by Kim Foster
“Come on, Brooke. This has nothing to do with the actual Louvre job. Your agency can’t object, even if they were to find out. It’s not moonlighting. It’s not anything, actually. Come on, you’d just be flexing your skills.”
And, let’s be honest, she’d probably enjoy it, too.
I received nothing by way of a response.
“You know, it’s not without benefit to you,” I pointed out. “If this guy is investigating a potential theft of the Hope, it means he may have a beat on jewel theft in general. Finding out his deal could benefit you at some point down the road.”
“And you can’t do this why, exactly?” she asked me.
I tilted my head and gave her a look suggesting that she knew full well the answer to that.
“Good point,” she said.
She paused, thinking, and took another bite of crepe. She chewed thoughtfully. And then looked at me levelly. “All right. I’ll do it. You’re right. It would be useful to know what an Interpol agent investigating jewel theft is thinking.” A wicked grin escaped her lips. “Might be fun, actually.”
“Thanks, Brooke. I really owe you one.”
She popped the final bite of crepe into her mouth. “Me helping you has nothing to do with this crepe, by the way.”
I grinned. I still had to figure out how to get Hendrickx off the trail. And the small matter of planning to rob the Louvre, of course. One step at a time, though.
Chapter 26
I walked back to my hotel, lost in thoughts and plans. As I walked, the sky grew dark and muddy. One thing about Paris springtime weather, you could never count on anything for long. A chilled breeze kicked up.
Then cold fingers prickled the back of my neck. But this wasn’t because of the change in weather—I was being followed again.
I rolled my eyes. It must be Brooke again. Testing my skills, seeing if I’d brushed up since her little sport on the Champs-Élysées.
Surely she would grow bored of this, though, if I ignored her. I kept walking.
And then my phone rang. I fished it out of my purse and looked at the display. Templeton.
“Feeling okay, love?” he asked when I answered the call.
“Templeton, why don’t you come right out and ask me? You want to know if I’m still afraid of dying. If I’m still having panic attacks.”
There was a pause. “I’m attempting to be sensitive.”
“And I appreciate that. Still, the answer is yes.”
“Yes, you’re okay? Or yes, you’re still afraid?”
“Well, I had a panic attack the other day, when I was on a rooftop, if that helps you.”
Silence. “Well, in that case I’ve got a little good news.”
“That, I could use.”
“Your professor Atworthy will be in Paris this weekend,” Templeton said. I had told Templeton about Atworthy’s past. I had told him he’d helped me in deciding to come to Paris to confront my fears. “It might be good to talk to him again, get some advice on dealing with this fear. It’s obviously a forte of his.”
“How do you know he’s going to be here?”
“Tsk, tsk. What little faith, Flower. I know everything,” he said.
I laughed.
“He’s coming to the City of Lights for his niece’s wedding,” Templeton said. “You could see him then somehow.”
“Templeton, I’ve got so many things I have to do to prep for this job—”
“Stop. Catherine, this is not a suggestion. You are going. His assistant said he is going to be in Paris for only twenty-four hours, and his schedule is packed. But surely you two can find a little time. Call him and set it up.”
He was right. There was no way I would be able to get through what I needed to without a little more help.
I hung up and walked several more blocks, getting closer to the Four Seasons. I turned down an alley, a shortcut to the hotel.
But as soon as I made the turn, I realized I’d chosen the wrong alley. This one was a dead end. It was shadow filled, littered with garbage bins, and cut off from the surrounding streets.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
I exhaled through my nose. Not in the mood, Brooke. I turned to face her and send her on her way.
But when I turned, there was no Brooke. Instead, blocking the entrance to the alley stood Sean Reilly. The other thief who had been casing the Hope.
All my blood drained through my legs to my toes.
He stood there staring at me, observing me with a clinical detachment. I became acutely aware of how alone I was.
“So, Cat Montgomery,” he said with a clipped voice. “It looks like we’ve got a problem. You and I seem to want the same thing.”
It took every ounce of intestinal fortitude not to step back. I had to stand my ground. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, willing my voice to stay strong. Everything Templeton had told me about Reilly was surfacing in my brain, crumbling my nerve. Rotten, unscrupulous, not afraid to use violence . . .
“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Cat.” There was something creepy about the way he used my name in such a familiar way. I felt violated somehow. “I know what you’re doing here in Paris. And I know you know who I am. I know you accessed my file.”
My brain was churning. Who did he work for? How did he know about me?
He took a few slow steps toward me. An immediate adrenaline blast helped me locate escape options—through a door near the back, which might be unlocked, or maybe up the wall somehow—and sent a surge of blood to the muscles of my legs. Ready to run. Or fight.
“You cannot get the Hope,” he said. “And you can only interfere with the plans of people who can. So leave it alone.” His lips were tight as he spoke. “I’m trying to be nice about it. But you will soon find out . . . I’m not all that nice.”
When I returned to my hotel a while later, Ethan was waiting for me in the lobby. He was seated in an armchair, looking at his phone.
