Keep Your Eyes on Me

by Sam Blake

  The scenes were like the stills from a horror film that played in black and white on the wall inside her head. Vittoria closed her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to fight the memories. The moment of impact, the pain and the black fog that had enveloped her like a thick, suffocating cloud of volcanic ash. Hearing Aidan’s voice as she emerged from the coma, the tears, hot on her face, as he told her what had happened.

  At times like this it was a battle to keep the memories from overwhelming her – there were reminders of that night and her lost career everywhere, from the moment she put on the radio in the morning to the twinges in her pelvis after her daily swim.

  A part of her darkened as memories jostled for attention, like ghosts crowding in. She still yearned for that life, for what she’d thought her future held. She’d dreamed of being a prima ballerina – just like Yana – all her life, remembered the elation when she’d won the scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. She’d been fourteen, her idea of boarding school coloured by Harry Potter, the stunning White Lodge in Richmond that was to be her home for the next four years like a regal Hogwarts where the magic was the music. She’d missed the Sicilian sunshine and the beach, but not enough to make her homesick – she hadn’t looked back from the moment she’d walked through the door.

  And then she’d met Marcus, had literally bumped into him in Charles de Gaulle airport. She’d been on her way to an audition for a summer role in the chorus at the Paris Opera Ballet. Her plane had been delayed, and as she’d raced through the airport to find a taxi, she had literally run right into him, sending his coffee all over his uniform. He’d calmed her down and put her in a cab and, to her utter surprise, had been waiting outside the audition when she came out. He was older than her, but so charismatic. As they’d chatted over coffee, he told her how he’d skipped university, getting his commercial pilot’s licence instead and taking his love for speed and freedom to a career that paid him to enjoy his hobby. Six months later she’d been totally in love. And in intensive care.

  He’d stuck by her, though.

  And she thought he’d loved her.

  There were days that had followed when her loss was just too painful to bear, days when she wanted to curl up and hide in a dark place away from the world. Only Aidan really seemed to understand. He’d known Marcus at school; Marcus had been there the day his little brother was killed. He was the only one who had any concept of what loss on this scale felt like, of what had been going on inside her head, that some days it was just …

  And now this.

  After everything. This.

  But she needed to pull herself back to the here and now, to the beautiful house that had become her safe haven – the place where she’d swum and danced her way back to fitness – and to her cream and gold bedroom and the sleek hard-shell suitcase in front of her. To her successes not her failures. Getting back into the present was the only way she could deal with the past.

  Fighting the memories, Vittoria rubbed her back, stretching again, feeling the muscles relax a tiny bit. Thank God. She turned and opened the wardrobe door, pulling out a red dress, deliberately looking at it for a moment, forcing her thoughts back to when she’d last worn it. The pencil skirt was fitted with a narrow black belt; it always made her feel fabulous and attracted no end of compliments.

  Right now she needed as much fabulous as she could get.

  Where had she worn it last? To dinner at the yacht club? No, it had been that TransGlobal Airways crew benefit dinner in New York. In the palatial Calvert Vaux Hotel. Marcus had had a fit at the price of the rooms so they’d stayed at the Barbizon instead. He’d told everyone it was because she’d wanted to stay where Grace Kelly had stayed.

  Vittoria felt her anger boiling again. He didn’t scrimp when it came to his girlfriends. To one particular girlfriend. The jewellery, the dinners, the handbags. The detective had told her everything.

  Yanking the dress off the hanger and tossing it in the case, Vittoria picked up her phone again and punched in her passcode with an impatient thumb. If Marcus could change his plans and stay in London at a moment’s notice, she could change her plans too. She pulled up The Calvert Vaux Hotel website. She needed to get away and she knew exactly where she’d stay this time.

  Chapter 3

  AS LILY SAT DOWN in the TransGlobal Airways business-class lounge in Heathrow, she still felt sick. All she could think about was Edward Croxley and Jack’s face yesterday. Could you actually kill someone without getting caught? She’d never felt more like murdering anyone in her life.

