by Anne Stuart
As he was alone. He stared at the empty space above the sink for a long, hard moment. And then he began to cry.
“Here we are,” Tom announced unnecessarily a few hours later. He’d pulled to a stop in front of a huge, monolithic structure, and Claire peered up at it through the rainy darkness. “Home sweet home,” he added, turning off the engine.
“Where are we?” Nicole piped up from the back seat, asking the question Claire had grown tired of repeating.
If Tom was aware of their silent doubts he didn’t show it. “It’s an old stone barn. It’s been abandoned for years—my partner and I considered leasing it to store our wine barrels while we waited for the stuff to age. It would have been perfect, cool and dark and huge.”
“Why didn’t you?” Claire asked.
“For one thing, we only had twelve barrels—not enough to justify the expense. For another, our wine didn’t age. It just turned to vinegar. Come on, you’ll love it. It’s about five stories tall, with catwalks and haylofts and tiny windows set up high. It’s made of solid stone—it could withstand an invading army.”
“If we had our own army armed with crossbows at every window,” Claire said. “The question is, will it withstand Marc?”
“Bonnard’s probably still in Paris, waiting for us to show up back at my apartment. Even if he did have any idea where we were headed, he’d never find us here. This is at the back end of beyond—Jassy’s more than twelve miles away over treacherous, twisty roads.”
“Only twelve miles away? We’ve been driving for more than three hours.”
Tom managed to look sheepish in the dim light of the car. “I missed my turn a few times. Which is only to our advantage,” he hastened to add. “If I couldn’t find my way here, how will a stranger manage? I threw some blankets in the trunk; there’s probably some old straw left in here. We’ll bed down for the night and deal with things in the daylight. We’ll try the police one more time, and if they still won’t listen I suggest we head over the border into Switzerland.”
“No passports.”
Tom grimaced. “I forgot. Well, we’ll make the police listen. If worse comes to worst we’ll get in touch with the local gendarmes. Even if they’re worse than the Paris police, at least they could offer us decent protection.”
“What’s the difference between the police and the gendarmes? I thought they were the same.” Claire pulled the sleeves down on her sweater, shivering in the cool night air.
“Nope. The police are urban, and under the direction of the Department of the Interior. The gendarmes are rural and belong to the army. Needless to say there’s a fair amount of rivalry going on. We might be able to use that competitiveness to our advantage.”
“I’ll take any advantage we can get,” Claire said wearily, reaching for the handle. Nicole had already scrambled out the back door and was busy poking about in the lightly falling rain.
“Come on, Claire,” she shouted over her shoulder. “This is wonderful.”
Wonderful was not the word for the old stone barn, Claire thought an hour later. The place was huge and damp and musty, the catwalks running around the stone walls looked practically suicidal, and it took most of Claire’s concentration to keep Nicole off them. The steep walls disappeared up into darkness above them, and it was apparent from the puddles on the cobbled floor and the intermittent splashes on their heads that the roof was in uncertain condition.
There was hay all right, damp and moldy and smelling of rodents. Tom mounded piles of the stuff into makeshift beds, tossing blankets on top of them. Two beds, she noticed, one large, one much too small for Tom to sleep on, even if he were alone. Clearly he wasn’t planning on sleeping alone.
They made a meager meal of the leftover bread and cheese. Nicole had already demolished the junk food, but even she pronounced Tom’s wine unfit for human consumption. They sat around in the semi-darkness, lit only by a few candles and a quickly fading flashlight, and gradually the wind abated, the rain softened, the night seemed to mellow around them.
“I don’t suppose anyone wants to tell ghost stories,” Tom suggested lazily. He was stretched out on the larger of the two makeshift beds, seemingly at ease.
“No!” Claire said.
“Yes!” Nicole said with equal enthusiasm.
“I think we have more than enough cause for nightmares right now,” Claire added.
“Don’t sound like a repressive schoolmarm,” Tom said, rolling over onto his back. “I sure as hell would rather dream about werewolves and ghosts than Marc Bonnard.”