“Good timing,” he said cheerfully as I walked in. Then he really looked at me. “What’s wrong?” he asked, serious now. He stood and moved toward me.
“I just had an encounter with Sean Reilly.”
Ethan knew exactly who I was talking about. He raked me with his eyes. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt,” I said. “He didn’t touch me. He just warned me to stay away from the Hope and then walked away.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Well, that’s good . . . that you’re not hurt, anyway.”
I looked up at him. “What am I going to do about Reilly?”
“Are you going to back off?” he asked, gazing into my eyes.
“You know I can’t.”
Ethan shrugged. “Then don’t worry about him. Just keep moving forward.”
I nodded. “I need a drink.”
“Coming right up.”
We walked through the lounge to take a seat at the bar. Once I had a vodka martini in front of me, and once Ethan knew I was okay, he started grinning again. I could tell he had something good to tell me. He could barely contain himself.
I sucked on a vodka-soaked olive as Ethan described visiting the prison. And shared the only piece of useful information he’d gleaned: a name, Lafayette.
“Lafayette? Who is it?”
“Well, I didn’t know at first,” Ethan said, leaning toward me on his bar stool. “But then I started looking into it, doing some digging. And I found that Lafayette was the name of a security guard at the Louvre who was instrumental in busting Bruno.”
“But in prison Bruno said he was a backstabber,” I said as the pieces began to fall together. I shifted in my seat and did my best to ignore the incredibly appealing scent of Ethan’s cologne.
“Yes. So I’m thinking, this prison guard was helping him out. Up to a certain point, anyway.”
“Maybe he was a plant. Someone setting Bruno up, like an entrapment sting.”
Ice cubes clinked in the glass as Ethan took a sip
of his whiskey and narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Possible. But the thing is, Lafayette still works at the Louvre. If he had any kind of official capacity, wouldn’t he have been reassigned if he had been undercover? I had Gladys pull up some of his performance reviews as an employee of the Louvre. Seems to be a fairly disgruntled employee. Bad attitude, frequently late, that kind of thing.”
“So, if he’s a disgruntled guard, he may be motivated to help a thief.”
“He did it once before, it seems. I think something must have gone wrong, and he panicked and blew the whistle on the guy.”
I drained my martini glass. “So this is someone we could not trust.”
“Trust? No. Get information from? Maybe.” Ethan beamed and raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm. Interesting.”
The next day, Ethan went off to see what he could make of the lead, and I got ready to attend a wedding.
Or, more specifically, to crash a wedding.
When I’d called Professor Atworthy, he’d said it would be impossible for me to see him while he was in Paris the next day.
“I’m sorry, Cat. I just won’t have time. My niece is—what is that term?—a bridezilla. She has booked out every minute with various family activities.”
My only option? To crash the wedding and try to speak to him there. I was in trouble, I needed help, and I needed it fast.
I dressed in my best wedding-crashing outfit: a navy silk Alexander McQueen, cocktail length. Not so much swagger to draw undue attention, and just enough swank to blend in.
I hired a car to take me to Vaux-le-Vicomte, a seventeenth-century château just outside Paris. A fairly opulent venue for a wedding, but evidently, this was a bride who would settle for nothing less.
Fortunately, I wasn’t totally inexperienced when it came to crashing weddings. Receptions were traditionally a fabulous opportunity for a little pickpocketing work. I’d had many assignments at weddings. It was refreshing to be able to use my skills for less directly nefarious purposes.
Walking in, all I could see was jewelry. Bling this, sparkly that, it was enough to throw my concentration. The air rippled with the sound of a string quartet and the lush scent of white peonies by the thousands. An ice sculpture shimmered beneath a glittering chandelier.
Crashing a wedding requires a few things. You have to look the part, of course. You need to know the dress code. Furthermore, you need to behave naturally. No furtive behavior, no hiding from people. And under no circumstances should you attempt to sneak in. Just stroll in like you were invited.
Of course, nobody will recognize you, but how different is that from many of the weddings you attend? Don’t be unnerved by people wondering who you are. Just smile with an expression that suggests you’re wondering who they are.
And this approach was working for me today at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Right until I encountered the wedding planner.
The bride might be bridezilla, but the planner was equal parts drill sergeant, gestapo, and inner-city vice principal.
I was standing among a group of people signing the guest book when I got yanked out of the crowd and interrogated in a caustic rain of French. A rough translation of her words went something like this: “Who are you? I do not know you. Are you an invited guest? I do not think so. Wait here. I am going to find out exactly who you are.”
Waiting was not going to work for me. Because waiting wouldn’t get me any closer to talking with Atworthy.
So I watched the wedding planner disappear through an arching doorway into the Grand Salon. And then, when nobody was looking, I slipped along the foyer and through side doors into the ballroom. Guests dressed in Valentino and Versace were mingling, sipping champagne. Waiters wove through the crowd, offering lacquered trays of hors d’oeuvres.
Now I was doing a trickier maneuver. I had to keep one eye searching for my target—Atworthy—and one eye on the lookout for the wedding planner.
