The First Assistant (23 page)

Surely nothing too awful could happen if I drank one small glass of chilled, bubbling Cristal. I would only have a sip. Enough to satisfy An-ders and then I could go and hang with Lara, who was rapidly falling out of favor with me. What use were Vikings and diamonds if you had no friend to laugh about it all with?

“Please,” Anders said, not taking his blue eyes off me.

“Okay then.” I took a breath and reached for the drink. “But then I have to go and sit with my friend.”

“Of course,” Anders said, showing a small flicker of excitement. I looked for Lara one last time but to no avail.

“Here goes nothing,” I said and took a sip, as the Vikings looked on with curiosity. Anders nodded his approval. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him as I took another sip. I glanced down at the diamond in the bottom of my glass and saw it momentarily shift. I blinked as it shuffled again. Maybe it was the bubbles that were creating an optical illusion, I concluded as I looked up at Anders and the men again.

“Delicious, isn’t it?” Anders took a swig from his glass and clinked mine. “It is, but—” I began, but before I could finish my sentence I was

overcome with a raging thirst and reached again for my drink.

The next thing I knew all I could feel was the cold glass beneath my fingers as I gripped it. My head began to swim as I concentrated hard on moving the glass toward my lips. I took a deep mouthful of the steely-apple liquid and tipped it down my throat. For that moment nothing else mattered, though I was still parched. Then it was as if there was interference on the television and everything began to flicker with static.

“You drank the diamond?” I heard Anders say from the far reaches of my world. I couldn’t see straight and began to panic.

“Excuse me. Elizabeth Miller?” I heard someone else say before I could open my lungs and call for Lara.

“Yes.”

“Miss Miller, we have a phone call for you in the office. Would you mind coming with me?” I had a moment of lucidity and saw a man in a black suit standing above me. He was clearly a member of the staff, I deduced from the pulsing gold name tag that was flashing before me.

“She’s with me,” I heard Anders say.

“It’s an important phone call, sir,” the man said reasonably as I attempted to pull myself together and stand up. “This way please.”

I put one foot in front of the other and made my way carefully across the room behind the strange man.

“I’m seeing stars,” I said, and I really was. “And I don’t mean Courtney Love.” The man turned around and looked seriously at me.

“This way please, miss,” he said.

“Coming.” I wasn’t in any mood to rebel and I could only hope that I was doing the right thing. I turned around and looked for Anders, who was scowling at me. I attempted an easy smile in his direction; after all, I did have his valuable diamond plummeting down my gullet at this mo-ment in time. Anders nodded, as if granting me momentary permission to take my phone call.

“Miss Miller.” I was escorted into a room behind the reception desk, where a fax machine was spilling out pages and a plump girl was engrossed in preparing bills for the hotel guests.

“Yes?” I asked, still feeling very peculiar and not at all well.

“We saw what happened out there.” The man who’d come to collect me for my “phone call” suddenly looked very grave indeed.

“You did?” I wondered whether there was a law against drinking diamonds. Was it like taking X or something?

“We know who those men are and they’re incredibly dangerous.” “I see,” I said, but I didn’t really. “Who, Anders?”

“There’s a car waiting outside the back entrance. We’re going to put you in it and the driver will take you home. We’ll inform your friend and have her sent home separately. But you have to leave now.”

“But the phone call?” I was very confused.

“There was no phone call. They spiked your drink. Then we saw you swallow their diamond and we needed to get you away from them immediately. Now get in the car. We have your purse,” he said as he handed me my purse, which I’d assumed was still underneath the table.

“But... what?”

“Just leave,” he said. “Before they realize what’s going on.”

“How did you know my name?” I asked as they forced my purse on me and almost pushed me out the back door.

“We had your credit card. We’ve put it back in your wallet. Now please go.”

“Thank you, I erm ...I don’t really ...I.. .” I began to splutter as I fitted together the whole bizarre jigsaw puzzle with me lurching around somewhere in the middle.

The next thing I knew I was sitting in the back of a town car with a very sweet, concerned driver who kept checking his rearview mirror. Presumably for the Danish mafia who might be in hot pursuit. Though how one would identify them I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Don’t worry, miss, we’ll have you home in no time,” he reassured me. I merely groaned and leaned my pounding head against the cool leather on the inside of the car door. I experimented with closing and opening my eyes, but either way I still had unbearable, hundred-mile-per-hour spins. After what felt like hours later, we pulled into a driveway.