“I don’t want to dream about anything,” Nicole said, some of her animation leaving her.
“You don’t have to, sweetheart,” Claire murmured. “Why don’t we go find this stream Tom swears is nearby, wash our hands and face, and then settle down for the night?”
“It’s only eight o’clock,” Tom protested.
“The sooner we sleep the sooner it will be daylight, and the sooner we can go find another telephone,” Claire said. “At least the rain’s stopped for now. Which way is the stream?”
“Out the back. There’s a path leading down to it. You shouldn’t have any trouble—you can hear the sound of rushing water even in here.”
Claire nodded, climbing wearily to her feet and holding out a hand to Nicole. She was going to have to get Tom to regroup the sleeping arrangements. Much as she wanted the comfort of his body wrapped around hers, Nicole needed comfort more. Soon, when this was all over, they could sleep together in peace.
Nicole took her hand, making no effort to pull away as they headed for the narrow opening in the back wall of the barn. The fading flashlight provided meager illumination into the rainy darkness, and Claire hesitated.
“Want me to come with you?” Tom asked, pulling himself into a sitting position.
“Nope. We ladies need a little bit of privacy, don’t we, Nicole?”
Nicole nodded vigorously, clearly pleased to hear herself described with such an adult word. “We have to use the bathroom,” she confided.
Tom nodded solemnly. “Give a holler if you can’t find your way back in the dark.”
“I think the flashlight will last that long. In the meantime you can rearrange the beds a bit. I don’t think you’re going to fit too well on that one,” Claire said calmly, trying to stifle her amusement as Tom’s face fell.
Then he sighed in theatrical resignation. “All right,” he said. “Don’t be gone too long.”
“We won’t,” Claire promised. She stared at him for a long moment, wanting to say so much to him, not knowing where to begin. In the end she didn’t have to say a word. He took her upturned face in his two strong hands and brushed his mouth over hers.
“Be careful,” he murmured, his eyes warm and loving.
“We will be.” But in the end it took much longer than she expected. Despite the noise of the rushing water, the stream was quite far away. The path twisted and turned through trees and overgrown bushes, the dirt had turned to mud beneath their feet, and while Nicole had no qualms about squatting in the woods, it took Claire a moment to overcome her New England inhibitions. They washed in the icy, rushing stream, and for a moment Claire thought longingly of a deep, hot bath soaking away the aches, the pains, the sticky grime of two days on the road. And then she shook herself, as the rain began to fall once more.
“Let’s get back to the barn,” she said, pulling herself upright. “This is one day I can’t wait for to end.”
Nicole murmured something in French, adding in English a succinct “me, too.” Going back was rougher—the batteries in the flashlight were ready to give up the ghost, the path was uphill and even more slippery, and the rain grew heavier as they climbed. The barn loomed ahead of them, and the faint glow of candlelight from the open door was welcoming.
Claire hurried in, stumbling slightly on the rotting door sill, with Nicole at her heels. “Tom …” she began, but he was nowhere in sight.
She turned back to Nicole. “He m
ust have headed for the little boys’ room,” she said.
“Comment?”
Claire understood the tone if not the word. “He’s probably gone to the bathroom himself,” she explained more prosaically. “Why don’t we get settled?”
“He’s made a third bed.” Nicole pointed to a pile of clothing a good distance from the two blanket-covered piles of hay.
“How absurd,” Claire said with a sigh, heading over toward the new pile. “He didn’t have to move that far …” Her voice trailed off. As she drew closer in the shadowy darkness of the old barn she began to recognize the clothes. She hadn’t realized Nicole was following her until the child started screaming.
Blood was everywhere, pooling around Tom’s body. He lay face down in it, and Claire knew with heart-numbing certainty that no one could lose that much blood and still live. She bit back her own horrified scream, grabbed Nicole’s limp arm, and ran, straight out into the pouring rain toward the old Peugeot, hoping and praying they’d make it there before Marc.
