Promise Me Eternity (41 page)

He put the key in the lock. To his surprise,
the door was unlocked.
Look at that. She forgot to lock the
door.

He went in, listening, expecting to hear
music or voices from the television in the living room, but instead
he heard the sounds of pleasant, romantic music.
Strange, she
never listens to music like this with me.
He took a few steps
forward and came to the kitchen. No one was there. He gingerly went
to the living room to say hello to Anita, but the living room was
empty too.
Where is she? Maybe she went for a walk and forgot to
turn off the radio.
He went back to the dining room and sat at
the table and remembered that she had forgotten to lock the door.
How is that possible? Anita never forgets anything. If it
happened to me, she’d certainly tell me off.
He put his elbows
on the table and decided to wait for her.

Then he heard something that sounded like a
gentle sigh. Jerry looked toward the bedroom, where the sound had
come from.
Is she in the bedroom?

He jumped up, but stopped in front of the
door. It seemed strange that Anita would listen to music while
sleeping. Something was wrong. The back of his neck started
tingling and he could feel goose bumps on his arms.

Jerry opened the bedroom door and the shock
almost knocked him over. He recognized Dr. Lawson’s back, moving up
and down, and Anita sighing beneath him.

He stood there looking at them until the
pressure in him reached the limits of his self-control. His mind
went blank.

Chapter 86

_______________________

When Simon woke up in the morning, he felt
terrible. He was surrounded by bare white walls. Frightened, he
looked at the small window protected with metal bars. To his right
he stared with disgust at a toilet bowl without a lid. Next to it
was an old chipped sink without a mirror. He was sitting on a bed
that was about twenty-five inches wide. He wanted to bang on the
door, but it seemed pointless. For a moment he thought he might be
dreaming and pinched his hand. His head hurt as he tried to
remember what had happened, so he supported it with both hands.

He heaved himself up and splashed water on
his face. The cold water pleasantly cooled his painful forehead. He
lay down and tried to focus. While individual scenes came to him,
he grimaced. It was horrible, terrifying.

Simon got up again and washed his face. The
pain was slowly fading.
Where did I go wrong? Why did Christine
turn off her phone? Why did she tell them I was lying?

He kept wondering, rubbing his head with his
fingers, pacing the small cell.
I don’t understand why she
turned off her phone.

He remembered the officer who had told him
that at the hotel there was no sign of the receptionist he had
described.
Whenever I came there, that redhead was on duty, I’m
certain. Who’s lying, damn it? What if the police are involved
too?

He sat down on the hard mattress.
Who’s
behind it all? I don’t understand anything anymore.

Four hours later, as Simon was lying on the
bed and staring at the ceiling, he gasped out loud.
My God! I
don’t believe it.
What if she’s behind it?

This revelation was so painful that he
thought his heart would stop beating.
I’m such an idiot! What if
she bribed the receptionist and the hotel owners?
He remembered
that the police mentioned a scalpel. He had seen her go into his
office. On his desk, there was a tray of scalpels.
She must have
taken one then.
He put his hand to his forehead.
How stupid
I am!

He ground his teeth.
She hired somebody to
kill Helen. Oh my God.

The truth was so cruel that he started
feeling sick. With his hands on his stomach, he relived that
horrifying scene when he had turned on the bedroom light. Helen was
staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Her twisted mouth showed
how much she must have suffered. He saw her neck and the blood
gushing from it, over her face, and all around her.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. He
rushed to the toilet, bent over, and vomited. While his stomach
contracted in spasms, tears poured from his swollen eyes. His
insides were burning. If only he could die at that moment.

Chapter 87

_______________________

She was feeling terribly tired after five
hours of interviewing different people who had applied for the job.
After Christine Vucci had fired Harold the butler, the cook managed
to annoy her so much that Christine had a hysterical outburst,
resulting in her firing all of the staff. So now she had no one to
cook for her, nobody to clean her house, no driver. She told the
gardener over the phone that he was useless and that she was hiring
someone else.

The next morning she called an employment
agency, asking them to send her some suitable people. Throughout
the interviews she sat in an elegant chair, like a queen, asking
her potential future employees various questions. Until then, Carlo
had done this and had never allowed her to choose the servants. If
she complained about one of them, it took ages for him to find
another person. So she often kept her anger to herself rather than
complain, knowing it would be months before Carlo did anything.

Finally, it was all up to her. She decided to
have two chefs, one to cook exclusively Chinese and other Asian
dishes, while the other one would be responsible for everything
else. The gardener would have to be a strong man who would find it
easy to pull out the wilted shrubs. That bent old man Carlo hired
had been barely able to walk. For other servants, she wanted to
choose young, handsome, muscular young men on which her tired eyes
could rest, while the cleaners would have to be hardworking,
slender girls, fit enough to run up and down the stairs, keeping
everything in tip-top shape.

After a few hours of tiresome interviews she
had to admit to herself that choosing staff wasn’t such an easy
task. No chef specialized in oriental cuisine, and all the cleaners
were over thirty years old and considerably overweight. The only
person she liked was a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, who
mentioned that he had finished a massage course and did martial
arts in his spare time. He had no service experience.
He’s the
only suitable one,
she thought.
He can learn everything
else, but what I need most is massage and personal
protection.

“The job is yours, young man,” she told
him.

He banged a fist in his other hand. “Thanks,
that’s so great. When can I start?”

“Immediately.”

She’d had enough of recruiting for that day.
Tomorrow, I’ll call another agency and ask them to send me
someone suitable.
Since she had no cook, she ordered a
pizza.

