by Anne Stuart
She could make gestures, too. She held up a hand in the murky darkness, beckoning him. Her hand didn’t shake. “Come and get me,” she cooed again. “Or we can just stand here all night long.”
She thought she heard noises far beneath her, but she didn’t dare look. Maybe Nicole was fool enough to come out into the open, but it wouldn’t matter. As long as she stood between Marc and Nicole, the child would be safe. And Claire was prepared to stand there forever.
He moved again in the darkness, coming infinitesimally closer, shrugging his shoulders, curving his arms in a defenseless gesture only slightly marred by the knife. His head was cocked to one side; his whole body shivered with sorrow and longing and a twisted sort of love.
And then he lunged. She could never be certain where her energy came from. She was standing motionless, awaiting the knife, when she heard the noise from below, jerking her from her dreamy state. “Damn you, no!” she shrieked as he leapt on her, hitting at him, the knife slicing painlessly into her hand.
He was standing there, motionless, staring at her for a timeless moment, shock and sorrow in his mad dark eyes. And she realized he was standing on air, as he fell, slowly, silently, his soundless scream filling her ears as she watched him tumble, gracefully—oh, so gracefully—to his death on the flagstones far below.
There were people below, people surrounding the curiously flattened shape of Marc Bonnard. The catwalk shifted and swayed as Claire climbed down, her bloody hand clinging to the splintery railing. When she reached the ground floor, men rushed up to help her, but she hit them away. In her confusion she saw two men lying on the floor. One was Tom, and people were working feverishly on him. She wanted to rush to his side, to assure herself that he was still alive, but her feet refused to obey her.
Slowly, dazedly, she crossed the stone floor, pushing the huddle of police aside, until she stood over Marc’s body. There was no doubt about him—the back of his head was crushed, his neck at a hideous angle, his beautiful, graceful body destroyed. The black, mad eyes were still and staring, and he was very, very dead.
She looked across the corpse into Nicole’s eyes. The blankness was gone as she looked down at the man who’d murdered her mother and grandmother, the man who had tried to kill her.
“Bon,” she said succinctly, meeting Claire’s questioning gaze.
“Bon,” said Claire, speaking French for the first and only time in her life. And holding out her arms, she waited for Nicole to run into them.
EPILOGUE
Malgreave lit another cigarette. God, he was getting sick of the taste of these wretched things. He ought to toss them out. After all, he was going to have to accustom himself to a new life. Might as well make a clean sweep.
It was eleven o’clock the next morning. He hadn’t been back to his house in the suburbs, and if it were up to him he wouldn’t return. The house was empty without Marie, and he didn’t know if he could stand it.
Josef was standing in the office he coveted, staring out the window. His thinning hair was standing up on his high, domed forehead, his suit was rumpled, his face set in an expression of gloom and disappointment.
Malgreave grinned sourly. Helga was going to give him hell, and Josef deserved it. “Look at it this way, old friend,” Malgreave said gently, “at least the Americans are alive. Both of them, and the child, too.”
Josef snorted, and Malgreave felt once more that disquieting feeling. When it came to the human angle Josef was missing something. Malgreave could sympathize—fifteen years of Paris police work could take the humanity out of anybody. You had to fight to keep it. Malgreave had, Vidal had. If Josef had lost it, he’d be a worse cop for it.
Finally Josef whirled around. “Did you see what the papers said? Calling us inept, incompetent, a bunch of Keystone Kops bumbling around while people were being murdered?”
“No, I didn’t see it. What good would it do? We did some things well, some things very badly. The problem with this job, Josef, is that when we screw up, people die. And we screwed up.”
Josef swore, an obscenity unusual from his chaste lips. “You said you were going to retire when we caught the killers?”
Malgreave nodded. “I am.”
Josef’s face brightened. “Then …”
“Then you can prepare yourself for your next assignment,” Malgreave said gently.
“Assignment?”
“Vidal is being named chief inspector in my place. You’ll be his assistant.”
Josef’s face whitened. “You haven’t even handed in your resignation yet. How do you know … ?”
“I handed it in several hours ago. In it I made my recommendations.”
“And I get screwed,” Josef said bitterly. “All for one little fuck-up.”
“For one little fuck-up that nearly cost three innocent people their lives, Josef. I’m sorry.”
“The hell you are!” Josef slammed out of the office, out of the building, without a backward glance.
Malgreave stubbed out his cigarette. God, it was about time he retired. He was getting too old for this. He’d finish his report, give it to Gauge to type, and then take off. He’d spent too much of his life swamped by the Grandmother Murders. It was time to break free.
He stared down at the torn and tattered paper in front of him. They’d found it on Bonnard’s body, and it explained a great deal of what Malgreave had begun to suspect. Scrawled in a boyish, almost illegible hand, written in human blood, it was the pact, made by a bunch of abused young boys. It was all spelled out, from the weather to the victims, all very ritualistic and depressing. And twenty-five years later they’d all tried to live up to it, with varying degrees of success.
He leaned closer to the paper, peering at it. He’d left his glasses at home, and his eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be. Half the words were illegible; he could make out two of the signatures, but he had to guess at the other two. Except that it looked as if there were five signatures on the shredded paper, and only four murderers accounted for.