The keys were still in it. She shoved Nicole into the seat beside her, locked the doors, and began grinding the starter. For long, desperate moments it just coughed and choked, and Claire bit her lip until it bled, ignoring the tears of panic and despair that rolled down her face, cursing and praying and beating on the steering wheel, certain that Marc’s hideously grinning face would appear at the window.
Finally the damned thing caught. There was no sign of anyone, no shadows in the darkness. Claire slammed the car into gear, slid in the mud until she rested up against a tree, and then, yanking the steering wheel with all her strength, she tore off down the narrow, muddy track.
Malgreave sat alone in the darkness of his living room, listening to the rain. He heard the car pull up outside, and only for a brief moment did he allow himself the fantasy that it might be Marie, changing her mind. He knew the sound of a police car when he heard it, he recognized Josef’s hurried tread on the front steps. He’d heard them often enough to memorize them. He stared at the overflowing ashtray on the table in front of him, listening to the sound of his doorbell, the frenzied pounding on his front door.
They’d been trying to get him for a while, but he hadn’t answered the phone. He’d been afraid it would be Marie, and he didn’t know what he could say to her; he was afraid it wasn’t Marie, and he’d be speechless with rage and disappointment. In the end he simply hadn’t answered. If the rest of his department could be a bunch of self-absorbed incompetents why not him, too? He might as well be as inept as the rest of them.
He leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette, nudging some of the butts aside, out onto Marie’s treasured walnut coffee table. The glass of whiskey sat there, barely touched. For all his determined inattention to duty Malgreave couldn’t bring himself to get as drunk as he so desperately wanted. The game with Bonnard and Guillère wasn’t finished. Even if he’d screwed up his family life, his professional life was still worth salvaging.
He rose, not hurrying, and headed for the door, flicking on the light in the hall as he went. He noted with a distant interest that Josef hadn’t come alone. Vidal, his hated rival, was with him.
“Yes?” He kept his voice low and unpromising.
“They’ve found Guillère,” Vidal announced, and Josef glared at him for stealing his thunder.
“In a small town in the northeast named Jassy,” he added importantly.
“Found him?” Malgreave echoed. “Is he dead?”
“Very much so,” Vidal said.
“He had a bullet in his shoulder, his throat was cut, and his body had been mutilated,” Josef broke in. “And you’ll never guess where he was found.”
“I don’t want to guess,” Louis said evenly, retrieving his still-wet raincoat from the hall floor. “I expect you to tell me, and quickly.”
“He was found in the farmhouse of an old vineyard that belongs in part to Thomas J. Parkhurst.” Josef looked pleased with himself.
“The American friend of Bonnard’s mistress. Interesting,” Malgreave murmured, following them out into the rain.
“And the farmhouse had been recently occupied. Two beds were slept in, clothes were left behind, according to the local gendarmes. Clothes belonging to a woman, a man, and a girl.”
“So it appears Rocco ran afoul of our fugitives. There’ve been no more phone calls?”
“None.” Josef looked abashed. He held the door of the police car for his superior, but Malgreave opened the front door himself and slid in beside Vidal. Josef had no choice but to get in back alone, something that didn’t please him. He knew better than to object.
“Surely you don’t think they killed Rocco?” Vidal demanded, heading out into the traffic at suicidal speed.
“What do you think?” Malgreave countered.
Vidal thought about it. “I would guess the American shot him, and left him there. The bullet would slow him down enough so they could make their escape. Someone else must have used the knife. Someone who’s made a recent habit of using knives. Bonnard?”
“I’d put good money on it,” Malgreave replied. “What do you think, Josef?”
Poor Josef was torn, but a fair man in the end. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I think Vidal is right. The Americans wouldn’t be likely to butcher him. It had to have been Bonnard.”
“And I expect he’s after the Americans right now,” Louis said grimly. “How long will it take us to reach Jassy?”
“Four hours if we drive directly and the weather’s not too bad,” Vidal replied.
