by Polly Becks
“Goodbye, Ms. Bruce,” he said.
“Mr. Bryson?”
Erik exhaled sharply. “Yes?”
Katherine Bruce looked him up and down.
“You have a very nice look yourself. The cool blue eyes, the dark, sexy, loose curls, the cut body—you could be a model, too, and make a good living at it. If you fail in this assignment, you’ll need a new line of work anyway. Look me up if that happens.”
Bryson swallowed. Then he cupped his ear with his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said dryly. “I didn’t hear a thing you just said.”
He closed the door behind him with a decided snap.
Katherine Bruce waited until she heard the bell of the elevator closing. Then she touched the call button on her smart phone.
“Are you ready?” she said to the voice that answered. “Good. He’s on his way down now. Don’t let him out of your sight until he’s out the door. Then the pros will take it from there.”
The quiet voice posed a question, and she smiled.
“Yes—his camera case and phone were successfully tagged at security. The tracking signal was confirmed to be working before he arrived at my office. Thank you for distracting him, Zoe.”
Chapter 3
‡
Geneva Cointrin International Airport, Switzerland
AT THE SAME moment Erik Bryson was getting his marching orders in Manhattan, Sarah Briony Windsor, the girl who had morphed from a pretty but gawky sixteen-year-old into a worldwide phenomenon in 2003, was poking at the flobby prosthetic chin she had attached to her face in the Geneva airport bathroom, deep within a stall where no one could see her.
The contortions she had undertaken to keep from dropping the rubber chin, her makeup case, the bottle of spirit gum adhesive, and her camera bag into the lidless toilet could have qualified her for a role in a Cirque du Soliel show, she thought, pressing her fingers into the squishy layers. When the spirit gum had finally set, Briony held up the mirrored surface of her foundation case and examined her efforts.
A woman she did not recognize stared back at her, jowly, middle-aged and dark-haired.
Briony suppressed a little squeal of delight.
Quickly she touched up her unflattering makeup, put on her sunglasses, gathered her gear, and hurried out of the ladies’ room, making her way to the gate.
At check-in she had a moment’s nervousness when the gate attendant asked randomly for her passport.
“I did this downstairs, before I went through security,” she protested.
“This is an international flight, madam,” the young blond woman said curtly in accented English. “We check at will.”
Briony felt her cheeks burn as the attendant, whom she imagined was around her own age—twenty-eight—looked quizzically at her wrinkled double chin and bad dye job, then at her birth date. Her name on the document was as ordinary as it was possible to be—Sarah B. Windsor—and finally the woman handed her passport back and nodded toward the jetway. Briony had waited until she was halfway down the hallway leading to the plane door before she allowed herself a slight smile at the attendant’s clear disgust that a woman less than thirty had let herself go so terribly.
As she nodded pleasantly to the flight attendant and made her way to her seat, she thought back to what it had taken to get here, the first hurdle on her path back home.
Her assistant, Claire, an Englishwoman with impeccable manners in public and the salty tongue of a longshoreman over a glass of Pinot in private, had been skeptical of her insistence on a Coach seat.
“You have never flown anything but First Class, or at least Business, in your bloody life,” she had said during their Internet conference a few nights before. “At least not since you were sixteen and I’ve been making your travel and security arrangements.”
“You certainly have spoiled me,” Briony had agreed, looking out the hotel window at the gorgeous Swiss landscape. “But First Class is just asking for trouble. It may be nice to deplane before everyone else, but then you are paparazzi prey.”
“Most celebrities like it that way,” Claire had said fondly, her green eyes twinkling.
“I know,” Briony had replied as she prepared to hang up. “One of the many reasons I don’t want to be one anymore. Thanks for everything, as always, Claire.”
“Hmmph,” said Claire. “Hope you have an extra couch for me to sleep on wherever you end up—without that celebrity status, I’m going to need to downsize my salary expectations.”
Briony smiled at the memory now as she looked at her carry-on, and then at the storage compartment above her row. “Excuse me,” she said to the flight attendant who was counting seats in the aisle next to her. “Would you be so kind as to get two blankets and a pillow down for me?”
The man, blond, thin-faced, and three inches shorter than her, looked at her for a moment, silently noting her superior height, then curtly complied.
“Thank you,” Briony said breezily, ignoring the unmistakable annoyance in his expression. She tucked the camera case carefully under the middle seat in front of her and packed one of the blankets around it, wincing as a twinge went through her. She stood and stretched.
