Kindred Intentions (7 page)

She heard him smile. Seeing it was almost
impossible. “We’d better not use artificial lights. They’d be detected from
many miles away in the dark.”

She would’ve liked to retort that, on the
other hand, this way they risked getting lost, but her instinct was telling her
that there was no such risk. Even in the darkness Mike gave the impression he
knew every inch of these places. After all, what sort of secret agent would he
have been, if a wood and a little darkness had been enough to stop him? She
laughed under her breath.

“Now what is it?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She felt a bit silly, more
than usual, yet she still couldn’t help giggling.

At once he stopped.

That made Amelia wince and she almost bumped
into him. Couldn’t one even laugh now? But then she hypothesised she hadn’t
been the cause of his reaction. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry again, in
spite of all the water that had fallen from the sky.

“Wait for me here.”

“What …” She attempted a shy protest, but then
heard a rustling and sensed an air stream, followed by the black outline of the
man walking away.

No, fuck, where was he going? He could have
given her an explanation.

She crouched down, feeling that she had to
hide, which was absurd because as the minutes passed it got darker and darker,
soon making her invisible.

After a while that position became unbearable
and she decided to sit on the ground. She crossed her legs and waited. She had
nothing to fear. She repeated that to herself every five seconds. He’d told her
to wait for him; he would come back.

At the beginning she could just hear her own
breath, but soon that started distressing her, so she forced herself to prick
up her ears so that she could detect other external noises. Yes, because a few
seconds were enough for her to realise that the silence wrapping her wasn’t silent
at all. It was all rustling, creaking, crawling, sounds caused by the breeze
amongst the fronds, or at least she hoped so, to which the chirping of crickets
and the occasional tweeting of the night birds was added.

How could people go camping? She’d always
wondered that and the experience she was currently living now confirmed that it
really wasn’t her cup of tea. Her impression as a child, growing up in cotton
wool, proved correct.

A sudden buzz started up by her right ear, and
she jumped to shoo it away. A strange sound, similar to a suction, burst on her
left. She turned with a jerk, her heart in her throat, but she didn’t see
anything. She couldn’t see anything, just shadows and silhouettes with a far
from reassuring appearance. As she turned to look forward, where Mike had
disappeared, she surprised two tiny lights, close to her, too close. Eyes? She
choked back a shout and retreated, scooting backwards by using her hands. And
the lights disappeared.

Panting, she curled up, placing her legs
against her chest and holding them with her arms. Mike, Mike. Why didn’t he
come back?

She felt someone covering her mouth with a
hand. Her blocked shouts turned into a moan of terror, as her eyes saw sparks
in the darkness and her struggling was made useless by an arm wrapping around
her shoulders and chest. She was about to pass out and found herself wishing it
would happen soon.

“Ssshhh, calm down, it’s me.”

Mike’s voice forced her away from that desire
and turned her fear to rage.

“I’ll remove my hand now, don’t shout.”

“What the fuck …” she exclaimed in a low
voice, as soon as her mouth was free. “You almost gave me a damn heart attack!”

“Sorry.” She could guess the details of his
face which was partly lit by a faint glare reflected by the clouds. “I realised
you were upset and it was the only way to prevent you from making some noise.”

She wanted to retort, by asking him how he
could have possibly noticed in the dark that she was upset, but it was a
pointless question. He wouldn’t answer anyway. “Where have you been? Never
leave me alone this way again!” She couldn’t help herself, even if she was well
aware she was nagging.

“I walked around the hunting lodge, to make
sure there was nobody waiting in ambush.”

“Have we arrived?” Her joy wiped away any
rage.

“Come,” he said, standing up and helping her
to rise.

Not even ten steps further the trees made room
for a little clearing, where a big dark shape stood out. They reached it in a
moment.

“Careful, there are three steps here.”

Amelia climbed them easily. She felt carefree,
close to salvation. She heard him messing about with some keys. Creaking
hinges. Mike took her by the hand and led her inside. Then hinges again, and
the door closing.

“I’m turning on the light.”

For a split second she wondered why he’d told
her, then a light burst on in the room, forcing her to cover her eyes in pain.
It took some minutes for her to get accustomed, but then, once her pupils had
contracted enough to bring her sight back, she was blinded again, though not
literally.

“This is a hunting lodge?” She couldn’t
prevent herself from voicing that exclamation.

The place was somehow rustic, but it was just
a matter of style. If that was a hunting lodge, her flat right in the middle of
the city, the rent of which would have cost twice her salary if she didn’t
already own it, was a hovel, at best, if compared to it.

The floor was covered by the most polished of
parquets. It looked like nobody had ever walked on it since it’d been
installed, which could have been the day before. The wooden walls, or perhaps
only veneered with wood, were of a darker colour. The place had the hearth of a
fireplace right in the middle; it was open on all four sides, save for the fact
that tempered glass panels separated it from the rest of the room and they
merged to an enormous hood coming down from the ceiling. Inside it there were
already some logs ready to be lit. On the opposite side, a sofa was placed
against a wall. It was so inviting that it made her want to collapse on it at
once. On the left there was a kitchen nook. A large nook, to tell the truth.
Before it, a table and four chairs. More of them were placed in the room, in
anything but a casual way. The available space on the right was smaller. There
were no pieces of furniture there, but in compensation a large picture with an
expensive appearance occupied most of it. Beside it was a door. A second door
was on the adjacent wall, not far from the sofa.

“It’s small, but quite comfortable.” Mike had
said it with nonchalance, as if he really thought that, then Amelia noticed his
sneer.

“Yeah, it should be okay,” she commented in
the same tone, under which however she couldn’t conceal a surge of amazement.
She turned to him. “You make me feel deeply inadequate, do you know that?”