“Make it three,” Malgreave answered. “And we may find a promotion for you.”
And Vidal, whose ambition more than equaled Josef’s, stepped on the gas.
CHAPTER 23
Claire gripped the steering wheel, hunched forward, peering into the rainy night. “We’ll be all right, Nicole. We’ll find a phone, we’ll call the police again. If they won’t listen we’ll stop and find a farmhouse, a store, anyplace where someone will help us. We’ll be all right.” Deliberately she kept from mentioning Tom, his body lying in that ever-spreading pool of blood, his long limbs stretched out, limp, useless. Dead.
Nicole said nothing, but Claire needed all her concentration for the road, and she didn’t dare glance at her. “We must have just missed Marc,” she murmured, more for her own sake than Nicole’s. “He probably went looking for us after he … hit Tom. We must have passed him in the dark and he didn’t even realize it. We’ve been lucky, Nicole. Really, we’ve been very lucky.”
Still no response. “And maybe Tom’s not hurt too badly,” she said, knowing she was lying, knowing he was dead. “Maybe Marc just clubbed him on the head. Head wounds bleed terribly, but they’re not always that bad. Maybe he just knocked him unconscious. We’ll go get help, and get him to the hospital, and I bet he’ll be fine. Just fine.” Even to her own ears the excuses sounded lame. She ventured a brief, worried glance at the child beside her. Nicole was sitting very still, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her body swaying with the turns of the old car, her face completely, frighteningly blank.
“Nicole,” Claire said, hearing the panic in her voice and no longer caring. “Nicole, sweetheart, talk to me. Are you all right?”
Absolute silence. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t blink her solemn black eyes, didn’t do a thing but sway with the motion of the speeding car.
“God damn his soul to hell,” Claire muttered tearfully under her breath. “I’ll make him pay for this.” And Nicole, lost in some safe, peaceful world of her own, merely stared straight ahead, into the stormy night.
He moved from the shadows on silent feet. He’d enjoyed watching them, watching her panic and tears. She’d be back. He knew it, he knew it with instincts that were so well-honed they were automatic. She would be back, and he would punish her then.
He looked down at the American’s body. He would have rather used his knife, but the man was too big and too fast for him. He’d settled for hitting him o
ver the head, and the satisfying crunch of wood against bone and flesh had told him it was enough.
He would have liked to have taken his time. He’d paid Rocco back for his disloyalty, for his coveting Claire and Nicole. This man, who’d stolen his women, deserved worse.
But not now. Later, after Claire came back. He’d make the two of them watch. Then Nicole, and then Claire.
If only he had more time. He didn’t dare stretch it out much past dawn. The police would come looking, and he had to be back in Paris, mourning the death of his mother-in-law and the disappearance of his stepdaughter and the deranged woman he’d been living with. It must have been the accident she’d been involved in in the States, he would say, his eyes wide and innocent. Somehow it must have turned her mind, until she confused poor Nicole with the child in Massachusetts. He’d had no idea how her madness had flowered until Nicole said something to him.
And he’d been too late to stop her. She’d killed the American who’d befriended her, murdered the child, and then taken her own life in a fit of remorse. He would have to be very careful in his punishment of her. Any signs, any marks on her slender, pale body, would have to be in keeping with the story he wanted the police to believe. He’d have to forgo the pleasure of teaching her the lesson she deserved. Still, having her watch him with Parkhurst’s corpse and Nicole would be consolation enough.
He sank to the cobbled floor, his legs folding gracefully beneath him. He would wait. Wait for Claire to return, as return she must. And he would be ready.
Claire lost track of the time. She took a dozen wrong turns, the narrow, muddy roads ending in front of the skidding tires of the Peugeot. Each time she yanked the car around and tried another way, all the while keeping up an idiotic, cheery, one-sided conversation with the silent Nicole. Nothing seemed to dent the wall of silence that surrounded the child. She’d shut herself off from everything, having seen too much death.