Caroline Benton waved good-bye to her girlfriends and sauntered out into the gentle atmosphere of the late summer evening. The sun was sinking into a salmon-pink sunset, the air soft as a caress.
Pausing to wipe a few drops of moisture from her downy upper lip, she stood at the bus stop, rocking back and forth on her heels. Never mind trying to get a cab this time of day, in this neighborhood-you might as well wish for a unicorn to ride home. She unzipped her Prada shoulder bag and dug around inside. The bag was lemon yellow, the leather buttery and soft, and it cost seven hundred dollars, which she thought was a bargain-though her father had rolled his eyes when he saw the bill on his Visa card. God, she thought, he could be so retarded sometimes, considering what he spent on that single-malt Scotch of his.
Her fingers found what she was looking for, the pack of Marlboro Lights at the bottom of the bag. She wanted a cigarette very badly, but was afraid her stepmother would smell it on her clothes and hair-that woman had a nose like a bloodhound. Caroline didn't see why she should have to obey her, anyway. It's not like she was her real mother or anything.
She squinted and peered down Madison Avenue, as if that would make the bus come faster. She looked around. She was the only one at the bus stop, so maybe it would be okay to have a cigarette after all. She could run right up to her room when she got home, claiming she had homework to do, and her stepmother would never be the wiser.
As she was fiddling around in her bag for a lighter, a black limousine rolled up to the bus stop. It was a Lincoln Town Car, polished to a gleaming shine. Even the whitewall tires looked clean. The electric window slid down, and a young man leaned out. He was wearing a gray wool cap with a black leather brim-like the kind of hat you might see a cab driver wearing in an old movie on AMC or TCM, she thought.
"You the one who called for a car service?" Caroline shook her head.
He held up a clipboard. "I got the address here-says I'm to meet a young lady in front of this coffee shop."
She looked back at the restaurant. No one was standing outside waiting to be picked up.
"Any idea who it might be?" he said. "One of your friends, maybe?"
In the back of her mind, she wondered briefly how he knew she had friends in the restaurant, but the thought never made its way into her conscious brain. Something else registered only vaguely in her pretty head: though it was August, he was wearing black leather gloves.
"I don't think so," she said.
"Okay," he said, and started to roll the window back up. She glanced down the avenue-there was no bus in sight as far as she could see. Yellow cabs zoomed by, all of them filled with passengers.
"Wait a minute!" she called to him.
He lowered the window again.
"Yes?" He smiled. He had a pleasant face-not handsome, but pleasant. The kind of face you would forget as soon as you saw it.
"I'd like a lift home, if you're free."
"Sure-hop in."
She slung her bag over her back and opened the door to the limo, inhaling the aroma of oiled leather seats. The cigarette could wait, she thought-now she just wanted to get home.
"Where to?" he said.
She told him.
"How much?"
He turned around and grinned. "For you, no charge."
She smiled and leaned back into the soft, yielding embrace of expensive leather. She stretched out her tanned legs and regarded the polished toenails poking out from her Versace sandals with satisfaction. It was good to be young and pretty and rich on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
"Help yourself to water," he said, and she saw a row of Poland Spring bottles tucked neatly into the pocket behind the front seat.
She reached for one and opened it, drinking greedily. It was a hot day, and she was thirsty. If she had noticed it tasted a little funny, or if that the seal had already been broken, she might have survived. But by the time the black Town Car turned toward the East River, she was already losing consciousness. She barely felt the car come to a stop after pulling into the cul-de-sac amid the block of warehouses on East Seventy-seventh Street. The last thing she saw before her young life ended was a pair of gloved hands moving toward her pretty white throat.