Do Not Disturb Read Online Free PDF Page B

even harder to escape.
    When the day of their departure finally dawned, Lucas wasn’t sorry. He’d come back to Murren another time on his own, or at least without Petra, when he’d be able to relax. Checking out of the chalet with only ten minutes to go before the train for Lauterbrunnen was due to leave, he suddenly discovered that his briefcase was missing.
    “I don’t understand it,” he said, spinning around in frustration. “It’s been under my bed the whole trip. Where can it possibly be?” Then, noticing Petra standing smugly in the lobby with the others, firmly clasping her own matching Chanel luggage, it dawned on him. “You moved it, didn’t you? What the hell have you done with it, you shit-stirring bitch?”
    “My, my, we
are
paranoid,” she smirked. “It’s no good blaming others for your own disorganized habits. I don’t know why you brought work up here with you anyway. I’m going to trounce you in management theory no matter how hard you cram.”
    Lucas, who had never hit a woman, contemplated breaking his streak. But he knew that if he laid one finger on Petra he would get kicked out. And he wasn’t about to risk that for anything.
    There was nothing to do but to stay behind and hunt. After three long hours, he found the case stuffed behind a pile of ski boots in the garage—damn that stupid woman. But by then it was too late to get a connection to Lausanne. He’d have to stay in the village another night—yet more wasted time and expense—and catch a train first thing in the morning.
    With nothing else to do, he trudged up the snowy hill to the Regina Hotel and settled in for a long night at the bar. His plan was to stare into his whiskey glass until a strategy for wiping Petra Kamalski off the face of the earth appeared before him. But after about fifteen minutes he found himself joined by a big blond Englishman about his own age who looked even more depressed than he did.
    “Would you do me a huge favor?” the man asked, looking nervously about him. His accent was pure cockney, straight out of Mary Poppins, and deep enough to be menacing had it not been for his gentle-giant aura. “Would you pretend you know me?”
    Even sitting on a bar stool, Lucas could see he was huge, at least six foot six and broader than a WWE wrestler. But his kind, slightly drooping eyes, freckles, and mop of surfer-blond hair were all more overgrown Labrador than killer Doberman. He was handsome, in an Iowa-farm-boy-meets-London-barrow-boy sort of a way. And right now he had a desperate, pleading look in his eye that not even a hardened cynic like Lucas could ignore.
    “Sure,” he said, smiling. “Why?”
    Before the man could explain, three of the dullest-looking businessmen you could imagine—gray suits, center-parted hair, matching blue ties done up to strangulation point—walked into the bar and headed in his direction. Flinging his arms around Lucas in a bear hug, the stranger started loudly proclaiming his surprise and delight to see him.
    “After all this time! Amazing!” he gushed enthusiastically. “Fancy seeing you in Murren, of all places!”
    The three Swiss stooges held back and hovered, looking baffled.
    “This is Jimmy,” the man explained to them, gesturing toward a mutely smiling Lucas. “We used to knock about together as boys. Haven’t seen each other in…oooh, how long has it been now, Jim?”
    “Longer than I can remember,” said Lucas, who was rather enjoying himself.
    The blond turned back to his companions. “Look, d’you mind if we catch up for a bit? You guys go on to the fondue restaurant, and I’ll, er…I’ll join you a bit later, yeah?”
    “But…but…” the first suit stammered, “we booked the table for four. Without you, we will be three.”
    Jesus, thought Lucas. They couldn’t have been any more Swiss if they’d been full of holes and gone “cuckoo” on the hour.
    “They’ll understand at the restaurant. They know me there,” said the