Private Berlin (Private 5)

Mattie flashed her badge at them. “A girl just came out a minute ago. Where’d she go?”

The guy closest to her was sucking on a joint. He shrugged.

The girl behind him said, “I didn’t see her.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake, I lost her, Mattie groaned to herself. Damn it! She could just hear Sophia’s imperious grandmother ripping her apart for the blunder.

But then Mattie heard a groan and violent retching coming from behind a large Dumpster parked across the street.

“There goes the hundred euros she promised us,” the joint smoker said, sighing.

Mattie flipped him the finger and crossed the street. She looked behind the Dumpster, finding the Countess von Mühlen hunched over, and vomiting everything she’d churned up making her escape.

“C’mon now, Sophia,” Mattie said, helping her to stand after she’d finished and was just panting. “Let’s get you somewhere I can wash you up.”

For a moment the countess seemed not to know where she was, or who Mattie was, but then she started crying, “Where’s Raul?”

“He’s going to be lying low for a while,” Mattie said, taking gentler hold of her arm and steering her away from the club toward her car.

“I’ll get away,” Sophia vowed. “I’ll find him. We’ll be married.”

“When you’re eighteen you can do what you want. Until then there is someone who wants to talk some sense into you.”

“My father?” the countess replied with open contempt. “All he cares about is himself and his career.”

“Actually, it’s your grandmother who hired us.”

Mattie saw fear surface in Sophia, who said, “But I want to see my father.”

“I bet you do, bu

t Oma’s calling the shots now.”

Something seemed to go out of the countess right then, all the hostility and fight certainly. She trudged along in a submissive posture until they reached the car, a BMW 335i from the Private Berlin pool.

When Mattie went to open the passenger side door, Sophia fell into her arms, blubbering, “I just wanted someone for myself. What’s so wrong with that?”

Mattie’s heart melted. “Nothing, Sophia, but…”

Mattie’s cell phone rang. She couldn’t do a thing about it. She held on to the young countess and let her sob her heart out.

FOUR

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Mattie was driving the young countess through the streets of Berlin toward Tegel Airport. She checked her phone at last, seeing that the call had come from Katharina Doruk, her best friend as well as the managing investigator at Private Berlin.

At four in the morning?

She got Katharina’s voice mail and left a message: “Kat, it’s Mattie. Don’t worry. Got the package. Heading to the jet. Get some sleep.”

When Mattie hung up she heard snoring. Sophia was lights-out, face against the window, drooling from the corner of her mouth. Mattie prayed she wouldn’t get sick in the brand-new car. It still had that sweet leather smell.

Fortunately she reached the private air terminal at Tegel International without another accident. She roused Sophia, who looked around blearily, got out, and followed her as if in a trance.

The pilot was inside, filing his flight plan, and told Mattie to get Sophia aboard the jet.

They were entering the jet’s cabin when Mattie’s cell phone rang again.

“Mattie Engel,” she answered.