I programmed my brain to register green—the color the wedding planner was wearing. Anything green in my peripheral or direct vision would trigger an alarm. Likewise, I needed a quick change of outfit. There was a sky-blue pashmina resting on the back of a chair. I casually swiped it as I walked by and wrapped it over my shoulders.
That should help a little.
As I walked, I surreptitiously tugged at the pins holding my bun together and let my hair fall down. Good. Another little change. Each of these should buy me a few minutes, anyway.
I saw the wedding planner speaking urgently to the father of the bride, and the two of them angrily looking about the room. I assumed they were looking for me.
And I must say, this was a lot more hostility than I typically received during a party-crashing effort. But I soon figured it out.
In the meantime, I needed to attach myself to a group. I scanned for appropriate candidates. There was a small clutch of women nearby—not my first choice. I usually had a little more luck with men, but I didn’t have many options at the moment. I needed to join a herd, where I could safely look around the room for Atworthy, while avoiding the hunting gaze of the wedding planner.
I approached the women, plucking an unattended glass of wine off the table as I went. I had no intention of drinking it; I just needed something to hold in my hand.
Now, if I were actually looking to make friends, I’d perhaps introduce myself. As it was, I just wanted to gather into the circle unobtrusively. So I sidled up to them and smiled politely, as though we were distant acquaintances. They were in the middle of an animated conversation, in rapid French, about babies.
This was somewhat unfortunate, as it was a topic I knew nothing about. I caught a few fragments on sleep-training techniques and then a little something about toilet training. Was parenting just a series of training exercises? Some of the women had passionate viewpoints on both topics, which I found fascinating, because I was sweating with the effort to seem even mildly interested.
I grew increasingly uncomfortable as it became obvious I was not contributing in any way to this conversation. One or two of the women looked my way with curiosity, and perhaps mild suspicion. I had to join in. I had to say something, or this was not going to work.
Glancing at the woman beside me, I grasped at an opener. “So when is your baby due?” I asked in French, smiling brightly.
At this point, all conversation in the group ceased. Hell, I think maybe the string quartet even stopped playing.
I knew in an instant, by the woman’s offended expression, that I had selected the worst possible thing to say.
“I am not pregnant,” she said through her teeth.
The smile remained frozen on my face as I struggled for damage control. But what could I possibly say? My eyes flicked down to her belly again—I couldn’t resist—and, damn it, she really did look pregnant. I felt awful, but this was an innocent mistake. Anyone could make it. I glanced at the other women to see they were not on board with this.
I took a big gulp of wine and scanned my brain for damage-control strategies. The instant I swallowed, I remembered a key point: not my wine.
Oh God. I raised my hand to cover my mouth as a wave of queasiness pulsed over me.
At that moment, someone across the circle said, “Hey! Is that my pashmina?” She was staring directly at the pashmina I was wearing draped across my shoulders, one that I had most definitely swiped.
“Hmm? No, I don’t think so . . . ,” was all I could say, feigning confusion.
She reached across and grabbed the bottom corner. “It is,” she said. “Here’s where I spilled red wine earlier.” Sure enough, she held up the pashmina to reveal two telltale drops of red wine, like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands.
“Oh, ha-ha,” I said weakly. “I suppose I did grab it by mistake. I have one just like it.” I promptly removed the pashmina and handed it to her.
At this, the women turned on me like bad cheese.
It was time to exit stage left. See what I mean about having better luck with a group of men?
I slunk off to the side under disgusted glares of contempt. French women, I might point out, have no natural urges to hide such emotions out of politeness.
But now I was exposed again. Fortunately, the wedding planner was on the other side of the room. For now.
At that moment, I spotted Atworthy. I headed straight for him, keeping one eye locked on the wedding planner. I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned, his expression a mixture of surprise and confusion, and then a smile played over his face.
“Catherine,” he said. He turned to place his empty glass on the bar. “Good girl.”
We slipped away and found a corner of the lobby lounge.
“I probably have only a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll be required back in the dining hall for the speeches and all that. I’m the emcee.”
He looked at me carefully and began to smirk.
“You probably don’t have long, either,” he said. “Has anyone here told you who you’re a dead ringer for?”
And then I learned about the one thing guaranteed to interfere with a successful wedding-crashing effort: if you resemble too closely the groom’s mistress.
Awkward.
So that was it. I got straight to the point after hearing that. I described everything that had been going on. I needed some strategies for dealing with the panic attacks.
“I need to know. How do I get over this fear?”
“I don’t know if I can tell you that, Catherine. I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“But what strategies did you use when you were afraid?”
“Well, do you feel like you’re floating away? Like you’re going to disappear? Hold on to something tangible, something real. Like keys. Or a door frame.”
I thought of the tarot card I carried everywhere with me now. Maybe that was what I was attempting to do with that card.
“What if I’m already doing that and it’s not working?”
“You need to make sure you’re breathing. You know, diaphragmatic breathing. And maybe you need to work on some meditation.” I was taking mental notes. This was good stuff.