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“Because you’re not man enough to do it yourself.”

“If you think I’m going to pay your bill after this...”

“Like I said, there are more important things in life than money. Think about that.”

Father started yelling at him, but Black only smiled as he carried me into the back of the ambulance. Wow. He’d put it a little more bluntly than I’d ever dreamed of doing, but I wanted to give him a round of applause.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Always welcome, Augusta. Sofia’s family, which makes you and Ben family. We’ll look after you both.”

36

Inside the ambulance, Black settled me into the seat next to Emmy’s, then backed out to deal with the remains of his Porsche. Sofia was still strapped onto the stretcher, and she didn’t look happy about it.

“Right, we’re ready to go,” Emmy told the paramedic.

“We can’t take passengers.”

She just looked at him, and after a few seconds, he backed away. “I guess we can make an exception.”

Emmy squeezed Sofia’s hand as the ambulance pulled onto the road with a whoop of its siren. “How do you feel?”

“Like I don’t want to be in an ambulance.”

“You need to get your head checked.”

“It’s fine. I’ve had far worse, like the time we drank cocktails in Chamonix and went skiing in the middle of the night.”

“I swear those trees came out of nowhere.”

“They did. Anyway, I didn’t go to the hospital then.”

“Yeah, but you had a headache for five days and moaned like hell about it,” Emmy said.

“I’m not staying in overnight.”

“We’ll see. Gus, how are you feeling?”

I shrugged, but that hurt. “A bit stiff, and my leg really stings.”

And do you know what else hurt? That Ben hadn’t even phoned to check I was okay. I pulled my phone out of my pocket again just in case. Yes, I had a signal, and no, there were no messages.

“Expecting a call?” Emmy asked.

“I just thought Ben might have called after the crash.”

“Oh, we didn’t tell him. He’d have come haring right up the motorway. There are cops everywhere, all itching to arrest someone, and technically, he’s still wanted for murder. We had enough to deal with.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“We’ll break it to him gently later. Far better for him to see you’re not badly hurt when we get home than worry him unnecessarily.”

As usual, Emmy was right. Only two minutes later my phonedidring, and it was Ben. I considered sending the call to voicemail, but that would have been strange in itself considering I was supposed to be relaxing back at Albany House.

“Hello?”

“Where are you,trésor?”

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