Part 39

Changing vehicles and back to their own clothes, Miranda lets Andrea keep driving. They continue back to Montreux and decide to drive toward Geneva along the south side of Lac Léman. It is a beautiful journey, but Miranda can't appreciate it as she constantly expects the stalkers to find them.

"It felt sad to say goodbye to Naomi and her family, again, over the phone." Andrea flips her hair back over her shoulders with one hand. "At least their car's in good condition and with a full tank."

"Without them, those men would have taken us," Miranda says, her voice stark. "They still might, but at least I'm doing better and you—you're nothing short of amazing." She ran the back of her curled fingers along Andrea's cheek.

Andrea smiles but doesn't say anything.

"When we get to Geneva, we have to risk going straight to the airport. There, we'll be vulnerable until we're past security. At least, I hope these people will think twice about attacking someone in the departure lounge. Then again, they've done things that don't make sense before."

"We do recognize them by now. We'll be able to spot them." Andrea sent Miranda a quick glance. "Or?"

"I get the feeling that whoever's behind this, has goons on retainer. I can't swear that the man in the church was any of the ones chasing us in London. He was the passenger of the car that cut us off. That, I'm sure of."

"Me too. So, you mean there's a risk that he's not the one? What the hell? Who's doing this? And goddammit—why are they doing it in the first place?"

"They're taking us out. Us as in the girls who survived the 'plague' on the ship heading for America. One by one. It feels personal because it deeply personal."

"Are you still thinking about Trudy and Caroline? That they might have survived their execution?" Andrea sounds dubious. "I mean, anything's possible, but so far, we haven't seen any women being part of this chase."

"True…and yet…what else would make sense. Who else might hold such a grudge on what has to be a personal level, then those two? They did swear to haunt us, come back to destroy our lives, for not rescuing them from the gallows." Miranda looks down at her bag, but knows better than to pull out something that requires reading. She's prone to motion sickness as it is, and reading, no matter how much she wants to confirm facts from her leger, she feels queasy just thinking about it.

They stop at a roadside restaurant and manage to get a booth in a corner, overlooking all exits. Miranda brings her ledger but is truly hungry for the first time since her presumed concussion, and wolves down her food so fast, Andrea stops eating and stares at her.

"That's a first," Andrea says, winking. "Never seen you literally pull a lawnmower over your plate like that. Wow."

"Funny." Miranda sips her mineral water and merely raises her eyebrows.

"I'll say. Usually, it's me who has finished half an hour before you." Andrea finishes off her hamburger and fries. "Ugh. As delicious as this was, I hope to go nuts with vegetables next time. Food's getting a bit too greasy, even for me."

"Agreed. Though, as I rarely frequent these fast-food restaurants, it's a bit of a treat"

After Andrea finishes, Miranda orders two lattes and pulls out her ledger. "I'm not sure when we'll find the time, or opportunity to catch up with this, so unless you're against it, can we have a look?" She gazes around them as she waits for Andrea's reply. Nobody is close by or paying them any sort of attention.

"Sure." Andrea moves to Miranda's side, sliding close. The warmth of her leg pressing against Miranda's sends a pleasant tremor through her. "Where did we leave off?"

"Well, we've skipped around a lot, so I'm not sure about the journal part…what I was thinking of is, what I learned about the two deaths before Iris's, which was a while ago."

"How long exactly? When you say a while, it is usually an understatement." Andrea winks at Miranda and nudges her shoulder gently.

"True enough." Miranda pulled up the pages she was thinking of. "This is the one that died before Iris. 1988. I knew her as Eileen. She died under another name, which we can look up under her list of aliases." Miranda pushed the ledger so they both could read.

Toronto, Canada, July 5, 1988

Good thing I keep track of all the name changes. If Iris and I hadn't shared the list with each other, we might have missed that little Eileen is dead. I think of her as little, because she was…there on the ship. Not the youngest, but the one who seemed paper-thin and who everyone was certain would not make it, that she'd lose her fight with the illness first. In fact, she instead recovered first. And now she's gone.

I flew to Toronto immediately. This is where she lived and I needed to know how she died. I can't believe it. The cops say she took her life. I refuse to believe it. Among all of us, she was the most resilient, the one I could have sworn would be around the longest, no matter what. To think she wrote a note to her family and then rolled her car into a lake. I can't fathom it. I just can't.

Iris is furious. Rosalee is, much like me, filled with disbelief. Can she have been murdered? But, if that's the case, where does the handwritten note fit in? We all went to the funeral, in the disguise of our current personas, of course, but afterward, we agreed to stay in touch and reach out if something else happens that raises a flag.

Now that I'm alone in my hotel room, I find myself wondering about how long my life will end up being? I don't let myself dwell on it, normally, but after today, I'm thinking, what if this seemingly endless life became too much for Eileen? Could that be a reason we hadn't dared to mention among us earlier? Such thoughts are dangerous, we all know that.

Now it's the three of us, and we live in different countries. Only fifty years ago, travelling between Europe and the US was a long journey. Expensive. Nowadays, anyone can skip the Atlantic and we could meet up more often. It's a nice thought, but after today, I don't think I want to. Or dare to, to be honest. Perhaps it was a mistake to show up for the funeral together. I might just have to revisit these thoughts.

"You felt it already back then." Andrea puts an arm around Miranda. "Just like with Iris."

"Yes, but I had no idea it could become a pattern. I hope Rosalee is safe where she is. I'm not going to try and find her and end up leading whoever is after me, well, us, to her." Miranda presses her lips together.

"The person who died before Eileen. What happened to her?"

Miranda closes her eyes briefly. "Mariette. She lived in Cartagena, Colombia. I already know she was killed, but never thought it had anything to do with her past. She and her husband got in the way of some war between drug lords. She died in 1979." Miranda flips over to another page where only a few sentences show what happened to Mariette. "I could have made more effort to find out about her existence. These lines…aren't enough. What if the reason they were killed were not because of drug lords, but because of...whatever this is?"

Andrea pulls her in for a hug. "Don't do this to yourself," she murmurs in Miranda's ear. "You've got enough on your plate right now to add to it like this. Once we've figured out who's stalking you, and dealt with it, perhaps we can revisit Mariette's past. Who knows? But for now, just let that go."

Miranda allows herself to press her face into Andrea's neck, inhaling her scent and absorbing her warmth. Andrea is right, of course. Misplaced guilt is counterproductive when they need to stay sharp. "All right." She presses her lips to Andrea's cheek. "Good point. And on that note, it's time to get going. We'll have another hour before we reach Geneva and I need to buy our tickets."

"Then let's go." Andrea stands, putting on her coat and hoisting her bag over her shoulder. She too scans the room through slitted eyes and it pains Miranda that an open, warm woman like Andrea now has to regard the world through a filter of suspicion and caution.

They make their way back to the car. The parking lot is half full, but no one seems even vaguely interested in them. A soft whirring sound makes Miranda look around one more time, but she can't find the source. "What's that noise?" She remains with the passenger door open, looking over the roof of the sedan at Andrea.

"That buzzing noise? Look there. Someone's playing with a drone." Andrea points up and to the side.

Miranda turns and sees a small, black drone hovering about twenty yards from them. Who would play with a drone in a parking lot next to a busy road? Was it even legal? "Just get into the car and take us back to the main road quickly. It can be nothing—but I don't like it." Miranda gets in and soon Andrea speeds out into traffic where Miranda prays their anonymous-looking rental car will be one of many going to the capital. They can't reach the airport fast enough.

xxxxx

Continued in part 40