  It was all such a mess.

  As she’d left the flat this morning, she’d stuck her head round the living-room door. Jack had been out cold, still in his suit, lying half-on and half-off the sofa, a blanket tucked over him, George curled up on the end. The ginger cat had looked up as she opened the door, glaring at her with his one eye. Well, it looked like a glare. George had loved their Grandpa and now loved Jack and didn’t need anyone else in his life. He had made that perfectly clear from the moment he’d first arrived at Power’s Fine Prints and Books – she couldn’t remember how many years ago. Last night she’d found him easily, predictably lurking beside the bins behind the French restaurant a few doors down from the shop. He’d spat and scratched her as she’d closed the door on his cat box and then had run and hidden behind the TV as soon as she’d let him out. Her flatmates had been home by then and the explaining had started.

  Lily took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, yawning. None of them had got much sleep. She’d heard Jack moving around until about 3 a.m. and reckoned he’d passed out eventually from sheer emotional exhaustion.

  This morning, the solicitor had confirmed what Jack had said. Worse, he’d pointed out that a highly respected member of the legal profession had witnessed the transaction in writing, and his insistence that a copy of the note was written out and witnessed for Jack’s benefit made the whole thing even more binding. They could fight it, obviously, but he didn’t think a judge would be very sympathetic.

  The only saving grace was that the ‘shop’ reference, it could be argued, didn’t include Jack’s apartment on the top floor, so they still had that. But getting in without any keys was going to be a challenge. And if they did all end up in court, it would be expensive. Very expensive.

  That was the biggest problem of all – they’d had to sell Grandpa’s house to meet the death dues, and the shop was hardly a gold mine. It gave Jack a salary of sorts but most of the assets were tied up in the property itself and the stock. The place was crammed with antique prints and books that Power’s had been acquiring for generations. Beautiful old prints that had been such an important part of their childhood and were now colouring Lily’s future. At least, the future she’d been praying for until Jack had arrived yesterday.

  Around her the hospitality lounge began to fill with TransGlobal transatlantic passengers. Thoughts of Edward Croxley and the whole mess whirled in Lily’s head so much that she barely noticed a slightly overweight American sit down beside her. His dark suit was unremarkable in the sea of similar suits, his head bald, glasses poised on the end of his nose, but his nationality was somehow written all over him like a sign around his neck. Had she noticed him, Lily might have wondered why, with all the seats that were free, he had come to sit down right next to her.

  The American opened his phone, switching it to camera mode.

  But Lily was still busy with her thoughts. She could feel the pain that had been present behind her eyes since Jack had arrived in her flat beginning to grow again. The whole situation seemed more impossible the more she thought about it and now the tablets she’d taken were wearing off. She pushed her glasses up her nose and ran her hand across her forehead, smoothing her long hair into its thick ponytail. She had ibuprofen in her bag but it was a long flight. She needed to hold on until she got on board before she took more.

  Edward Croxley’s name pulsed with the throb in her head.

  She’d only heard it vaguely befo
re yesterday, and now he was thundering through their lives like a forty-tonne container truck with no brakes.

  Bastard.

  She still couldn’t believe what he’d done, but it had happened, and she’d gone down every possible route in her head looking for a way to sort it out. There just wasn’t one. Jack had lost the shop and, essentially, his home, his job. Everything generations of Powers had worked for. Everything he’d worked for and loved. In one evening.

  Lily’s stomach had been churning all the way to Heathrow and by the time the train doors had slid open she’d been feeling really sick. She wasn’t sure if the migraine that was threatening had been brought on by the shock or by pure anxiety. This was supposed to be the trip that changed her life, the chance of a lifetime. This massive opportunity had come to find her, and the next thing she knew, Jack was banging on the door of the flat, his world in tatters.

  She’d barely been able to sleep from the day the email had arrived from No. 42’s human-resources director at their New York headquarters.

  They wanted to offer her a job.

  A proper job.