“Here you are, miss,” the man said and the car stopped. “I’ll see you to the door.”

“Oh no, it’s fine. Thanks,” I said as I smiled at him and tried to extract my wallet.

“Oh, this is on the house, miss,” he informed me kindly.

“Thanks so much.” I tried to sound more sober than I felt and made a supreme effort to walk in a straight line toward the house. In fact I was trying so hard to compose myself that it was only after the taillights of the car had vanished into the distance that I realized what a terrible thing had happened.

“No!” I wailed at no one in particular as I threw myself onto the doorstep. I was at the wrong house. I looked up and saw, not the shiny black door of Lara and Scott’s house with the silver elephant’s head door knocker, but the marble doorstep and white minimalist gleam of Luke’s front door.

I immediately tried to run away, but my legs were weak and I felt nauseous. I looked to see whether there were any lights on in the house, but thankfully it was plunged into the kind of blackness that suggests nobody’s been home for a while. Probably five weeks to be precise. I took a deep breath and rested my cheek on the marble. At least I was safe in the knowledge that though I might die here tonight, I wouldn’t be discovered just yet. After the short break in my mortification, I made an executive decision in my still woozy head to call Lara. I pulled out my phone and held it in my hand for what felt like a long lifetime before it began to vibrate of its own accord.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Holy shit, babe, are you okay?” It was Lara. “No,” I managed to respond. “I’m at Luke’s.” “You’re where?”

“Driver’s license.” I guessed.

“Oh shit. But, babe, they told me what went on with that guy, and I guess you’re lucky that the hotel got you out of there. I mean, after all, you still have a diamond inside you.”

“Really?” I said, suddenly feeling panic-stricken. I’d completely forgotten about the eleven carats in my stomach. I wondered whether it might catch in a vital organ and injure me. “Oh my God, hang on a minute,” I said, and as I did I moved my phone away from my mouth and threw up all over Luke’s doorstep.

“Lizzie, you okay?” I heard faintly from my cell.

“Ugh,” I croaked as I was overcome with another wave of nausea. “Okay, I’m coming over. Wait there,” Lara said. “Don’t move a mus—

cle. Just keep warm, okay? And if you need me, just call me back. All right honey?” she said. I nodded and hung up the phone.

I had no idea how much later it was, but when I opened my eyes what I did know was that I’d thrown up at least five more times since Lara called and I was only just beginning to really see straight. Well, straight enough for me to realize that if I had a diamond inside me at any point, it was more than likely that it was outside me now. On Luke’s step, to be precise. I had been inert up until this point, but as the fog cleared, I remembered that if you waved your hand in the air, Luke’s security lights came on. So I did just that.

“Yay,” I said to myself as the porch was suddenly bathed in light. I looked down and in my delirium saw not the nasty champagne puke but instead the possibility of owning something to pawn so I could make a down payment on an apartment. There was a diamond somewhere here and I was suddenly compelled to find it. I crawled closer to the vomit and began to stare into it as though it were a crystal ball. I even picked up a stick and began to shift small bits of undigested food around to try

to spy the little critter that was going to put a couple more zeros on my bank statement. I was still somewhat delirious though, and as I absorbed myself in the task at hand was vaguely aware that this was not normal behavior. When Lara got here I’d stop, I decided. But it was a curiously engrossing activity, especially because the nasty Rohypnol shock was now fading to a pleasant druggy buzz.

“Oh my God, what’s going on?” was the next thing I heard as I intently moved a small morsel of my lunch to one side because I’d seen something twinkle beneath it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a fleck of silver in the marble. “What on earth?” I heard a man say next, and I suddenly came to my senses. I sat bolt upright, hoping Lara hadn’t brought Scott with her. That would be too humiliating.

However, it wasn’t Scott. Neither had Lara come to my rescue yet. And as I sat with my little stick in my hand staring up into the blinding security light I didn’t need to hear another single thing to realize how horrendously unlivable my life was about to become.

“Lizzie?” the man said.

