Read One Way or Another: A Novel for Free Online Page B

to me.
    “For my lovely girl,” he said.
    I had seen the ads in magazines, knew a red Cartier box when I saw one. I’d never held one in my hands, though, never expected to. I took it, smiling questioningly into his eyes. He touched me lightly, two fingers on my lips, like a kiss. “Go on, open it.”
    I almost did not want to, didn’t want to end the surprise, the pleasure, like holding back when making love, delaying the final moment. I opened it.
    Inside was a slender gold chain with a small animal ornament, a panther, and my initials also in gold. The initials sat exactly in the hollow of my throat as I held it up. Ahmet turned me around so he might fasten it, then turned me back again, and looked expectantly at me.
    “You like it?”
    “ Like? Why, I love it. I adore it. It’s the best present anyone ever gave me.” I didn’t need to say it was the most expensive present anyone had given me, he obviously knew hostesses in restaurants were not millionaires.
    “Well, then.” He stroked my hair back, gently fingering the tendrils around my ears, smoothing my eyebrows, the two fingers again, like a kiss, on my mouth. “Well, then, now maybe you can give me a present in return.”
    I laughed. “Anything you want,” I promised recklessly.
    It was that promise that left me drowning in the beautiful azure and green Aegean Sea. The blow with the champagne bottle had been carefully aimed, I knew it now. In fact I had seen it coming. He was standing there with the woman I had not even seen earlier. I was to be gotten rid of, that was clear. I knew too much, knew what they were selling, and I was the only witness to the transaction.
    As I sank into that blueness, blood drifting upward with my long hair, with what might be my last conscious thought, I vowed I would be back. I would get them. One way or another. It wasn’t revenge I wanted. It was justice.

 
    9
    Martha Patron had a younger sister named Lucy. She lived in London and seemed to Martha to base her philosophy on life and how to live it to the full on a song called “It Can’t Be Bad If It Makes You Feel Good.” Unfortunately this also led to that Janis Joplin winner that went, Take another little piece of my heart, now, baby , which is precisely what happened, in what seemed to Martha to be the space of a few days.
    Lucy first encountered a man Martha eventually find out was Ahmet Ghulbian a month previously—sexy, dark, exotic—in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in London. It was a Thursday evening and she was awaiting the arrival of a girlfriend with whom she was supposed to have a drink. Both girls were “actresses” who so far had acted only in drama school, but they were hoping. “Being seen” was, they believed, the best way to get “discovered,” and the Ritz was where they hoped they might meet someone important in showbiz and be asked to audition, or maybe even do a TV commercial. Anyhow it beat sitting home waiting for a phone call from some elusive director that never came.
    Lucy was too well brought up to perch at the bar; she sat discreetly alone at a table, making her champagne last because she could not afford a second glass. She heard her stomach rumble and longed for a sandwich, to say nothing of a good meal. A chicken sandwich, she thought, closing her eyes, visualizing the chicken on sliced white bread, her favorite. Even if sliced white was supposed to be rubbish, to her it still made the best sandwich and the slices were all the same size, which they were not if she was the one doing the slicing. Tomato, lettuce, mayo, no ketchup, perhaps just a hint of mustard. Her mouth watered at the thought and she took a sip of champagne. Over the rim of her glass, her eyes caught those of the man at the adjacent table. Well, not exactly his eyes because he was, oddly, since they were indoors, wearing glasses with tinted lenses. Still she could tell he was looking at her.
    Her phone played its little tune. A text from her friend to say she