Claire sat outside the hospital room, her bandaged hand resting lightly on Nicole’s shoulder. They both looked like hell, she thought. Exhausted, tear-stained, filthy and hungry, they looked like refugees. But neither of them was going anyplace until she found out whether Tom was going to make it.
The police said he would, but the police were very low on her list of trusted personnel. The gash on his head required countless stitches, but at least Marc hadn’t had a chance to use his knife. Rest was what he needed, rest and antibiotics to ward off infection. The hay Marc had stashed him under was laced with chicken manure. Neither the smell nor the sanitation of it was to be recommended.
The door to Tom’s room opened, and Claire rose, followed by Nicole. “How is he?”
The doctor launched into a spate of French, but Claire, instead of feeling miserable and inadequate, held up her hand. “In English, please,” she said regally, knowing full well the doctor could manage if he tried.
The doctor, like his American counterparts, considered himself to be one step below the Almighty and didn’t like taking orders from a mere mortal. With an irritated sigh he launched into a halting explanation. “He’s resting comfortably. With luck we’ll take him off the intravenous tube tomorrow. We’ve given him something to help him sleep, and by tomorrow he’ll be feeling much better. Go home.”
Claire smiled sweetly. “Thank you, doctor.” And pushing past him, she walked into Tom’s room, with Nicole trailing behind her.
He looked like hell, tubes going into him, tubes coming out, his face pale, his sandy hair in a tangle around his face. For a moment Claire panicked, wondering if the doctor had lied to her, when he opened his beautiful blue eyes and smiled at her.
“I forced my way in here,” she announced without preamble.
“I’m sure you did,” he said, his voice weak, his grin a semblance of his usual charm.
“I had to make sure you were okay.”
“Fit as a fiddle,” he
said, though she could see the effort was costing him.
“I just thought I ought to mention something,” Claire said, coming closer and taking the hand that wasn’t encumbered with an i.v.
“What?”
“I love you.”
His grin broadened. “That’s right. We never got around to mentioning that, did we?”
“No, we didn’t.” Her fingers gently stroked the warm flesh.
“In case you didn’t catch on, I love you, too,” he said.
She nodded. “I just wanted to make sure. After all, we promised Nicole a Burger King on every corner. Go to sleep. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he said softly, shutting his eyes again.
“Tomorrow,” she said, leaning over and brushing her lips against his.
It was early afternoon when Malgreave let himself in his front door. He hadn’t wanted to go home, but he was never a man to shirk his duty. He couldn’t run away from the empty house—he would have to deal with it, learn to live without Marie, sooner or later, and the longer he put it off the worse it would be.
For some reason the house didn’t feel as desolate when he walked in the door. He looked over at the walnut coffee table. His half-drunk glass of whiskey was gone, the overflowing ashtray had disappeared.
He wrinkled his forehead. Maybe he’d dumped them in the kitchen last night, but he didn’t remember doing so. He headed toward the kitchen, moving to the sink to pour himself a glass of water, when he heard her. Marie’s voice. “Louis, are you home?” she called from upstairs.
He looked at the sink. There on the shelf, tucked neatly beside his blood pressure medicine and the ancient aspirin, were vitamins and minerals and fish oil and rose hips. And closing his eyes for a moment, his whole body trembled in joy and relief.
It was raining in London. They’d had an unusual streak of sunny weather that spring, but now it was raining again, coming down in buckets.
Jean-Pierre Simon sat at his desk at the Bank of France, staring out into the pouring rain. He’d lived in London for fifteen years; there were times when he felt more English than French. But not when it rained.
When it rained he remembered a dark day twenty-five years ago, the smell of fire and roses and burnt flesh. And he felt urges so dark and evil he wanted to wipe them from his brain. But each year they grew stronger, more unmanageable.
“Nasty day, isn’t it, Mr. Simon?” Mrs. Grandy said cheerfully, her wrinkled old face creased in a smile. She was well past retirement age, but she enjoyed her work as a teller in the bank, and his boss kept her on. She always made him nervous, as all old women did, and he tried not to remember why.
But this time Jean-Pierre didn’t snub her, and his long fingers toyed with the silver letter opener on his spotless desk. “Nasty indeed, Mrs. Grandy.” And he watched her walk away with a dreamy smile on his face. The time had come.
Author Bio
I’ve been writing since the dawn of time. A child prodigy, I made my first professional sale to Jack and Jill Magazine at the age of 7, for which I received $25 (admittedly my father worked for the publisher). Since then I’ve written gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, historical romance, series romance—anything with sex and violence, love and redemption. I misbehave frequently, but somehow have managed to amass lots of glittering prizes, like NYT, PW and USA Today bestseller status, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America, and a decent smattering of Romantic times and RITA awards.
I live on a lake in Northern Vermont with my incredibly fabulous husband. My two children have flown the coop, but the three cats do their best to keep us from being lonely.
In my spare time I quilt and play around with wearable art, and the rest of the time I write write write. Apparently women of a certain age get a rush of creativity, and I’m currently enjoying it. Too many stories to write, not enough hours in the day.