She pulled her cell out of tight fitting black jeans and dialed.
Bella answered her phone. “Hello.”
“Oh, dear and here I thought you’d be dead. Remember me?” Victoria breathed.
There was silence for a moment on the line before Bella answered. “Well shoot, sugar, I was sure hoping you’d met with an accident…a fatal one.”
Victoria burst into fresh peals of laughter. “Funny you should mention accident. I haven’t but your friend the songbird has.”
Bella’s quick exhale of breath hissed through the phone line.
“She’s alive, barely but I don’t expect her to be by the time you find her. Oh and rest assured, you will be next.”
Chapter Ten
Bella dropped the phone from her nerveless fingers. She fought back the nausea trying to crawl up her throat as the white walls of the hotel loomed and receded then loomed again.
I will not faint. I will not faint.
She repeated it like a mantra as waves of heat washed over her replaced by icy cold.
“Bella, what’s wrong?” Maureen’s voice came from a great distance.
She forced her neck to turn and stared at her friend unable to speak.
Maureen reached over and shook her. “Don’t make me slap you,” she warned.
“Good one,” Bella replied. Gales of laughter erupted out of her and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t stop.
Maureen let go of her, hurried away and came back a moment later with a glass of water. Bella held up her hands to ward her off but couldn’t stop laughing.
A determined expression on her beautiful features, Maureen launched the water. It arced through the air like wet crystals and landed with a glorious whoosh in Bella’s face. Bella sputtered the laughter catching in her throat. She swallowed it down and ran a hand over her face.
“I’m sorry, Bella but I couldn’t hit you.” Maureen touched her arm. “What’s wrong? Who was on the phone?”
Bella’s legs folded. She collapsed on the couch behind her. “Victoria Price.”
“What!” Bella looked up at her friend. Maureen’s honeyed complexion blanched, her expression stricken. Bella straightened her spine, despising herself for falling apart. She shot up from the couch and ran to the bedroom and grabbed her cell out of her purse and dialed Sabina’s number. All she got was a recording.
“Bella?” Maureen stood in the doorway watching her.
Bella shook her head and dialed Adam’s number. It was answered promptly by Victoria. “Something I can help you with, Ms. Tremaine? Oh excuse me. It’s McHenry now isn’t it? How is that tall drink of water you married?”
Bella took a deep breath, drawing air into her belly then let it out. “Let me talk to Adam.”
“No can do. You see he’s all tied up.” Victoria’s crazy laughter erupted through the lines.
“Where is Sabina?” she asked through clenched teeth, her hand tightening painfully on the phone.
“Under a pile of rock. There was a little rockslide on the mountain.”
Bella began to tremble.
Gods was this maniac telling her the truth?
“But being the kind soul that I am, I had my men dig her out. Not that it’s going to matter, she’s mangled. And by now probably dead.”
Bella forced herself to remain calm. She pried open her rigid jaws. “And where was this little rockslide?”
“Now, now, how many clues do you want? And, Ms. Tremaine-McHenry, you had better have eyes in the back of your head,” Victoria said her voice sharpening to a razor edge, “because you’re next. You’re awfully hard to kill but I swear you’re going to die.”
The phone clicked off. Bella pulled it away from her ear and stood staring at it, her chest heaving as she tried to breath. She bit her lips together. “Think, think, Bella.” A haze seemed to have penetrated her brain. She touched her amulet and snapped back to reality. “I-40. It’s got to be off I-40. Adam said his uncle’s cabin, where he was staying, isn’t far from Asheville.”
“Bella, what’s happened?” Maureen was also fingering the amethyst on her amulet, seeking its serenity and calm.
Bella took a deep breath, lifted her chin and said as calmly as she could, “If Victoria is to be believed and I’m very much afraid she is, there’s been a landslide and Sabina is buried underneath it.”
“Oh my gods.” Maureen pressed hard against her amulet her eyes widening. She straightened, looked at Bella and said her voice calm, “You think it happened on I-40?”
Bella looked at Maureen and knew fear and hysteria lurked just beneath the calming influence of Maureen’s amulet.