  One that paid real money, doing the thing that she loved most in the world: designing jewellery. That just didn’t happen in real life.

  They’d seen her final-year show at Central Saint Martins and wanted her to go over to New York for a ‘chat’, to see what she thought of the place, to see whether she’d like to work with their team. Part of her just wanted to scream yes. In all honesty, she’d do it for free, but that wasn’t very professional or businesslike. She really needed to start thinking like she was an award-winning graduate with a master’s in jewellery design from one of the most prestigious colleges in the world, and not like a desperate, broke student.

  She still couldn’t really believe it. She’d spent those next few days after the email had arrived in a whirl, working out what to wear, thinking about what she needed to take with her, practising what she would say. It was New York, for God’s sake. No. 42 in New York.

  And then Jack had arrived yesterday evening and told her what a swindling, despicable bastard dirt-bag Edward Croxley was. Lily didn’t have enough adjectives in her vocabulary for her complete and utter hatred of Edward Croxley. And she wasn’t even being dramatic.

  Jack had literally wrung his hands as he’d sat at the kitchen table last night. He couldn’t look at her. He’d been about to jump off Waterloo Bridge. Her big brother. Lily felt tears prick her eyes. The shop was only a shop at the end of the day – yes, it was history, their history, it was their last link with their grandpa, but if losing it had seriously made Jack think about ending his life? That made this whole thing a big step-up from just being a total disaster.

  If he’d jumped and she’d found out why, she wouldn’t even have bothered with the not-getting-caught bit of murder; she knew she’d have taken her sharpest pair of pliers and buried them in the middle of Edward Croxley’s slimeball back.

  Lily could feel herself getting angry again at the thought – seething, red-raw anger that anyone could push her brother to the point of ending his life. That anyone could take the family business from them, the shop that was like their second home – just like that, in a flurry of cards.

  Memories of the shop and their childhood jumped into her head, memories of sitting on the high stool behind an old-fashioned till, copying Victorian engravings of curling fern leaves from antique prints into designs of her own; memories of her grandpa’s hearty laughter, always there after their father had died. And a beautiful three-storey house in Islington and a one-eyed cat called George who hated her.

  It was all gone now. Except George, of course. Jack’s livelihood, his home. All gone.

  God he was such an unbelievable idiot. But Edward Croxley was an unbelievable shit.

  Beside her in the hospitality lounge, Lily didn’t see the American lift his camera up high, taking a selfie that didn’t include much of him but did include a whole lot of her cleavage.

  Still absorbed in her own world, Lily became vaguely aware in her peripheral vision of a dark-haired woman striding across the lounge. Petite, dressed in a simple navy sweater and leggings, she was carrying a black handbag that almost dwarfed her, and she looked like she was coming to sit down beside Lily. But as she reached them, the corner of her bag knocked into the American’s hand and his phone crashed onto the floor, the screen shattering on the tiled floor. Shocked, Lily tuned in, doing a double take.

  ‘Oh my goodness, how clumsy of me.’ The woman’s tone was laced with sarcasm, her accent a strange blend of somewhere European, Italian maybe, and cultured English. Despite her slight frame, she had a presence that drew the eye. Lily pushed her glasses up her nose, and as she tried to take the scene in, she caught the glint of an enormous diamond on the woman’s finger.

  ‘Jesus Christ! What is it with you British women?’ The American bent to pick up his phone. One of the lounge staff swept in from nowhere and, scooping it up, handed it to him.

  The woman pursed her rosebud lips, slicked with a suggestion of gloss. Her heart-shaped face was elfin with a delicate pointed chin, but the fury in her eyes was unmistakable. Lily couldn’t work out why she’d be cross when she was the one who had caused the accident. The woman interrupted her thoughts, her tone so insincere Lily took a hasty look at the American.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I didn’t see you there. I’m sure you can get it repaired?’ She scowled. ‘But I’m afraid I am Sicilian.’ She drew the word out and filled it with such venom Lily could feel her eyes widening in astonishment. ‘So sorry to disappoint.’