Suddenly she felt the wind knocked out of her as a sharp blow struck her lower back.
Briony dropped the pillow and the remaining blanket and grabbed the back of the seat next to her as the world went black for a moment. Nausea rose up inside her, leaving her faint.
“Austin! I’m so sorry,” said a young mother behind her in the aisle. The woman grabbed the rambunctious boy, seven or eight years old, who had just slammed his Tonka truck into her kidneys, and dragged him back, away from Briony. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Briony nodded numbly, then folded herself into the window seat as the boy and his mother squeezed down the aisle toward the back of the plane.
“For goodness’ sake, Austin, be more careful,” she heard his mother admonish him. “You could have broken that poor old woman’s back.”
Yesssssssss, Briony thought. Victory.
She settled in with the pillow, covering herself with the blanket, and mentally thanked Claire again for insisting on buying both of the seats next to her.
She was right about Coach, she thought as she half-listened to the cabin attendant’s emergency instructions. Oh well. Better get used to it.
She was only able to stay awake long enough to bid the snow-topped peaks of the Swiss Alps in the distance farewell before sleep came for her.
“Goodbye, beautiful mountains,” she whispered at the heavy plastic of the oval window. “I’ll miss you—but not for long. Soon I’ll be back in the Adirondacks, and then I will forget all about you.” She pulled the window shade down and put her head against the pillow again.
“No offense,” she whispered sleepily.
She awoke with a thump as the plane touched down at JFK.
It was an enlightening experience getting off the plane out of Coach. Briony had never waited more than a few moments to deplane before, escorted by assistants and security guards, being whisked through Customs and rushed to waiting limousines by men who talked into their earpieces. Instead, she now got to stand amid the great swell of humanity as passengers snapped open compartments all around and above her and pushed their way down the aisle. Briony decided that waiting was probably best all around, so she remained in her row until almost everyone had left the plane.
She smiled pleasantly at the crew, who returned her grin tiredly, and made her way through the airport to Customs, where her Sarah B. Windsor papers and insignificant belongings didn’t raise an eyebrow. She followed the signs to the baggage claim area at the bottom of the large escalators, where Claire had told her an escort would be waiting.
Standing at the bottom of the escalator was the ever-present line of drivers holding signs with names printed discretely on them. Dead center of the line, very much out of place among the young and middle-aged men and women in blue uniforms, was a portly, elderly e
lf of a man, still in fine physical shape with a full head of glorious silver hair. He was dressed in a spiffy black suit and chauffeur’s cap, wearing a pair of granny glasses and a broad grin, holding a sign that said DAKS OR BUST.
Briony laughed out loud, startling the woman checking text messages in front of her on the moving staircase and the man passing on the left at the same time.
It was all she could do to keep from shoving the whole line in front of her off the escalator.
Instead she waited impatiently, tapping her fingers on the hand rail. When she finally reached the bottom, she dashed to the elf-man and threw her arms around him, startling the other drivers and their passengers-to-be.
“Ed! Oh, Ed, I’m so glad you could meet me. Claire said the escort company already had you booked today.”
Ed Hillenbrandt slid her carry-on bag off of her shoulder onto his own and returned her embrace, patting her affectionately on the back.
“Wouldn’t have missed it, ma’am,” he said.
“You recognized me?” she whispered into his ear. “Even with the dark hair and fake chin?”
Ed chuckled, equally quietly. “I’d know you anywhere, Miss Windsor.”
“Shhh,” Briony said. “And be careful with that bag—it has my cameras in it.”
Ed bowed politely. “Indeed I shall. Come—I’ve already had your luggage wrangled. Let’s get you out of here and off to those mountains.”
Briony nodded briskly and adjusted her sunglasses, casting a quick look around her. No one was watching, as far as she could tell; traffic in the airport was steady this morning, mostly with business travelers, many of whom were trying to sort through their own drivers in the line.
She and Ed walked nonchalantly past the paparazzi and other wandering photographers looking for celebrities in the crowd. Most of them had already given up and were awaiting other flights, or had found marks among the first-class passengers. Briony let out a deep sigh, thankful again for her Coach seat, and followed her driver to where the modest black Cadillac sedan was parked amid a crowd of stretch limos and taxis.
Ed held the door for her, then got behind the wheel. “What’ll it be for your singing pleasure, ma’am?” he asked mischievously as he waited to pull out of his parking space.
