One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “He doesn’t seem to want to go,” Rankin said.

  “But he must come with me. I am his wife,” she said.

  “Mr. Cole . . . ?” Rankin said. “Do you want to leave the boat and go with your wife?”

  Russell shook his head no.

  Carla immediately swooped toward him. “Russell, darling! I’ve come to take you back home with me. You must come with me.”

  “No,” he said angrily.

  “Russell . . . do you know who I am?” Carla asked him.

  “Yes,” he replied belligerently.

  “Darling, I am your wife. And you must trust me, my darling. You must trust me to take you home and take care of you.”

  “No.” I knew he was seething about Max.

  Carla rose to her feet.

  “Captain Rankin, please make my husband understand that he must come with me.”

  “Strictly speaking, Mrs. Cole, if Mr. Cole doesn’t want to go with you, he doesn’t have to.”

  “But you can see, he is not in his right mind,” Carla whispered.

  “He seems to know who you are and where he is. If he doesn’t want to go with you, I can’t force him. And no one has the authority to order him off this boat but me.”

  Carla was indignant. “My husband is obviously a very sick man. Any fool can see that. He must go to a hospital back in the United States. He needs treatment. Now, either you help us take him to the plane, or I will hold you personally responsible, Captain. If you do not cooperate, you will lose your license. I promise you!”

  “Well, I’ll just have to take that chance then, Mrs. Cole, because I’m not going to make Mr. Cole do something against his will.”

  “He needs help! Can’t you see that, you stupid man?”

  “He’ll get help when we dock in Miami, Mrs. Cole,” Rankin said, leaving the room.

  “Go talk to him, Jasper,” Carla ordered Jenks.

  Jenks, a dull but curiously threatening presence, obeyed her and left the room.

  “Jo, please help me. You know it is best for Russell if we get him home quickly.”

  “But doesn’t Russell think of this boat as his home?” I asked her disingenuously.

  “Home is where his wife is,” she retorted. “And I am in New York.”

  “But you’re here now, Carla. And short of kidnapping him, I doubt there’s much any of us can do if Russell doesn’t want to go. The captain’s obviously not going to force him.”

  “I’m not going with you, Carla,” Russell said. “I’m staying here.”

  This was the first sentence that Russell had spoken in her presence, and Carla reacted by again rushing to his side.

  “My darling . . . how I have missed you! But I never gave up hope. I always knew that one day you would come back to me.”

  Nancy, who was standing against the wall with her arms crossed in front of her, looked at me and rolled her eyes heavenward. Jenks popped his bright blond head inside the door.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Cole. May I speak to you for a moment?”

  The minute Carla left the room to go talk to Jenks, I sat down next to Russell.

  “What’s she doing here with Jenks?! I can’t bear the sight of them,” he said. His hands were shaking with rage.

  “You’re doing fine,” I whispered. “Just hang on.”

  Carla and Jenks were speaking softly to each other out in the corridor. Their voices grew more animated and Nancy edged closer to the door to try and hear what they were saying. After a moment or two, she shook her head, indicating it was no use. Carla came back into the room. She was clearly perturbed.

  “I believe that your husband is making an enormous mistake by not allowing me to take my husband home on the plane,” she said, looking directly at Nancy. “However, my hands seem to be tied. Now I must think of what is best for my husband. So I have decided to accompany him back on the boat. I will sail with him to Miami, if that is all right with you, Jo.”

  “Of course, Carla. But unfortunately, I can’t ask Captain Jenks to join us.”

  “No, I thought not,” Carla said with a knowing little smirk. “Jasper is going back on the plane this evening,” she went on. “He informs me that it will take us approximately five days to sail from here to Miami, provided we do not run into bad weather. That includes a stop in Puerto Rico to refuel. Jasper will meet us in Miami and he and I will take Russell back to New York in the plane. That is the current plan.”

  In reality, the trip needn’t have taken more than three days, but Rankin and I had agreed ahead of time it was better to stretch the journey out as long as possible. I should have smelled a rat when neither Jenks nor Carla raised an objection.

  Playing the dutiful, concerned wife, Carla sat down beside Russell again, stroked his hair, and talked softly to him, telling him everything was going to be all right. Then she turned to me and said sweetly, “Jo, dear, I know it is a terrible imposition, but would you mind if I had my old room back for the rest of the voyage? I do so want to be near my husband.”

  I couldn’t really deny her request without tipping my hand.

  “Of course, Carla. I’ll have one of the crew move my things down to a guest cabin.”

  “I will, of course, compensate you for having interrupted your wonderful vacation,” she said.

  Rankin drove Jenks back to the airport and waited until he saw the plane take off with Jenks on it. I told him not to take any chances with Jenks, whom I believed to be Carla’s creature and a stone-cold killer. The crew were all apprised of our new guest. The cat was now out of the bag and they were all asked not to say anything to anyone about Russell until we landed in Miami. Since Carla had not planned on staying long, she didn’t bring along many clothes. I loaned her some of my things.