  The man glared at her and, scowling himself, stood up, picking up his briefcase. Lily was sure he would bark right back at her, but instead, he stalked off across the lounge. The attendant looked at the woman anxiously.

  ‘Are you OK, Mrs Devine? Was he …?’

  The woman raised her eyebrows, her dark eyes connecting knowingly with the lounge attendant’s. ‘I think so. Again. We have many words for men like that in Sicily, but in Ireland they say sleeveen. It’s a good word, I think.’

  The attendant rolled her eyes. ‘Can I get you both a drink? Perhaps some Buck’s Fizz?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not—’ Now completely confused by their exchange, Lily reached for her leather satchel, but the woman with the handbag patted the air as if to tell her not to worry and smiled at the attendant, her demeanour changing.

  ‘That would be lovely.’ She turned to Lily. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘Please do, but I—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ sitting down beside her, the woman lowered her voice, ‘everything’s complimentary.’ She smiled. ‘Enjoy it. I’m sorry to intrude on you like that but that man is ...’ She rolled her eyes again, leaving the sentence unfinished. ‘He was trying to take a photo of you. An inappropriate photo.’

  Lily’s mouth fell open. ‘I didn’t— Why?’

  ‘I guess it’s how he gets his fun.’ She shrugged, her face full of concern. ‘The air crew have constant trouble with him. He’s been warned that he’ll be banned from TransGlobal. That’s stopped him groping them, so now he latches onto female passengers instead. Hopefully not today.’

  Lily’s eyes widened in horror, the full meaning of what had just happened suddenly registering. ‘Yuck. Well, thank you for intruding – I had no idea, I was miles away. I didn’t even know he’d sat down next to me.’

  ‘I could see that.’ The woman grimaced. ‘We shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of thing at all, but there are some very unpleasant people in this world. Are you a student?’

  Unpleasant people? She had that right. Lily could think of one in particular.

  Lily blushed hard. ‘A recently graduated student, trying to look like she travels business class every day. How did you guess?’

  The woman smiled warmly. ‘You’re grand – you look perfectly at home. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who isn’t wearing a Savile Row suit.’

  Lily smiled, hesitating n
ervously for a moment. ‘Do you fly a lot?’

  ‘Quite often, mainly for business, but my husband’s a pilot with TransGlobal, so I know all about Mr Hammerstein. Fortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him too often, thank goodness.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’ Lily shook her head. How could she have missed that? Dear God, her Creepsville radar was usually very finely tuned. The absolute last thing she needed right now was getting harassed in mid-air. ‘I think I’m having one of those weeks.’ Lily paused. ‘It’s been a total disaster and then I was supposed to be flying with Delta but there was some problem and my ticket was switched …’

  Lily sighed inwardly. Really nothing else could go wrong this week. It just wasn’t possible. Thank God this lady had intervened here. And, even better, it seemed she was able to help guide her through the complex world of business class air travel. Whatever about going to New York, she hadn’t got the job yet, and she’d looked longingly at the pastries on the buffet table when she’d arrived, wondering if she could afford them. But then she’d started thinking about Croxley and the rage inside her had literally blotted out her hunger. She needed to calm down, if only so she could work out what to do about Croxley a bit more rationally. There had to be something – some way of getting the shop back that she hadn’t thought of yet.

  But this woman was a welcome distraction. She had that distinct European elegance, that Audrey Hepburn look that Lily had always admired but had never been able to work out how to pull off. Her dark hair was one length, thick, cut in a long bob, and she wore her sunglasses on the top of her head, casually holding it back. Lily took a discreet glance at her hand. The diamond was marquise cut, a really clear, pure colour, and had to be at least three carats.

  ‘Did you say you were Italian?’

  The woman smiled. ‘Sicilian. But I’ve been living in Dublin for a long time and I went to school in England. Vittoria Devine – my husband’s actually the Devine, or so he’d like to think.’ She put out her hand, the diamond flashing again. Lily tried to stop herself from looking at it. Instead she put out her own hand.