Meet Me in Venice by Elizabeth Adler Page B

had been checked out at the hospital and Mimi had arrived in tears to fetch her, they talked about it.
    Mimi said,
“Chérie,
somebody wanted to kill you. They wanted you dead.”
    Grizelda glared at her. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mimi. Why would anyone want me dead? Except maybe my husband and he’s long gone and ghosts don’t come back for vengeance. At least I don’t think so,” she added doubtfully. “No, it was just the act of a madman, and I don’t want you to bother Preshy with it. She’d only worry about nothing.” Then, remembering, “And dammit, I still didn’t get to see the flower man. Now I’ll have to go tomorrow.”
    “Well this time I’m coming with you,” Mimi said grimly. She didn’t think the incident was “nothing” and she wasn’t at all happy about madmen driving women off the road. In fact it made Mimi very uneasy.

TWENTY-ONE
    SHANGHAI
    B ENNETT flew from Paris to Singapore, then took a connecting flight to Shanghai. It arrived at Pudong Airport twenty minutes late. He hurried through immigration and customs, then into the arrivals hall, where a limo driver was waiting for him. While the man went to fetch the car, Bennett called Mary-Lou.
    “I’m back,” he said, when she answered.
    There was a long silence, then, “I didn’t even know you’d gone,” she retorted, making him smile.
    “You mean you didn’t miss me?”
    “Not one bit.”
    “Then you don’t want to see me tonight?”
    “Only if you beg me.”
    Bennett laughed. “I’m begging,” he said.
    “All right. Where?”
    “Your place, at eight.” He had a lot to talk over with her and he needed to do it in private.
    SHE WAS AT THE DOOR to greet him when he rang her bell at exactly eight. No words passed between them. She was in his arms, kissing him. He was holding a bottle of champagne in one hand, kissing her as though he intended to eat her up. He hooked a foot behind him and slammed the door shut. She threw back her head, looking at him.
    “That’s quite a welcome,” he said, smiling down at her. “And did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?”
    “You did not, but you may tell me now,” she said, taking the champagne from him and leading him to the small bar where an ice bucket awaited. She swished the bottle around in the ice and took two flutes from the shelf, waiting for him to open it. He filled the glasses, picked them up and gave her one.
    “To us,” he said, smiling right into her eyes, the way he always used to, and sending nervous little tremors down her spine. Still, she was careful not to mention the thing uppermost on her mind, and instead she sipped the champagne and asked how his trip was.
    “Paris was okay,” he said, walking to the window and staring out at the sludge-colored river and the surging traffic below.
    Mary-Lou paced nervously behind him. Because she was concerned about good
feng shui,
she had hung a large crystal in frontof the window, to repel the bad
chi
from the evil Dragon River Gods. She never questioned whether she really believed this or not, she just went along with it on the basis that it couldn’t hurt and who knew, it might be true. Her ancestors had believed in it for centuries, hadn’t they? Much good it had done her parents though; they’d had enough bad
chi
to send them to an early grave, crystals or no crystals.
    But watching Bennett staring out of her window, she surely hoped it was working now. She still hadn’t heard from Voortmann and she needed all the luck she could get.
    Standing behind him, she said, “Shall we eat now? Or shall we go to bed?”
    Bennett turned to look at her. “Guess,” he said.
    MUCH LATER, WHILE BENNETT SHOWERED, Mary-Lou opened the take-out cartons she’d had the forethought to buy from the local restaurant. She put them on the coffee table with a bottle of Tsingtao beer and a glass chilled almost to an icicle in the freezer. Bennett liked his beer cold.
    His clothes were flung across the sofa and she gathered