“Yes. Or one of those narrow little roads off of it. ” She grabbed her keys off the coffee table. “Let’s go.”
They rushed through the hotel and into the parking garage. Climbing into the Lamborghini, Bella barely gave Maureen time to shut her door before she revved the engine and zoomed out of the garage cutting off a delivery truck. The driver honked loudly as she squeaked by him merging into traffic.
She noticed Maureen kept her hand firmly on her amulet as Bella zoomed in and out of traffic, cutting off a car here, zipping in front of a truck there, always weaving, looking for the fastest lane.
She merged on to 321 and her foot trod on the pedal. The needle flew to a hundred and kept climbing as she whizzed by traffic, passing everything in sight.
“Tell me exactly what Victoria said,” Maureen commanded, her hand still wrapped around her amulet.
“She said Sabina was buried under a pile of rock. That she had her men dig her out. That Sabina was alive but mangled.” Bella never took her eyes off the road, which flew by in a gray blur. Her hands clasped around the white leather casing on the steering wheel were so rigid she doubted she could unclasp them if she wanted to.
I’m so tense turning the wheel is difficult.
“If it’s not on I-40 do we backtrack to where Adam was staying? Do you know how to get there?”
“Yes. And the more I think about it, the chances are it’s on one of the back roads. We take I-240 then 53-B then make two lefts.” Bella swerved around a semi.
Up ahead two cars drove side by side. She hit her horn, flashed her lights and kept coming.
Maureen grabbed the dash. “Good gods, Bella.”
She was inches from the back bumper when the driver shot forward and jerked his car into the right lane barely missing the car next to him.
“He just gave us the finger. At least, I think he did,” Maureen amended. “At the speed we are traveling the drivers are a bit blurred.”
A red light flashed and a siren sounded as they flew around a state trooper.
“Oh dear.” Maureen looked back at the squad car.
“I don’t have time to stop,” Bella said in a calm voice and pressed down on the pedal.
The trooper was soon lost from view.
“I hope he didn’t get your license.”
“If he did we’ll just deal with it later.” The words were barely out of Bella’s mouth when another flashing red light came off an exit ramp onto the highway.
“Shit,” Bella said as they flew past it. “Call Tony Cardoza. Surely, he knows someone in North Carolina who could call off the troopers. Or better yet, call Johnny Morelly.”
“What!”
“I’m betting that in spite of Adam’s assurances that he’s legit Johnny’s got some cops on the payroll.”
“Do you have his number?”
“Of course.” She flashed Maureen a grin.
“Watch the road for the gods’ sakes,” Maureen yelled, panicked as they swerved into the right lane then back into their own.
“My cell’s in my purse. It’s on speed dial. You just never know when it will come in handy.”
“What do I tell him?”
“That there’s been trouble and Adam appears to be smack dab in the middle of it and can he call off the state troopers.”
Maureen picked up Bella’s tiny black clasp purse with a cat sporting a diamond necklace on it. Diverted she asked, “Are these real diamonds?”
“Yes, shug, now please make that call. I can see three state troopers a ways back.”
Maureen dug out the phone and hit speed dial then grimaced. “Ah, Mr. Morelly. This is Maureen Wolfe. Bella Tremaine asked me to call you. Yes, yes, she’s fine but we have a small problem that we need some help with. We got a call from Victoria Price saying that Sabina Comti was buried in a landslide. Adam had taken her to your cabin in the mountains. I think Victoria may have kidnapped him.” Maureen grimaced again. “Yes, sir. We take full responsibility. But in the meantime can you make a phone call. We’ve got state troopers on our ass. We’re driving pretty fast and collecting quite an entourage. We’re on I-40.
“The license plate? PUSSPUSS.”
Maureen’s face turned scarlet. “Yes, I know how that sounds. It’s the name of her cat. Oh you’ve met the cat.” For a brief minute Maureen grinned.
The smile left her face and she ran a shaky hand over her forehead. “Yes, sir. I’ll remember, sir.”
She clicked the phone shut took a deep breath and twisted in her seat toward Bella. “The old adage about killing the messenger is alive and well. If anything happens to Adam our bodies will be found in a flattened car in a metal foundry.”
