Page 343 of The First Taste
“Security cameras. Ever since ye slipped out onto the beach, I’ve had the motion sensors turned on.” I lean over, tugging at her wrist as I stand up. “Come on. Get dressed. Wear layers.” I think about that for a second, then refine my instructions. “But dinnae overdo it. If ye fall off the boat, I dinnae want ye sinking like a stone.”
Persephone licks her lips and casts an anxious glance at the window again. “Okay.”
She disappears toward the closet. I cup my hands around my mouth, trying to project a stage whisper. “Meet me at the front door when yer ready.”
I head downstairs into the living room, my whole being on edge. I’m ticking off the list I’ve made as I go straight to the safe, which is hidden behind a large painting of the sea.
I grab four large black duffels that I brought from my room. Into them, I load the contents of the safe. Bags of diamonds. Half a dozen complete sets of false identification bearing my picture. Several bills of sale for properties that I have amassed around the world but simply haven’t been able to send to the bank in Zurich yet.
And then almost four million dollars in pound, euro, and dollar denominations. I zip up the duffels and slip one onto my back.
The other three I can carry with some difficulty. I carry them over to the front door, waffling. I think I can carry them down to where I keep my small, sleek powerboat with some effort.
If we are chased or somehow bogged down in the middle of our trek down to the boathouse, though… I do some quick reorganization, making a throwaway duffel bag full of heavy paper cash.
Persephone appears in the entryway door, her dark hair pinned up in a bun, heavy lines under her eyes. She heeded my instructions in dressing, seeming to be warm but not too over bundled.
“Are they close by?” she asks. She tiptoes to the small window just beside the door and peers out.
“Dunno.” I shake my head and lift the duffel bags. “I dinnae plan to stick around and find out. Will ye get the door?”
She jumps to pull the door open, sticking her head out. I crowd her out the doorway, my ears pricking up.
I scan the dark palm trees, the scrub brush, the sand dunes. It makes me anxious, knowing that they are there and not being able to pinpoint their exact locations.
I don’t hear the men approaching yet, either. Then again, that was probably their intention. I think of the security camera app on my phone, wishing I didn’t have to carry so much. I can’t manage my phone and the duffel bags.
My eyes slide over to Persephone. I drop a bag, grab my phone, and swipe the screen to let her see the bank of screens.
“Here. Hold onto that. It should keep us from running into the men.”
Persephone swallows and nods solemnly, giving a distinct shiver. “I will.”
“Good. Let’s go,” I say, jerking my head toward the boathouse. “We’re going to head down this path.”
She looks at the cell phone screen, nodding as she presses a thumb against it to keep it awake. “I’m following you.”
I nod, heading away from the mansion and toward the beckoning trees. The tree cover is light, and it will not really do much to obscure us from view. But something is better than nothing in this scenario.
We make it to the trees and start down the little rutted path worn into the scrub brush. I keep checking behind me, making sure that Persephone is keeping up with me. Every time I glance back, she seems glued to the phone screen. She trips over a branch, stumbling, and I slow down.
“Sorry,” she mouths, her face tense. “Go, go.”
We’re almost halfway down the path when I hear Persephone suck in an alarmed breath. I glance back, my steps slowing. She looks up, her face seeming to pale in the light of my phone screen.
“Men at the house,” she says, her voice low and fervent. “It’ll only take them a minute to realize that we are gone. We have to go faster!”
I step aside, waving her ahead of me. “Go. Go!”
She tucks her head down and stops looking at the phone. I follow her steps as she makes her way down the sloped terrain, cramped by the close scrub brush on both sides.
All I can hear for a couple of minutes are the sound of Persephone's breaths and that of our bodies as we knock tall grasses and brush back out of our way.
We burst into a clearing and the rusting old boat shed is there, a rickety little dock protruding from the white sandy beach just beside it. The dock itself is probably only fifty feet long, the little shed just big enough to hide my small powerboat. My heart thumps loudly in my chest as we rush toward our obvious exit.
Persephone breaks into a trot, slipping and sliding as we make our way across the sand to the dock. I’m slower for some reason, my footsteps more hesitant. My eyes fix on the darkened doorway of the boat shed.
Is that normally closed? I can’t remember but it gives me pause.
