131108 Part 1

She was standing on a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Dusty road as far as the eye could see except for the rusty bus stop sign close by. Her long blonde hair moving slightly in the wind as she looked down the road. There were no cars. The rest stop was abandoned. She was wearing a pair of strappy silver stilettos. Givenchy, she thought, they must be Givenchy. Her coat was black and ended above her knees. She shivered and closed it wondering why she was only wearing lingerie underneath. Something was very wrong. She'd never owned a mink coat before and she didn't remember putting on her diamond necklace or ring for that matter.

Come to think of it, she didn't remember anything that had happened lately. Of course she remembered her name, Christine Rose. She also remembered she was one of those Roses who owned half of London. Strangely enough she didn't remember why or how she had ended up on an abandoned rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Okay, she thought, I'll have to do something. So she started looking around for something she'd missed.

There seemed to be something over by the bus stop, so she made her way over there and found a silver, last season Dolce & Gabbana bag. She knelt down, picked up the bag and rummaged through it frantically. Inside the bag was an INQ1 phone, a roll of £20 bills, an Esteé Lauder lipstick - she turned it over, colour "Sugar Daddy", a Louis Vuitton datebook and a set of keys on a chain with a large diamond encrusted C. Christine reached for the mobile and looked at it. She pressed speed dial 1 and nothing. Then she checked the contacts and noticed it was empty as was the the call log. The phone was brand new, and to her horror she noticed that there was no signal. Bloody 3, she muttered to herself. Why hadn't she brought her trusty iPhone 3G?

Next she checked her datebook. She wrote everything in her trusty datebook, even with the iPhone she still maintained the old one. It was her diary too and she liked sitting in car on the way home writing. She doodled, wrote about her friends, the wannabe's and her family. Then to her horror she noticed the last week had been ripped out. What had happened, why was she in the middle of nowhere wearing practically no clothes? The shoes were great though. Christine loved shoes.

It was as if someone had deliberately erased the past week. Christine remembered getting a strange invite to some VIP party in east London. She had been very reluctant about going as the invite had been strange and when she found out it was near Liverpool St. she had almost asked the driver to turn around. She liked her penthouse in Soho a lot and although she didn't get along that great with the parental unit their house in Belgravia was quite alright too.

The Roses had lived in their big Belgravia house for a couple of generations but they originated from New York. Someway along the road they'd moved to London and bought the house. Christine wasn't that interested in the family history. She didn't care about how much money they had either, she was aware they had more than most and her brother and her went to the best schools. Her father Warren Rose ran the company, an investment company that buys up companies, turns them profitable and sells them again. Her mother Rebecca was groomed to marry rich from she was baby, so she managed the household. Rebecca had tried the same with Christine but had failed miserably as her daughter would have none of that.

Now Christine stood, 23 years old, at an abandoned rest stop in the middle of nowhere, in what could only be described as an upper class booty call outfit, with no means of getting away than a good samaritan offering her a ride. She frowned and checked the INQ1 again. Still no signal. As she stood there she tried to remember how she'd gotten there.

The party! The INQ1 promo party in East London. That's it, that was the last thing she remembered. There had been funky Chinese women on the walls and a DJ spinning records in the backroom. Not to mention that young man. She'd bumped into him and he'd smiled at her. Alas he was with someone or she would have said something. Of course he'd caught her staring at him as he'd set down a glass on a shelf. Then nothing. What had happened after that? It was weird. It was like something was suppressing her memory. Had he introduced himself, she thought he'd mentioned his name but she couldn't remember.

Christine gave up and sat down on the ground and emptied her bag onto the ground. There was also a roll of Polo mints and a piece of thick glossy paper. It was red, and something Chinese on it. Oh, yes. That must have been part of the posters they had handed out. There was a number on the back, 0500 131 108. Suddenly there was a sound. The sound of a car. She put her things back in her bag and got to her feet.

The car stopped, and the man behind the wheel rolled down the window and asked if she needed a lift. Christine smiled and got into the car.