He addressed her with one of those smiles that
would knock out most women, and even a few men. Then he started crossing the
room whilst Amelia, concentrating on recovering from the initial astonishment,
turned around to catch as many details as she could about that fantastic place.
It seemed so absurd to her that in such a godforsaken spot there existed
something like this. It seemed even more absurd that she was there. Her police
officer’s life of stress was a thousand miles away. The lodge was the
antithesis of stress.

“Amelia.”

As she heard Mike calling her, she turned to
him; he had reached the door near the sofa and opened it. As she moved to
follow him, he walked in. Amelia peeked shyly into the bedroom, which vied with
the rest of the house for splendour. She was afraid to soil it with her filthy
shoes and clothes, but then she noticed that he, who certainly was no better
than her, didn’t have any such scruples.

Mike opened the door of the built-in wardrobe.
“Here are some clothes. They’re mine, so they’ll be a bit large for you, but you’re
tall. They should fit.” He pointed at the piece of furniture beside it. “There
are more trainers. You can throw those ones away.” She looked at her own feet.
The shoes certainly needed a wash, but it seemed a waste to throw them away.
“Over there, instead …” He pointed out another door on the opposite side of a
bed that would comfortably accommodate four people. And, as she looked at Mike,
Amelia imagined it could have happened. Of course three more women, besides
him. That thought annoyed her a bit. “Over there is the bathroom. You can use
all the towels you want, okay?”

She was gawping at him, lingering on orgies in
the middle of the woods, until it occurred to her that there was an excessive
silence and she nodded unnecessarily vigorously.

“All right.” Mike turned again to the
wardrobe. “I’m taking something to wear and I’ll go wash in the other bathroom,
so I leave the coast clear for you.” Doubtful, Amelia looked at him and he,
intercepting her eyes, added a further explanation. “Stay here, and wash, dress
yourself—in short, take a moment to calm yourself.”

“Oh, yes, okay!”

“Remember not to open the shutters, we don’t
want the light to be seen from outside.”

Right, no light. She hoped his punctiliousness
on the subject was just an excess of caution. Who would ever come to kill them
in this enchanted castle?

“Understood?” Mike was still waiting for an
answer.

“Yes, okay, shutter closed, no light.”

He took out some clothes and walked away,
closing the door behind him.

Amelia was feeling dazed. The contrast between
the hell she had endured during the whole day and this sudden corner of
paradise destabilised her. She had a constant worry that she would wake up
again tied and hooded in the boot of a car, or who knew where. She shooed that
thought away and ventured further into the room. She would’ve liked to sit down
for a moment and reflect, but she didn’t want to soil the snow white
continental quilt covering the bed. She was exhausted and would rather have had
a good sleep, but there were other primary needs to be satisfied before she
could rest. Getting rid of that filth, for starters. But she didn’t need the
bathroom just for washing herself.

She sneezed. Catching a cold wasn’t exactly
what she needed now. Then she sensed her stomach complaining. Here was another
primary need.

What would happen next? Mike had said that
someone would come to get them. She was torn between the desire to go back home
and the desire to enjoy that
hunting lodge
. And perhaps not only the
lodge.

But above all, what would be waiting for her
once she’d returned to the city, once she’d given her report to her chief? If
she was still a target of the killers, they would not desist. They certainly
knew where she lived. She would need protection.

The more she meditated on it, the place she
was in, away from anything and anybody, seemed to her more desirable than
anywhere else.

Anyway, she would think about it later. Now:
shower and food.

She reached the bathroom door. She opened it
and turned on the light. And she emitted a triumphant titter.

“I would have bet on that,” she commented to
herself, seeing the Jacuzzi.

She lingered amongst bubbles for the better
part of a half-hour, letting water jets massage her, but at a certain point the
hole in her stomach reminded her that it didn’t want to wait any longer to be
filled. As she rose from the hot water she felt a slight dizziness. A hot,
humid environment and a low blood sugar level were really the worst of matches.

She put on a white towelling robe that was
hanging in the bathroom. It was large, but not overly so. It belonged to Mike.
She pictured him wearing it, his body under the terry. And she felt
light-headed again. Sexual fantasies required an energy which she couldn’t
really count on right now.

The cooler temperature of the bedroom woke her
up again. She started searching the wardrobe. She found a tracksuit with a
sweater opening at the front with a zipper, and a T-shirt that wasn’t
excessively big.

She gazed at the little pile of clothes she
had taken off before her bath. She could have saved her underwear, but she
certainly couldn’t use it now. She decided to throw everything away. She would
do without it.

She donned her new clothes, opened the piece
of furniture beside the wardrobe and glimpsed a pair of shoes that could be the
thing for her, and her feet. Now that they were clean, they looked less
battered than she’d thought, but the idea of locking them in those shoes wasn’t
really tempting her. She would’ve needed a pair of socks. She eyed a chest of
drawers; perhaps she would find something useful in there, but she felt too
embarrassed to rummage around in Mike’s belongings. He had mentioned the
wardrobe, not the drawers. She didn’t want to be invasive. She would ask him.

She took the shoes and exited the room
barefoot, holding them in her hand.

A diffused lighting welcomed her. Being
summer, the fireplace was obviously out, but small spotlights were dispersed
all around it recreating an atmosphere similar to the one of a burning fire.

She searched for him, but there was nobody
else in the room. A light was on in the kitchen corner and was aimed at the
table. Two smoking plates of spaghetti, paired with forks and glasses, seemed
waiting to be devoured. With the hunger she was feeling, she would eat anything
vaguely edible, but it really looked delicious.