  That evening we set sail for Puerto Rico. Carla and I dined alone together. Russell stayed in his cabin. As the yacht chugged along the dark, open sea, she and I sat inside in the candlelit dining room, eating a gourmet dinner the chef had prepared. Carla began the meal by saying again how odd she felt being back on the boat.

  “I never thought I would be sitting here again,” she said, arranging her napkin on her lap with exaggerated care. “It is so very strange. But then, life is so very strange, is it not?”

  I interpreted this to mean that she never in a million years expected things to go so wrong.

  She also said, over and over, how relieved she was to have Russell back and how she prayed he would “be all right.” She kept asking me if there had been any “significant change” in him since he first got on the boat, another sign she was worried he might indeed recover. If she had any inkling that Russell had told me everything, she didn’t show it. And yet, she was such an intuitive person, she must have sensed I knew more than I was letting on. At dessert, she fired the shot that I figured was designed to derail me.

  “And how are you coping with the death of your good friend Larry Locket, dear Jo?” Carla said, slipping a spoonful of homemade mango ice into her mouth.

  I wanted to reach across the table, grab her throat, and yell, “You had him murdered, you bitch!” But instead, I finished chewing the sugar cookie I was eating and said, simply, “I’m doing the best I can. It’s very kind of you to ask, Carla. Thank you so much.”

  We were like two lionesses trapped in the same golden cage, each waiting to make our move. Our conversation was as stilted as it was decorous, a mini version of social life where people so often pretend not to know what other people are really up to. However, our polite banter could not hide the fact that we loathed each other. I said good night to Carla, and before I went downstairs to my cabin, I walked out on deck and stood alone for a long moment in the dark and windy night, wondering when and how I would make my move.

  Chapter 43

  I doubt that any of us got much sleep that first night, except perhaps the off-duty crew
, who were happily tucked into their bunks in their quarters below the foredeck. I, for one, lay awake most of the night, listening to the sound of the engines chugging through the black water, thinking about Carla and Russell in their grand suites on the deck above me. I doubted that either of them had found peace in the lap of luxury. But I was a little worried that Carla might try and influence Russell, working in the territory she knew best—the bedroom. The night finally passed and we sailed into a misty dawn. I dressed for breakfast, and when I went upstairs, I saw Russell standing out on the deck with Carla at his side. They were holding hands and gazing out at the choppy, gray sea.

  “Good morning,” I said, tentatively.

  Carla turned around. “Good morning, Jo!” she replied with ominous buoyancy. “And what a morning it is! Bellissima! Not the weather, of course. But I have my darling husband back.” She put her head on his shoulder and playfully stroked his arm.

  Russell avoided my gaze, which made me suspicious that she had somehow gotten to him in the night. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how she might have swayed him over to her side again. The woman was a pro.

  “Good morning, Russell,” I said purposely.

  “Morning,” he mumbled.

  “We are just taking a little walk before breakfast. Excuse us, won’t you, Jo?” Carla said.

  I watched them as they strolled up the narrow side deck of the boat. Carla ran her hand along the polished wood railing. Russell turned to her, laughing, and hugged her close. He wasn’t acting. On the contrary, he looked relieved and happy, as lovers do when they are reunited with the object of their obsession. Carla was watching over him like a bird of prey and I knew she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight from now on. They would always be together and that would make things significantly more difficult for me.

  Just as I predicted, Russell and Carla ostentatiously avoided me. They ate by themselves, took long walks together on the deck, holding hands and cuddling like they were on their second honeymoon. Carla read aloud to Russell in the grand salon. They drank white wine constantly—although I noticed that Carla diluted hers with ice cubes. During this period, I got an inkling of just how Carla worked. She was a total geisha, always watching Russell with adoring eyes, laughing at his jokes, agreeing with everything he said, catering to his every whim, and constantly telling him how handsome and brilliant he was. She was the perfect tonic for an insecure man. She was also very seductive and very entertaining, telling funny stories and relating the gossip of social life with the style of a skilled raconteur.

  However, the main bond between them was that they had found a common enemy in me. Carla’s delight in the surreptitious persecution of me added spice to the saccharine stew of affection she showed Russell. I heard her talking about me, and whenever I came into view, there were whispers and stifled laughter. Nothing bonds people faster than a shared love or a shared hatred. And they both clearly loved each other and clearly hated me.

  There seemed to be no hope of separating them. One morning, however, I saw Russell standing alone on deck, leaning against the railing, gazing out at the sea. I grabbed my chance to talk to him, but as I approached him, he said, “I don’t want to talk to you, Jo,” and turned away. I refused to leave.

  “What has she been telling you, Russell?” I asked him. He didn’t answer. I went on. “Can’t you see how she’s manipulating you? She’s going to get rid of you, you know. One way or the other. You mark my words. We’ll land in Miami and she’ll slap you into a hospital so fast you won’t know what hit you. You’ll see.”

  He wheeled around and faced me in a rage. “No!” he cried. “She loves me! She’s the only one who’s ever really loved me. She knew you’d try to turn me against her. You hate her because she knows all about you, Jo. You’re being blackmailed for something terrible. Carla told me. She says you’re a very bad person and that I can’t trust you.”

  I shook my head in dismay. “Russell, you’re forgetting everything we talked about.”