“Luke?” I asked, knowing full well it was him. I was petrified on the spot. As if Pompeii had washed over my moment of shame and preserved me here in lava for all eternity.

“What’s going on?” He immediately crouched down and put his hand on my shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“The diamond,” I slurred. “It’s here somewhere.”

“Honey, how long have you been here?” Luke looked pale and concerned. I shrugged. It was definitely too much for me. The threat of death from the Danish Mafia, a diamond lodged in my windpipe, my boyfriend whom I hadn’t seen for nearly two months, and the fact that I was lounging in my own vomit. “Okay, well, let’s get you inside and figure this out, shall we?” Luke stood up and valiantly took my hand. I say valiantly because I can’t have been a pretty or even hygienic sight sitting there. “Come on, baby, it’ll be okay.”

I can’t honestly imagine what Luke thought I was doing there. Whether perhaps I’d been there since the day he’d returned to Prague with my ring; or perhaps since the day I saw the
People
spread. Clearly all was not well with me.

“Right,” he said as he undressed me and eased me into a steaming

shower. “You get warm and clean in there. I’ve got to get my suitcase in from the car and then you can tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay,” I said meekly as I clutched a washcloth to hide my modesty from the man who’d betrayed me. It hadn’t even occurred to me to be angry yet, I was so shell-shocked from my weird evening in outer space. Less than an hour later I was wrapped in his robe on the sofa, the fire was blazing, and Luke had fed me chicken noodle soup from Green-blatts. I’d been mute since he carried me in the door, but now I was slowly coming to understand where I was and what was going on. I’d already told him the whole I-swallowed-a-diamond-fed-to-me-by-the-Danish-Mafia story and he’d boringly suggested that I say bye-bye to that particular gem forever. Apparently, Lara had been duly called and told to turn back as we had “things” to discuss. Being kind of kidnapped

twice in one night must be some sort of record, I decided.

“So what the fuck’s going on with us, sweetheart?” Luke finally sat down on the edge of the sofa and looked at me with his soft brown eyes, which always made me want to cry; even in happy times they had a melancholic effect on me. I wanted to pretend nothing had happened but knew that he needed me to explain why I’d vanished from his home and life without a word. I tried to be reasonable but clearly I was channeling Bette Davis, because I was incapable.

“Well, this really weird thing happened,” I began disingenuously. “I was at a party and suddenly there’s this sort of intervention whereby all these women crowd around me and inform me that my boyfriend’s a cheating asshole.” I smiled laconically. Luke didn’t attempt to interject so I continued, “Of course I don’t believe them because I live with the sweetest, most un-Hollywood, straight-shooting man I’ve ever met. He’s also caring and considerate. So I assume they’re lying. Until I remember that he hasn’t exactly been that nice to me lately, he’s impossible to reach on the phone, and when we speak he pretends to the star of his movie, his ex-girlfriend by the way, that he’s talking to his dentist or someone.”

“Lizzie—” Scott began, but I was a ship in full sail and I’d made this speech at least five hundred thousand times since that day, so I had every pitiful-yet-dignified bat of my eyelids down to perfection.

“Anyhow, I still don’t really believe them because only a week or two

before, this lovely man had proposed marriage to me, sort of. So clearly there hadn’t been enough time for him to fall in love with another woman or anything, so these women must be wrong. Right?” I looked at him with such burgeoning menace and vile sarcasm that I even scared myself. “Wrong. You see, these women had my best interests at heart and weren’t remotely smug about my plight, and even Amber the venge-ful witch of a Second Assistant only wanted to see me happy. Which was why she pulled out a copy of this magazine called
People.
And much as I missed my sweet boyfriend, it didn’t really matter, because, guess what?”

“Please . . .” Luke had the bottom half of his face covered with his hands. He momentarily closed his eyes. I had wondered earlier when he was behaving so normally toward me (well, as normal as it gets when your girlfriend vanishes for a month then turns up on your doorstep throwing up and reenacting her own twisted version of
Tomb Raider
in the hunt for hidden treasure) whether he really hoped that I just hadn’t seen that copy of
People.
Or if maybe even
he
hadn’t seen it. But when I saw the look of unmitigated misery on his face, I knew that he was fully up-to-date with his reading.