Fatal Flowers. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ exhaled the smoke in a heavy puff. “You don’t like me much, do you Alice?”

      “Should I?” I asked, careful to keep my eyes focused on the scenery outside. I didn’t want her to see the moisture that suddenly threatened to become tears.

      I heard her sigh again. “No, I guess not.”

      We drove in silence. After a mile or two the trees that separated the road from the open fields fell back and the land opened up briefly, but no more than a mile later we were again engulfed in tall oaks and magnolias, red cypress and yellow pines, gums and hickories. Low tangles of Carolina yellow jasmine, Cherokee rose, trumpet creepers made it difficult to see the ground itself.

      “You’ve fully recovered from the plane crash, I presume,” Leland said over his shoulder.

      “Yes, thank you, except, of course, for my leg. The doctor said the cast will have to stay on for quite a while.”

      “I had a broken leg once, Leland,” Diana said, taking his attention immediately away from me. “Did you know that?”

      “No, dear, I didn’t.”

      “Yes. I broke it during the filming of that Bronte picture. Uhhh...you know....” She snapped her fingers impatiently.

      “Wuthering Heights,” Leland provided.

      “Yes, that’s the one. I fell from a rock.” Suddenly she laughed. “It cost the studio a fortune. The way they carried on, one would have thought I broke the bone on purpose.” She turned suddenly to me. “Did you enjoy me in Wuthering Heights?” she asked with her usual imperious smile.

      Of course I’d seen the picture. Diana Hamilton had received an Academy Award for it Yet, in spite of myself, I said, “I don’t recall seeing it.”

      The look she gave me would easily have frozen water.

      Again silence took over inside the car.

      We passed through a patch of tropical forest. Cattleya orchids flourished everywhere, it seemed, their velvety vibrant petals drooping in sad dejection. Giant rafflesia measuring at least three feet across stretched out to catch whatever light they could in their massive circular raspberry-colored leaves. I saw marshmallow flowers with their rounded, pale pink petals and notch-edged leaves that came into sharp points. Magnolia and red-bud, and flame vines grew in tangles; lichens struggled to reach the sky. The whole place was exotic and yet frightening and oppressive.

      As suddenly as the dark, dank forest had swallowed us up, it cast us out. The road widened, the bright sunlight poured down over us as Leland picked up speed. We were, I saw, on a coastline. Open water stretched out before us as far as the eye could see. Interrupting the expanse of water was a large island situated a mile or two from shore. The coastline itself was completely flat and bare, except for a low slung building hugging the water’s edge. Which turned out to be a combination garage and boat house.

      Leland nodded out toward the sea. “Falcon Island,” he said. “It’s been in my family for generations.”

      I could see nothing but a blur in the distance. I saw no house, just the dark colors of trees and undergrowth. It looked most foreboding.

      Leland slowed the car and headed toward the boat house. Its doors suddenly opened automatically. Just as we started into the garage I gasped. There, parked in the adjacent parking stall, was an old-fashioned limousine—the type usually associated with stars of the silent screen. It was lavishly ornamented, shiny and polished and dripping with chrome plate.

      I had seen it before. It was the car into which the brutish chauffeur had recently carried the unconscious girl.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “That car,” I gasped, staring at the antique limousine. “That’s the car the girl was carried off in.”

      Diana fumbled with the veil on her hat. “You’re talking nonsense, Alice.”

      “I’m not,” I said defiantly. “I couldn’t make a mistake about a car like that.”

      I saw Diana and Leland exchange glances in the rear view mirror.

      Diana turned on me. She looked angry. “I don’t know what you saw, or claimed to have seen, back in Gulf Point, but I can assure you, my dear, that that limousine has been here at the landing since yesterday afternoon. Martin has been working on the motor. The car isn’t operable.” Her eyes glinted at me.

      “But I know what I saw,” I insisted.

      Leland was out of the car, holding open the back door for Diana and me. It was the same limousine; I was positive of it. I knew what I had seen and no one was going to convince me otherwise.

      Diana was glaring at me. “I do hope you are not insinuating that our chauffeur goes around spiriting away young, defenseless girls.”

      “I know what I saw,” I said, but there wasn’t as much defiance or conviction in my voice as I had wanted.

      “Really, Alice, you’re being impossible.” She got out of the car.

      With the help of Leland and my crutch I climbed out after her and stood looking at the old limousine. I hadn’t been mistaken. This was the very same car I saw back in the open field.

      “This way, Alice,” Leland said softly, touching my elbow.

      We rounded the garage and started toward a speedboat moored at the landing. “If it will make you feel better, Alice,” Leland said as we straggled along behind the imperious Diana Hamilton, “we’ll speak to Martin when we get to the house. Perhaps he allowed a friend to borrow the car.”

      “Thank you,” I said, smiling at him. I felt he was on my side, or at least trying to be.

      Diana clambered into the boat without assistance. Diana Hamilton, I felt, never needed assistance from anyone. She had made her own way all of her life and the mere idea of her getting old didn’t break that habit. Changing her name to Braddock had obviously not affected her; she was and would always be Diana Hamilton, no matter how many husbands she’d had. And she’d had a few, I thought, remembering the gossip columns and fan magazine articles I’d read. Five—and Leland Braddock made six.

      She didn’t rise to help me when I dropped my crutch and almost tripped into the speedboat. Leland grabbed me before I had a chance to fall. Diana merely looked annoyed. She was not the type of woman who enjoyed being involved with weakness of any kind. She kept her head averted until I’d seated myself beside her.

      Leland took the controls, Diana and I behind him on the double seat. He backed the speedboat away from the landing and turned it toward Falcon Island.

      No one spoke on the trip across; the roar of the motor made conversation difficult. For this I was glad. It gave me the chance I needed to gather my wits about me and instill resolve back into my mind.

      Falcon Island loomed ahead of us like a beckoning specter. It looked dark and misty from this distance and I saw no signs of a house anywhere, just a line of trees that butted the sea. Overhead the sky was clear and blue with puffy white clouds scattered here and there. Under other circumstances I would have leaned back and reveled in the beauty of my surroundings, but I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself. I wanted to be back in Hilsborough where СКАЧАТЬ