  “You twisted everything around. The fact is, I don’t really have a good recollection of what happened to me. But Carla does. She told me we were playing the game and I blacked out. I had an episode. She sailed all around searching for me. She was desperate to find me.”

  “Didn’t you once tell Captain Rankin he was not to move the boat if you ever disappeared? Why did she set sail almost immediately and then sell it? Because she didn’t want to find you!”

  “No! That’s not true!”

  “Okay, what about the money then? How does she explain that?”

  He broke into a gloating smile. “For your information, she intends to give back all my money when we get to New York.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “More than you. She told me why she had to use the powers of attorney . . . because Courtney, my greedy daughter, was trying to get her hands on my fortune—just like I suspected. She was trying to have me declared dead so she could inherit everything. Lulu put her up to it. I knew she would. They’re only after my money, those two. Carla always told me that. And I told you that. I knew it. Carla was terrified that when I came back there’d be nothing left. That’s why she did it.”

  Russell rambled on, twisting every fact so that Carla looked like a savior.

  “What about your collection? Why did she give it away?” I asked him.

  “Courtney was trying to get her hands on that, too. Carla donated it to the Municipal Museum because they were powerful enough to fight her. She says they’ll give it back to me the minute they know I’m alive. There’s no question about that. See, Jo, what you don’t understand is that Carla’s done all this to protect me from my greedy daughter and my vindictive ex-wife. Carla’s the only one who’s ever had my interests at heart. The only one, ever. She says she always knew in her heart I’d come back to her. She is my tigress, protecting me.”

  “What about Max?” I said, playing my trump card. “Why did she give him millions of dollars to put a roof on his house?”

  Russell scoffed at this. “Oh, that’s a complete fabrication!”

  “You read it yourself in the papers. Why would they make something like that up?”

  “Max fed it to them, that’s why. Carla told me that when she read it she was outraged. See, it’s all part of his obsession with her. She explained the whole thing.”

  “How did she explain going out with him?”

  “She wasn’t with him. They were just at the party and the press made it look like they were together. She loves me, not Max,” Russell said firmly. “You’re just trying to confuse me.”

  “Why, Russell? Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because you hate her. And you hate her because she knows all about you. And because you’re jealous of her. You tried to have her blocked from going on the board of the Municipal Museum, which she was doing for my benefit.”

  “For your benefit?” My eyes widened. His naïveté knew no bounds.

  “Yes. So she’d be sure that they’d give me my collection back when I came home. But they knew what you were up to and they expelled you from the board in a humiliating way. Carla and I read all about it on the Internet.”

  It was no use. If I hadn’t been so outraged, I would have felt sorry for poor old Russell, whose mind was so porous, he was constantly a victim of his last conversation. Carla had managed to twist everything around in that inimitable way of hers. I wouldn’t have minded so much, except that Russell’s attitude made things much more risky for me and my plan to get rid of her.

  Chapter 44

  It was raining hard when we docked in San Juan to refuel. The process took several hours. Despite the weather, Carla wanted to go into the city to shop. According to Rankin, shopping was one of the main things she and Russell had always loved to do together. I suddenly had a terrible thought: What if they went into San Juan and Carla persuaded Russell to fly back
to the States with her from there, instead of waiting for us to sail to Miami? My fears proved to be unfounded, however. Russell refused to leave the boat. I stayed in my cabin, wondering if I would get the opportunity to expose Carla to Russell before our journey ended. Time was growing short.

  When we finished refueling, it was raining harder. Rankin warned us a bad front was moving in and unless we got under way in a hurry, we were liable to be marooned in San Juan for a couple of days. Carla was very anxious to get going. She pushed Rankin to set sail. The sea grew choppier as we headed west, and it was rough sailing. The boat was rocking back and forth and every so often the swells would send it up, then down with a slap. Everything was anchored down or put away so objects wouldn’t go careening when we hit a wave. I was too seasick to eat. I went to my cabin to lie down. I must have dozed off because when I awoke, the sea was calm, and we were sailing steadily through the water.

  Still vaguely seasick, I changed into a sweatsuit and headed up to the main deck to get some fresh air. The storm had passed. Leaning on the railing of the aft deck, taking deep breaths to counter my nausea, I gazed out at the vast darkness all around us. In the distance, a misty moon hung in the sky, casting a pale reflection on the calm, black velvet sea. I remember thinking how small the yacht seemed in that immense setting, how vulnerable. Feeling better, I wandered up to the bridge where Captain Rankin was on duty with the first mate. Rankin was drinking coffee, looking over charts of the area. The glass-enclosed room, surrounded by night, glowed with the lights and sweeping green radar screens of the large control panel.

  Rankin was surprised to see me. It was very late. He offered me a cup of coffee and we sat and talked for a while, seated on the long blue leather banquette. We talked about the Coles. I had told him how Carla had manipulated everything to suit her purposes, and how Russell now believed her wholeheartedly. He said it didn’t surprise him. “She could always twist him around her little finger,” he said.

  I stared out at the open water. “God, it’s dark out there, even with the moon, it’s so enormously black and forbidding.”