Page 72 of The Devil Wears Orange
Through the rearview mirror, Jack sees her eyes bore a hole into him.
“And the mistress of the house?” she says. Her voice drops an octave.
“I have always satisfied my mistress.” This is the kind of nonsense he’s sure Charlotte was worried about.
“No, Mr. Blunt, I don’t imagine you’ll disappoint me. My couturier is just around the corner. There,” she says, pointing to a discreet shop in the heart of the village. Jack pulls the Bentley up to the front, quickly exits, and opens the car door for Mrs. Banning. “I’ll be a while. Don’t leave your post,” she orders.
Back behind the driver’s seat, Jack scans the area – a water fountain in the center of a roundabout, a cheese store, bakery, a small mobile phone shop, a pharmacy. More stores line the side of the road he’s on.
A rap on the window of the Bentley startles Jack.
“The lady would like you to accompany her,” a teenage girl says before running back in.
The store is empty, and Jack wonders where the shop-girl has run off. To one side, a dressmaker’s mannequin is swathed in a floral dress, short enough to reveal a black base. Behind it, perfectly lined shelves of hats, purses, and shoes come into focus.
“Ouch!” Mrs. Banning shouts from behind a curtain toward the back of the store. “I told you to be careful!”
Moving towards the curtain, Jack tucks the asinine driver’s hat under his arm and, resting his hand on the curtain, says, “Mrs. Banning, you called for me?”
“Yes,” she shouts back. “Step in here.”
Pulling aside the heavy curtain, Jack enters. Towering on a pedestal in the center of the room, Mrs. Banning wears a nearly sheer black dress. Embroidery delicately covers her breasts, and the skirt swoops around her waist and hangs loosely to her feet. She shifts her left leg out to expose a thigh-high slit.
“Marta thinks the slit is high enough, but I say it should be higher. What do you suppose we do?”
Jack, unable to answer, simply stares.
Mrs. Banning smiles. “Jack? Higher?”
How wicked of her to call him in. “Higher,” he says huskily. Embarrassed, he clears his throat.
Mrs. Banning grabs the fabric above the slit and tears, revealing far more than she should.
“This high,” she instructs Marta. When she returns her attention back to Jack, there’s such an intensity in the way she looks at him that he knows he’s in trouble.
***
Exhausted after a 10-hour workday, Jack drives into Ober and parks near his apartment building. He has his cell phone already in his hand before he shuts off the ignition, dialing Charlotte’s number. Twisting around, he scours his surroundings for prying eyes. No one had followed him from the castle, but he’s cautious nonetheless.
Charlotte doesn’t answer. Jack hangs up and dials again at a slower pace, careful to press each number for accuracy. The hollow tone rings endlessly in his ear. What has her so preoccupied that she’s unable to answer? And how is there no voicemail? This troubles him. He hasn’t been in contact with either Charlotte or Rashid since leaving Dubai. They spent the two weeks leading up to his departure together. Days turned into nights filled with planning, studying, and scheming. Briefly, he wonders if there had been another attack on their lives.
Jack tries to push aside these alarming thoughts, and it’s not until he disconnects the line that he sees the two men. They sit in a black Mercedes nearby, watching him. The passenger lifts a phone to his ear and turns away. Jack tells himself he’s paranoid, but still, he starts the engine and navigates his car away from his apartment, checking his rearview mirror periodically to ensure the black Mercedes isn’t following.
Definitely paranoid, Jack concludes and returns home to his rented apartment on the top floor of a 16th-century building. His feet pound the hard, cracked stone of the narrow staircase, and he’s exhausted by the time he reaches the fifth and final floor. Inside, he heads to the bath and starts the shower.The dangerous drive down the winding road from the Banning home, and the two men in the Mercedes, have caused him to sweat, aggravatingly. He pulls loosely at his tie and slips off his shoes when a knock at the door interrupts him.
“Yes?” Jack says, but he suspects it is too low for anyone to hear above the shower. He turns off the tap, rendering the apartment silent.
Someone fiddles with the lock of his front door.
Jack darts to the window and looks down. There, parked up the road a bit, is the black Mercedes. It’s impossible for him to climb down from this height. He’s not insane enough to crawl across the minuscule ledge to the apartment next door. Jack spins around and, hopelessly eyeing the old wardrobe in the middle of the small apartment as a place of refuge, grabs a poker by the fireplace, then squeezes himself in among the hanging clothes. One wardrobe door is left slightly ajar to offer him a view.
Two men enter the apartment. Jack recognizes the taller one as the passenger as he heads to the open window and peers down, shaking his head. His partner, wearing a rumpled suit, pulls out his gun and walks around, looks behind curtains. In the small kitchen, cupboard doors open and close.
The smell of mothballs overpowers Jack, coating his mouth, down his throat. Jack suppresses a cough. His breathing heavy, he knows it’s only a matter of time before they find him, and a poker will not protect him against a gun. Jack pushes against the back of the wardrobe.
Creak.
Jack freezes and holds his breath, but his heart hammers loudly in his ears. Footsteps edge closer to the wardrobe. As a child, he was always the first found during a game of Hide and Seek. He can’t hold his breath forever, but if he gasps for air, he’ll suck in the pungent odor of the mothballs and cough. Heenvisions passing out in the wardrobe, smacking his head on the way down. The poker slips in his sweaty palms until the tip hits the floor with a small thump.