“You decide,” said Briony. She opened her carry-on and checked her camera equipment. “I’ll sing along to almost anything, as you well know.”
Ed held up a battered disk. “ ‘Simon and Garfunkel in the Park?’ One of my favorites—I was at that concert, you know.”
“Perfect.” Satisfied with the state of her gear, Briony zipped the camera bag shut and leaned back against the comfortable seat, wrapped in the thick blanket and full-sized pillow Ed had provided for her, and closed her eyes. “You do realize that concert took place before I was born, right, Ed?”
“You are one mean lady, ma’am.”
“Trying my best.” She stretched out, eyes still closed, and joined in with her driver’s excellent tenor on Mrs. Robinson, singing Paul Simon’s part to his Garfunkel.
She woke in what seemed like no time later, feeling the car turning and decelerating from the endless straight line of the highway. Briony sat up woozily.
“What—what’s happening?”
“Bathroom stop. You may still be young and beautiful, but my bladder’s sixty-five.”
“Where are we?”
“Schenectady-ish. There’s a very nice, clean Wendy’s right up ahead.”
“Well, you always were the expert on where all the good restrooms are.” Briony hunted around for her purse, locating it after a moment on the floor of the car. “I need to go in, too.”
“I need to make some gas and mileage notations for the service before I go in,” Ed said as he put the car in park outside the restaurant. “You go ahead—it’s early, and the parking lot’s empty. I don’t think you’ll run into anyone.”
“Oh, bless you,” Briony said. She stepped creakily out of the car, then scurried into the side door of the building, opened the bathroom door and dashed for the single stall.
She was washing her hands at the sink, staring at the face she barely recognized in the mirror, when she heard a familiar pleasant tenor voice singing an Irish bar song which seemed to be approaching from outside the bathroom door.
It was getting disturbingly close.
Quickly she tore off a paper towel and dried her hands, then stepped hurriedly to the door.
Which opened, leaving her face to face with her driver as he crossed the bathroom threshold.
“Ed! What are you doing in here?” Briony demanded.
Ed blinked, then looked over his shoulder. He turned to face her again.
“You’re in the men’s room,” he said.
He pointed to her right.
Briony looked. The urinal was in plain sight, big as day.
Ed stepped out of the way as she raced out of the bathroom and through the restaurant door, dashing across the parking lot. The car’s lights flickered and bleeped as she approached; Briony looked back over her shoulder to see her driver standing at the restaurant window, laughing. He held up the car remote, then disappeared again.
She opened the car door and climbed into the backseat, mildly mortified.
A few minutes later, Ed was back in the car. He said nothing, but turned on the engine, put the car in gear and drove off.
After a long moment of silence, Briony leaned forward beside Ed’s right ear.
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you never tell anyone what just happened,” she whispered loudly.
Ed chuckled. “Keep your money. I would never have anyway.”
“You’re the best, Ed. No matter what everyone else says.”
“May I make a suggestion?” Ed asked, turning back onto the interstate.
“Certainly.”
“Lose the fake chin. It’s really scary.”
“Oh—oh boy.” Briony tugged the latex appliance off her face, laughing, then rubbed the stinging surface of her skin where sticky trails of spirit gum remained behind. “I forgot all about it.”
“Maybe having five extra pounds attached to your throat is the reason you were snoring from the George Washington Bridge to the Thruway. That thing looks like skin harvested from a cow’s udder.”
Briony blinked. “Really? I was snoring?”
“Like a drunken sailor in a hammock belowdecks.”
Briony blushed in spite of herself. “Oh dear. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m just teasing,” Ed said, chuckling. “You’re far too young and pretty to snore, even when you’re disguised as an old fishwife.”
“Well, now that we’re out of the airport I can throw that thing away,” Briony said, moving it away from her on the seat. “It will be good to be home, to just be Sarah again. I intend to remain a brunette for the time being, however.”
“What name are you using in your new career as a photographer?” her driver asked as they passed a truck loaded with hay bales.
“My fashion photos will go out under ‘Briony’ still, assuming I ever get hired on again after my anonymous shoot. I’m not sure about the other stuff I plan to do yet.”
“You’ve got time,” said Ed.
“Indeed. Nothing but time.” Briony looked out the window again. The landscape had changed from the urban surroundings of the airport to the smaller buildings of the little riverside city. She stretched out and closed her eyes again.
“Wake me up when you can see mountains on both sides of you. And not before, please.”
“You got it.”
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