Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado

Bogota, Colombia

October 10

Zoe Anderson-Howe ducked into a ladies’ room on the way to customs and immigration, to freshen up and allow the other first-class passengers to get well ahead of her. She’d fulfilled her duty, hosting the gala in-flight party to celebrate the launch of Skye Line’s London-to-Bogota route, but the trip had been ghastly. The special “guests” that Derrick had invited for the premiere flight were mostly nouveau-riche Brits more interested in gossip about her than in investing in the airline. Several had brought along copies of Tatler, The Sun, and The Daily Mail, all of which had her name and image splashed across the cover.

She hadn’t slept properly since the Loose Cannon party three nights earlier, too engrossed with her father’s announcement he was cutting her off and firing her. In her opinion, she hadn’t done anything that warranted such extreme measures. She’d bedded the wives of business partners before, and although her father hadn’t caught her in the act, he had surely read about it in those stupid rags. Zoe simply couldn’t see what was wrong about two, or sometimes three, consenting adults partaking in a few hours of sexual expression. Although her decision to “live a little” during the benefit hadn’t been ideal, it definitely did not justify her father’s reaction. He couldn’t possibly mean it. He was just upset the paparazzi were there and caught them. In time, he’d come to see…

But something told her he intended to make good on his promise this time. And if so, her life was about to radically change. She had saved nothing of her salary. She had no reason to. She spent it on clothes and jewelry, spas, champagne, and entertainment—virtually anything and anyone that caught her fancy. When she ran out of funds, her father had always been there with his checkbook, albeit much more reluctantly in recent months.

Without employment and her father’s largesse, she could no longer afford her lavish penthouse apartment in SoHo, the payments on her Bentley, her weekend getaways. Could it possibly get any worse?

Once she was through customs, she began to search the sparse crowd gathered to welcome incoming flights for the local her father had hired to serve as her escort, driver, and bodyguard. Although news reports indicated a sharp decline in violence and kidnappings in Colombia in recent months, Derrick was always overly prudent where her safety was concerned.

She spotted her name on a placard, held aloft by a tall, dark-skinned man in his thirties, appropriately dressed to greet her in a black suit, starched white shirt and gray silk tie, and polished boots.

He bowed courteously when she approached and immediately reached for her carry-on. “Welcome to Bogota, Miss Howe. My name is Enrique.”

“I hope the car is nearby,” she said tiredly. “I’d like to be taken to the hotel straightaway.”

“Certainly. May I have your baggage-claim tickets?”

Once they’d retrieved her luggage, Enrique led her to a newer-model Renault Megane, a four-door sedan, and Zoe collapsed into the backseat. The sun was just coming up. After a nap at the hotel, she intended to go on a lengthy shopping expedition with her company credit card, probably her last for a long while. And she refused to feel any guilt about it. After all, technically she was still an employee of the company, at least until that evening. Her final duty would be to host a party for Colombian aviation officials and other VIPs. Then she was on her own.

The driver of the Jeep-like Lada Bronto tossed his cigarette out the window and pulled away from the curb, careful to keep at least three vehicles between him and the black Renault Megane. At the first traffic light, a short distance from the airport, he pulled out his cell. “El Paquete ha llegado,” he reported. The package had arrived.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 888