“Don’t worry about it, shug. We’ll get Adam back safe and sound, right after we get Sabina.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Oh dear there’s four now.” A whirring sound made her look up. “A helicopter? That’s how they are spending taxpayers’ money now, on high-speed car chases?” She shook her head. “I hope Johnny makes that call quickly before we end up on the five o’clock news. What time is it by the way?”
“Five after twelve.”
The helicopter hovered and a voice spoke through a bullhorn, “Pull over now.”
“Crap.” Maureen chewed on her fingernail.
“Got that right, shug.”
Another police car came barreling off an exit ramp in front of her and slowed. Bella swung into the passing lane and flew by him.
“That makes five,” Maureen said, her back pressed against the seat, her shoulders rigid.
“I can count, shug,” Bella said between clenched teeth. “Our exit is only ten miles further.”
“Great. We should be there in about two minutes.” Maureen closed her eyes and moved her lips as if praying.
“They’re backing off,” Bella said chancing a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
Maureen pried one eye open and looked behind her. “You’re right. They are. Johnny didn’t waste any time getting hold of his contact, whoever that might be.”
Bella jerked the steering wheel to the right and they went flying onto their exit ramp, tires screaming. “Watch for a road on the left.”
“Who could see it,” Maureen cried out. “We’d be five miles down the road before it ever registered that blur of brown was a road. Bella, you’ve got to slow down.”
Bella obliged and dropped it down to ninety. “There it is. Dammit, there’s two cars coming in the opposite lane. Hold on.” She pulled out in front of them knowing she’d never stop in time to wait for them to get by before she turned.
The little compact coming toward her missed her by a hair’s breadth. Thank the gods the truck behind the compact wasn’t tailgating. She could feel cold beads of sweat popping out on her forehead. She let up off the gas and brought it down to seventy on the narrow two-lane, glancing around looking for a dirt road.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
Bella risked a quick glance at her friend and grinned. Maureen’s face was crunched up her eyes tightly shut. “It’s okay, shug.
“There it is. And thank the gods nothing is coming in the other direction.” They squealed onto the dirt road and hit a pot hole that sent the Lamborghini into the air.
“There, there, baby, you’re all right,” Bella cooed.
“I feel like every bone in my body has been disconnected.”
“Not you, my car.”
“Of course.” Maureen heaved a sigh and touched her amulet. “Ah, better.” She leaned over and touched Bella.
“I’m fine, shug. Thanks anyway,” she lied, tense as a board. The amulet relaxed her enough to loosen her death grip on the steering wheel. “We should start looking for a rockslide.”
“Slow down then.”
“Right.” Bella eased it back to fifty.
“Bella, look out!”
“Jesus Christ.” A buck with a large rack of antlers leaped gracefully across the road. Bella swerved left and the deer right. He disappeared into the woods his white tail flashing, his small hooves leaving the ground as he sailed through the air.
She threw on her brakes. Her tires fought for purchase half-on half-off the road. The little car fishtailed then screamed to a halt. She laid her head on the steering wheel, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. “Sorry, Maureen.”
There was no response. Bella lifted her head. Maureen was looking out Bella’s window. “Maureen?”
Maureen didn’t answer. She clicked open her seat belt and swung open the door.
“Careful, sugar, there’s a fairly steep drop.”
Maureen shut the door and eased around the car, grabbing a pine tree for balance then walked to the back of the car and stood on the road, shading her eyes from the sun.
Bella got out and went to stand beside her. Squinting, she peered upward. Higher up the mountain rocks and boulders littered the terrain, just barely visible from where they stood.
Maureen pointed. “It’s almost a solid wall of rock. We could be in the vicinity, Bella.”
“Get in, shug.” Bella hurried around the side of the car, Maureen scrambling behind her.
Bella pulled out, this time at a sedate pace, her gaze sweeping the area.
“Bella, look!”
“I see it.” Up ahead, rocks lined the roadside as if a bulldozer had been through and cleared the road. Two or three tree saplings lay uprooted alongside the mountain.