Page 90 of Happily Ever After

Dive Hotel in Geneva

Flicka von Hannover

The Pâquis district of Geneva.

Flicka was sitting behind the cold steering wheel of the car with the engine and lights off, shivering in the dark.

After she’d dropped Dieter off at a corner near Océane Mirabaud’s house, remembering how to drive had taken a few minutes, but at least she hadn’t been completely helpless. She hadstopped the car in a dark parking lot behind a business park to hide and wait at their first meeting spot. The yacht club half a mile away was their fallback meeting place.

Flicka could do this. She was doing okay.

Maintaining life skills like driving, cooking, and bump passes should be higher on her priority list, just in case she ever needed to escape from someone who wanted to kidnap heragain. She’d developed several more life skills in Las Vegas, like tending a bar and waitressing, not to mention paying her own bills online. She could totally survive in the real world if she needed to.

Just as soon as she got her damned ex-husband off her back.

That must be a common problem, too. Lots of women probably had jealous ex’s with “boundary problems.”

A man’s form walked towardwhere she waited in the car.

Flicka might have been wary if it hadn’t been so easy to recognize Dieter’s military march, even at a hundred feet away. His posture was straight, and his bearing betrayed a muscular physique. He carried a couple of packages and a cloth bag.

Flicka rolled down her window as Dieter approached the car. “How did it go?”

“Fine,” Dieter said. “Everything was fine.” Hetrotted around the other side of the car.

Flicka unlocked the doors for him to get in. When he maneuvered his long legs into the passenger seat, the dome light shone on a black leather jacket he wore. She said, “Nice coat.”

“I got you some clothes, too, and Océane packed supper for us.”

“Supper?” Her voice rose in excitement.

“Roast beef, potatoes, vegetables, and I don’t know what else. Océanewas careening around the kitchen with a roll of aluminum foil and stuffed a shopping bag full of stuff.”

“Oh, wow. Like what?”

“Let’s get a hotel for the night and unpack it.”

“We can’t afford a hotel,” Flicka sighed.

“Océane spotted me some cash. We’ll find a cheap hotel for tonight, somewhere Pierre and the French police won’t look for us. Or at least the kind of place that doesn’t enjoypolice attention, so they won’t mention a couple of late check-ins paying cash to anybody.”

Flicka stared at the dark, empty parking lot. The single light was on the other side, near the buildings, while dark trees stood near the car. “We won’t be able to find a hotel this late.”

Dieter said, “It’s only eight o’clock, and I know where to go.”

“And where is that?”

“Pâquis.Let me drive.”

Forty minutes later, Dieter parked the car in a lot behind a restaurant in thePâquisdistrict of Geneva.

Flicka emerged, holding the coat that Dieter had given her tightly around herself, wobbling on her high heels.

He said, “It’s not far,” and they walked a block in the neon-lit night along the crowded sidewalk. Flicka minced beside him, really regretting her footwear choice.

Some of the peoplewalking in the wintry night wore far too little, practically just strips of sparkly cloth around their chests and hips. They loitered on street corners, bending to speak through car windows with people who drove up and stopped. Sometimes, they stepped into the car. Sometimes, the car drove away without them.

Other people wore long, baggy coats. Their interactions with the cars were quicker, moretransactional, and money and small bags furtively changed hands before the car drove back to the better parts of Geneva.