Stay Dead - страница 12

But everything was good now. She and Max were OK. Weren’t they? Her daughter Layla and Constantine’s son Alberto were cruising the Caribbean islands, touching base rarely, but they were fine. Layla contacted Annie and Max whenever she could, even sometimes arrived unannounced on the doorstep, much to their delight.

Yeah, everything’s fine, Annie told herself. But there was that niggling sense of trouble looming she couldn’t deny. The dreams. This feeling of something bubbling away under the surface, sending up noxious dirty little plops now and again to her brain – something bad. Max had been so cold to her recently, looking away from her, leaving her without a kiss, without even a single civil word.

Yeah, you need a shrink, she told herself, almost laughing at such self-indulgent weakness. She was Annie Carter, she was rock-solid, a strong and single-minded woman. So why was she letting her imagination run riot? Yes, she had secrets – guilty secrets. And… maybe now he had one too.

Shut up, you silly cow, she told herself, lying back down, flicking off the light.

He’s at it and you know it, said the voice in her brain. He’s screwing around. He’s tired of you. And maybe that’s what you deserve because you’ve been keeping secrets from him, bad secrets, and maybe he’s found out.

That was when the phone started to ring in the living room.

Sicily, June 1994

Max Carter was fed up to the back teeth when he flew into Catania. He left his two travelling companions at the airport with a promise that he’d be in touch soon, and picked up his hire car. In a sour mood, he then took the coastal road to Syracuse. He checked into the Grand Hotel Villa Politi, and waited. He waited for over a week, eating fine Sicilian food and drinking a little Strega – not too much, he didn’t want to risk getting pissed and losing focus – and still the woman was dicking him around.

Bloody women.

She was capricious, imperious, but he was used to that in women – he was married to Annie Carter, for God’s sake. But this woman was proving even more difficult than Annie. It didn’t surprise him, given the way the two women had clashed in the past over who was the queen bee. It was a game Annie would always win at, hands down.

First the woman said they would meet in the Politi’s lounge. And she didn’t show up. One of her lackeys phoned, said she was indisposed, so sorry. Then the venue was rearranged to Taormina, a picturesque town set high on Monte Tauro. They would meet for lunch at the Belmond, overlooking the twin bays below. Come alone, they said.

Max drove there – alone, as agreed – and waited. Another phone call to cancel. She didn’t want to meet there after all, she’d changed her mind. She would prefer to see him somewhere away from prying eyes. Her lackey suggested a place not far outside Syracuse, could he do that?

Max gritted his teeth, punched the wall, and said yes, that would be fine. It would have to be.

His senses were alert now. Something was wrong with all this. The woman was dancing around him like a ballerina, and he was wondering why. Maybe she had changed her mind about what she’d said when she’d spoken to Gary Tooley on the phone. Maybe she regretted her actions. Maybe she’d been drunk or drugged at the time and in the clear light of day she’d sobered up, come down off cloud nine and reconsidered.

Having spoken those words, though, the deed was done. The secret was out. Perhaps she wanted to put it back in its box. And the way to do it? By now he thought he knew the way she might choose. Whatever was going on with her, he meant to find out the truth – and meeting face to face was his best chance of doing that, even if without his back-up he risked ending up dead. If only the devious bitch would actually turn up one of these days.

In his hotel room on the morning of this new meeting, he got up, showered, called the hotel where his men were staying and told them what was going on.

‘You need us up there?’ asked the one who picked up.

‘No,’ said Max. ‘But be ready. I’ll call. Looks like this is it, finally.’