Page 80 of One Filthy Kiss

“He’s gone now. You were too slow.” She’s still staring at the cable cars below us, but the accusation is unmistakable. She wanted me to look, and I was too busy acting like a sixteen-year-old who’d just been asked out by the hottest kid in school.

My pulse is racing, only now the thud-thud-thud of my heartbeat is making me feel nauseous, not giddy and childish. It’s nothing, I tell myself. She saw one of the bodyguards, that’s all it is. I’m paranoid without Gio around and after all that’s happened.

But I still find myself asking. “Where did you see him?” and dreading the response.

“In the red car going down the hill.”

I glance at Nikki who shrugs and mouths “I didn’t see anyone.”

“He waved to me,” Amber says, and my stomach lurches like we just hit a tree.

Nikki kneels in front of Amber and stares out the window of the cable car. “What did he look like, Amber?”

“Like a man.” She’s withdrawing the way she does when she thinks she has done something wrong.

“It’s okay, baby.” I force a smile and pull her into my arms, hugging her tightly. “It was just one of the bodyguards who are looking after us while Gio is busy.” I instinctively cradle her head and rock back and forth the way I did when she was a baby.

“Did you wave back?” Nikki asks.

“No.”

And that’s how I know it wasn’t a bodyguard.

Ric ushers us straight into a car with tinted windows when the ride ends and we tell him what Amber saw. Or what she thinks she saw. We speak in hushed tones, while Nikki keeps Amber occupied by watching the arrival of a bus load of tourists.

“Did you see anything, Ric?”

He swallows. He already lost Amber once; his red alert must be cranked up to rocket takeoff level. “No. Neither did the rest of the team.”

I don’t know how he knows this, but I’m guessing they have their own method of communication that I’m not privy to.

This makes me feel a little easier about the whole situation though. “She probably just saw a reflection on the glass.”

“I’ll liaise with the rest of the team, find out who waved to her.”

I wish I hadn’t mentioned anything. It was nothing. Amber is on vacation, she’s excited, it’s easy to imagine stuff when you’re five years old and having the adventure of a lifetime.

Nikki teaches her clapping songs on the way back to the cabin. Amber wanted to visit the Ben & Jerry’s shop and get ice cream, but she has either forgotten all about it or she’s still upset about the man who waved to her.

Ric sits flagpole straight in the front passenger seat while another bodyguard drives. I dip in and out of the chatter going on between my sister and my friend, smiling in all the right places, while trying to keep an eye on the scenery all around us.

He can’t have followed us here. He can’t have.

Someone would’ve spotted him. They literally have the cabin surrounded, and they haven’t let us out of their sight while we’ve been in Stowe. I instinctively touch the panic button strapped to the inside of my wrist; I thought it was unnecessary when Ric gave it to me. A bit extreme, even by Gio’s standards.

But now I’m not so sure.

It turns out that no member of the security team waved to Amber.

The people running the SkyRide confirmed that no one else joined or left the cable cars after our group climbed aboard. We had it all to ourselves as planned.

But the team is taking Amber’s claim seriously.

Several bodyguards go ahead to check out the cabin and the surrounding area before we arrive, while the rest of the team patrols the town. I sense the shift in their behavior and feel guilty for panicking them over something that is probably nothing.

Is this how it’s going to be now for the duration of our stay, or will Gio want us to move onto somewhere else? Another secret location? Someplace else where we’ll feel safe for a couple of days until the next false alarm.

We make a den in the living room using blankets, throws, and cushions, and eat cake and potato chips while we watch an old movie.Mary Poppins. Amber’s choice and one of her favorites. It used to be one of our mom’s favorites too. She always loved the song ‘Feed the Birds’, said it reminded her of the pigeons at Trafalgar Square.