guess they did not factor hotel security into their equation. Whoever was behind this had probably fled as soon as the two security men showed up. Lars smiled sourly to himself and walked past one of the guards into the bedroom. Once there, he pulled his valise from the closet and started tossing clothes into it.

“You are leaving, monsieur?” The balding guard came up behind him.

Lars spun to face him. “Would you not do the same?”

“We know where to find him.” The first guard pocketed Lars’ card.

“Indeed.” Lars glanced from one guard to the other. “Might one of you be so kind as to call for a private car to take me to the Nice airport?”

“Of course.” The older guard spoke into his mouthpiece.

Lars grabbed his Dopp kit from off the bathroom ledge, dropped it into his valise, and zipped everything up. His next stop was for his laptop, which didn’t look as if it had been touched. He stowed it and its charger into a hard-sided computer bag. Stupid of them, he thought. They should have taken it the first time they were in here. Not that it would have done them any good. The hard drive was programmed to self-destruct if anyone unauthorized tampered with his computer.

He slung his valise and computer bag over one shoulder and started out the door. The guards were taking samples of something and dropping them into sealed bags. One looked up. “Your car should be waiting. Will you be returning to the casino for your suit jacket?”

Lars drew his brows together. “Under the circumstances, no. I am a bit concerned about my plane. Airport security is impeccable, but still…” He let his words trail off.

The red-haired guard straightened. He met Lars’ gaze. Lars stared back, his expression guileless. “If we find your jacket, we’ll have hotel staff package it and ship it back to you.”

Lars waved a dismissive hand. “You need not bother. I have dozens of suits. Besides,” he cocked his head to one side, “I have been gone from the casino for long enough, someone has likely stolen it by now.”

The guard narrowed his eyes, and then a snort of laughter crept past his carefully constructed cop persona. “Maybe so.” He shook his head. “Get going, monsieur. Those private cars are expensive, and you’re on their meter from the moment they roll up to our door.”

Lars didn’t wait for a second invitation. He loped down the long hall to the stairwell closest to the front door. He’d just started down the risers when he heard footsteps and spun to see who’d followed him. Muscles so tense they felt like rocks, he yanked his gun out and stared upward.

Only the older guard. Lars dropped the gun into his pants pocket, but its outline was unmistakable against the linen fabric.

“Monsieur, we thought it prudent to accompany you.” The guard looked meaningfully at Lars’ right front pants pocket. “It appears you’re more than you revealed.”

“Hmph.” Lars engaged the gun’s safety and moved the revolver back to its ankle holster. He met the guard’s green eyes head-on in a silent challenge to make something of it.

“If you were planning to stay, I’d make you leave that in the hotel safe. As it is…”

“Thanks.” Lars trotted down the remaining stairs, with the guard flanking him. He started toward the front desk to settle his bill, but the guard hooked an arm through his and drew him off to one side.

“No need. We’ll see the paperwork is closed out.” He leaned close. “Can you think of a reason anyone would want you dead?”

Lars drew back as if he’d been whipped, congratulating himself for a stellar performance. “Dead?” He shuddered. “Absolutely not. Appreciate you taking on the front desk for me. My French is not quite up to par.” Without waiting for the guard to come up with another hard-to-answer question, Lars sprinted for the front door where a uniformed chauffeur scanned the crowd. “I believe you are hunting for me,” he told the man. “Where is our car?”

“Right this way, monsieur.” The chauffeur held his hands out for Lars’ bags, but Lars shook his head.

“I am fine. They are not heavy.”

“If you’re certain, monsieur.” The chauffeur hurried ahead and tugged open the limo’s rear door.

Lars tossed his things inside and followed them. Though it was foolhardy, he deluded himself that the satisfying thunk of the door closing meant he was safe. He leaned against the plush upholstery of the limousine’s rear seat and took a deep breath. The rich scents of leather and liquor filled his nostrils; there must be a bar behind one of the rosewood panels.

The chauffeur met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I would offer you a drink, monsieur. You can help yourself.”

Lars shook his head. “Sounds wonderful, but no thanks. I am flying.”

The man glanced over a shoulder and winked broadly. “Rules are only rules if they catch you breaking them.” Lars felt a chuckle bubble up. He let it go, pleased it lessened the tension in his gut. The chauffeur merged the big car into heavy traffic. “What’s so funny?”

Lars shrugged. “I am not certain I can tell you. What you said was just so…French.”

The chauffeur laughed too. “Oui, you Germans have a bit of a different world view. Rules, rules, rules.” He tossed both hands in the air. The car swerved and he made a grab for the steering wheel.

Lars shut his eyes for a moment, choreographing his next move. Should he fly back to Germany, or rent a business class jet, file an international flight plan, and head for New York? Perhaps the most prudent course would be to return to Germany and take one of his own jets, but that would take additional time. He’d just decided to call Garen and discuss his options when a loud boom rocked him. The limousine’s rear window shattered, coating him with shards of glass.

Lars ducked below the level of the rear seat. “Drive,” he shouted to the chauffeur. “I do not care how you do it, but get me to Nice and the airport.”

“In a pig’s eye. If you wish transport to a funeral, you will have to drive there yourself.” The driver sounded truly terrified, voice high and screechy. The limo squealed to a stop and the he hurled headlong out his door, running for all he was worth.