The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [84]
“Ha!” Carina gave a disdainful snort. “Not three months ago you come, and stay with us, and then leave without payment.” Turning to the police, she continued, “The cards she give us are finished. She vanishes, like, poof!”
The men looked at Alice again, this time with clear disapproval. “This be true?” one of them asked, his accent thick.
“I didn’t!” she protested, and then suddenly understood the fuss. Ella must have absconded without paying the bill. Or rather, Alice Love had.
Her first instinct was relief. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Alice began her well-practiced explanation: “I’m sorry for the confusion, but this is all a mistake,” she told them, giving what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “The woman who was here, before, she stole my passport. She’s been using my identity.”
Her apology was ignored. “You think I do not know you?” Carina’s voice rang out in the lobby. She stabbed one red polished fingertip in Alice’s direction. “I remember everything: the same dress, the same hair. It is you!”
Alice took a step back. “It isn’t. I promise. She just used my name, and looks like me, and…” She trailed off. Her defense sounded flimsy even to her own ears. And the dress! Of course, she would have to be wearing the same outfit as Ella this time. Carina struck her as a woman who would not forget an ensemble.
This was serious.
“I need to call someone at the embassy,” she announced, trying not to panic. Once she had someone speaking fluent English, who would understand about ongoing investigations and fraud, then all this confusion would all be settled.
“Sì, ambasciata, domani—tomorrow. For now, you come.” One of the men, stern faced, reached for Alice’s arm. She jerked back.
“No, not tomorrow. I want to talk to them now!” Alice thought with horror of the stories she read in the newspaper—of tourists trapped abroad, facing unlikely charges from local police; of confused late-night confessions and no access to lawyers. She swallowed again, the gravity of her circumstances making its full weight felt.
Carina glared, again complaining in Italian. The men nodded and began to move toward Alice.
Alice looked around wildly. “Pascal,” she called across. “The embassy—how do I contact them?”
He looked uneasy. “Is too late. In morning, perhaps…”
“But I’ve got to!” Fear rose, sharp in Alice’s chest as she took in the handcuffs dangling from the police belt loops. “I have to call someone. This is all a mistake!”
Pascal shook his head. The policeman once again reached for her, but Alice folded her arms and—mustering as much icy defiance as possible while wearing a slip of red silk at three a.m. in foreign surroundings—declared loudly, “I’m not moving until I speak to someone at the British embassy.” And so they arrested her.
***
Alice’s panic, which she’d fought so desperately to control during the brief drive in the back of the police car, flared to life again as she was led through the busy station, metal cold against her wrists. She was surrounded by incomprehensible chatter as the men talked around her but could only imagine what they were saying. Her whole life, she had never so much as received a parking ticket. Her record—until Ella—had been unblemished. And now? There was dark ink staining her fingertips and disdainful, accusing looks all around. She shivered, chilled in her wisp of a dress. They hadn’t let her go back to her room for a change of clothes, or even a cardigan, and now, under the harsh fluorescent lights and accusing stares, Alice feared her beautiful outfit looked provocative and cheap.
After an age spent wilting under the disdainful gazes of passing officers she was taken to a small, cold room and her questioning began in earnest. Hours passed as she trembled on a hard, metal chair; a rotating parade of officers attempted to exhort a confession from her. She had defrauded the hotel of almost a thousand euros, they told her, left a canceled credit card as security, and fled to the Amalfi Coast. She