Kindred Intentions by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli Read Free Book Online

left; I had other things to do.”
    “And for sure I didn’t expect to find you
here.” At last Amelia was relaxing. She had met Mike for the first time only
that morning and had spent no more than ten minutes with him, but he was no
doubt the best she could expect as a casual driver. Actually, more than the
best. “By the way, where are we?” She looked at the boundless countryside all
around them, only interrupted by the electricity pylons, as well as by the road
they were travelling on. It was an isolated place, but there was a sort of
comforting poetry in all that greenery lit by the sun on a lovely day.
    “I’d say in the middle of nowhere.” And he
laughed. “Which makes everything even more surreal. I’ll head on the same way,
because there’s a village nearby with a police station.” He turned slightly to
her, offering a sly smile. His eyes were hidden again under his dark glasses.
“It seems to me the more suitable place.”
    “Yeah, thank you.” Amelia set her safety belt
to the side of her shoulder, because it had ended up on her neck. In vain she
tried to adjust its height, then she gave up. She was still dazed. All that she
wished for was a shower and some clean clothes. Maybe before that, she would
accept something to eat with pleasure. She stole a glance at the digital clock
on the dashboard. Ten past two in the afternoon. That explained the heat. She reached out to the sunshield and
lowered it. Under the little flap was a mirror, which reflected her appearance
mercilessly. She tried to arrange her tousled hair. She felt ill at ease to be
with a man in such an awful condition. Then she looked at her blouse, which
once had been white, her jacket, now turned into a rag abandoned at her feet
and stained by sweat and dust, and at last her skirt, whose seam had been torn
in a few points. And she was worrying about her hair? She closed the flap and
the sunshield with a slap.
    “Everything all right?” Mike asked, keeping
his face aimed at the road.
    “Hm, let’s say so. Can I borrow your phone?”
She should have informed Monroe ,
at least.
    Mike inserted a hand in the front door storage
pocket and then gave her a smartphone that looked like it had come straight from
space. Amelia took it with a certain amount of reverence. But from a man with a
car like that, she couldn’t expect a phone for paupers like hers. Well, the one
that was now smashed up on the tarmac somewhere in the City, probably under the
tyres of another vehicle.
    “Disable the Bluetooth, if you want to have a
private conversation.”
    She looked at him, bewildered, for a second. A
private conversation? Ah, yeah, right, he’d thought she wanted to speak to a
relative, certainly not to her chief. Anyway excluding the hands-free wasn’t a
bad idea. “Let’s see if I get how to do that.”
    “There’s an icon …” He gestured.
    Amelia found the way to recall the settings,
touched the Bluetooth symbol, and disabled it. Then she stopped. “And who
remembers Monroe ’s number …?”
    Mike laughed. “These contraptions should
simplify your life, instead they break your habit of using your memory. Call
112.”
    Right, she just had to identify and ask to be
connected to the headquarters in the City. She turned on the virtual keypad of
the phone and was about to type the number, when the barred battery symbol
started blinking, accompanied by a far from reassuring sound. “The battery is
low.”
    “Damn it, it doesn’t last longer than a
fucking couple of hours,” the man complained, perhaps in an excessive way.
    But what did she know? Maybe a long-lasting
dispute was taking place between Mike and his phone battery. Amelia smiled at
her frivolous thoughts.
    “In there, in the glove compartment, there’s
the charger that you can plug into the cigarette lighter socket. You’d better
use it. When it goes like that, it may shut down any moment.” He barely turned
to look at her. “What are you laughing at?”
    “Nothing,