Her new employee stood there not knowing what
to do.

“Let’s test your massaging talents. After all
these interviews, I feel as I’ve been driving for hours.”

The young man stretched his arms, not
believing his luck.

“Of course, madam. Where would you like to
lie?”

They went to a room set up for resting and
reading. Christine pressed a button on the CD player and the room
was filled with calming music. Then she disappeared behind a
stained-glass partition to change into a swimsuit. Only a minute
later she was lying face down on her custom massage table.

“Just relax now,” he told her with a deep
voice, and started gently kneading her neck muscles.

The pleasure made her whole body tingle.
“Mmm, that’s awesome,” she purred, and closed her eyes.
Life
really is wonderful.

Chapter 88

_______________________

By six o’clock, John Melton was in a yellowed
undershirt and ugly, old-fashioned exercise pants. On his feet he
wore brown socks and faded sneakers. Overflowing with energy, he
had decided that a half-hour run before work would do him good. It
had been a few years since he had gone for a run—perhaps five or
six.

He hung a blue cotton towel around his neck
and set off. At first it went smoothly and he felt fitter than
twenty years earlier. With his head held high and his arms bent, he
ran at a steady rhythm.

After three minutes, the first problems
started. He felt stabbing pains in his abdomen and had to stop.
“Damn it!” he swore, and resumed at a walk instead.

Soon he gathered up courage to start running
again. He found it more difficult to lift his feet, but that didn’t
affect his motivation. While running, he circled his arms.

He didn’t last for more than a minute. His
lungs couldn’t get enough air. Out of breath and holding his
stomach, John flopped onto the nearest wooden bench.
Who’d have
thought that I’m so out of shape? I should do this regularly.
He grimaced with pain and looked at a young woman rushing to work.
What if I just stayed here and rested for a while?
When the
woman disappeared from view, he decided to get a newspaper. Only a
few yards ahead he spotted a corner shop.

He bought a can of beer and, with a newspaper
in his hand, returned to the bench. Seeing it was occupied he swore
silently. He passed by it and trudged another hundred yards to sit
at another bench. John opened the beer. Scanning through the
newspaper, he got a shock that made him drop the can and spill the
beer. His incredulous eyes stared at a large picture of Dr.
Patterson being pushed into a police car. Judging by the expression
on his face, Simon Patterson was terribly angry.

“Oh, my God,” John Melton said out loud.
“That’s the face of a murderer.”

Then he read the headline:
Neurosurgeon
finally behind bars
.
An attractive young woman walked
past John, but he took no notice. He was engrossed in reading about
how the police now had enough evidence against Dr. Patterson and
had arrested him.

“I knew he’d done it. I was certain.”

He quickly walked home.
I have to show
Maria. She’ll finally believe me.

Chapter 89

_______________________

When his rage had subsided, Simon started
thinking about his fate. His first thought was to call the police
and tell them everything.
I’ll tell them that Christine was the
one who killed Helen. She’s the murderer, not me.
But something
stopped him. He thought what would happen after he told them.
Christine would deny it all. It would be hard to prove that she had
hired someone to kill Helen.
And even if the police did succeed
in proving it, she would take revenge on me and tell them that I
killed Carlo. That’s for sure. And then what? They’d put both of us
in prison. All the newspapers would publish the horrific story.
Everyone would be appalled by what we have done. I’d probably get a
shorter sentence than her. When I got out, Carlo’s men would be
waiting to take revenge.
He sighed in desperation when he
realized it would mean certain death.

No, I can’t do that.
The longer he
thought about it, the more aware he became of the fact that he was
the victim of a carefully prepared plan.
Christine thought this
whole thing out very well. I can’t tell them anything about her. If
I tried, she would tell them about me and then I’d be finished.
Sooner or later they’d find me and kill me.

“Damn it!” He banged his forehead with his
hand.
This greedy bitch will not tell on me because I can’t tell
on her.
He couldn’t believe it.
I’ll be convicted for a
murder I didn’t commit.

He absently fingered the blanket while
looking at the ceiling.

His first helpless scream filled the room.
For a moment he felt as if the walls of the small cell were moving,
trying to squeeze him.
I can’t believe it. How could I have been
so stupid?
He felt as if he would explode. His jaw was
trembling.

Then he could no longer restrain himself. He
banged on the wall that separated his cell from the next one. He
was so furious at Christine that he could have strangled her with
his bare hands at that moment. He kept shouting and didn’t notice
when the guards came. They had to call the doctor again to sedate
him.

Chapter 90

_______________________

“Have you gone completely mad? How could you
leave the hospital while on duty?”

Jerry dispassionately stared at the
director’s desk. “Something like that has never happened to me
before, but I was overcome by a sense of foreboding and had to go
home.”

“While you were gone, a car accident victim
was brought in. The nurse rang you, but you didn’t answer.”

Jerry’s lips started quivering. “I’m very
sorry.”

“Because we couldn’t get hold of you, we
tried Dr. Lawson. But he didn’t answer either.”

Jerry collapsed in a chair and covered his
face with his hands.

Dr. Horras went on: “Then you suddenly turned
up. They told me that you had blood on your face and wounds on your
hands.” The hospital director put his hands on the table. “And then
I heard that Dr. Lawson had to be hospitalized with a broken jaw
and two broken ribs. Can you please tell me exactly what happened
yesterday?” He had nearly shouted his last words.

Jerry was sobbing without tears. He was angry
and sad at the same time and didn’t know how to begin. “Anita … my
Anita ….”