Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “Good point,” Maggie said, looking around the festival. “Oh, there’s someone selling calissons. In for a penny…”

  “I think the rest of that saying is in for another pound,” Grace said.

  “Gosh, you are so amusing, Grace, I can barely stand it,” Maggie said, heading for the candy kiosk. “I’m buying them for Jemmy and Zouzou.”

  *****

  Laurent shifted Jem to his other arm and looked around to see if he could spot Maggie. It was a warm day, not unusual for summer, but the huge plane trees that bordered the square provided ample shade for the festival. He spotted her easily and, as usual, a smile curved around his lips when he did.

  It was good that just the sight of her always gave him pleasure. She never seemed aware of herself, how she moved, how she looked. He glanced at Grace next to Maggie, and while he admitted Grace was beautiful, he saw a more relaxed, less practiced way of moving in Maggie. It was this unselfconscious presentation to the world that intrigued and delighted Laurent the most.

  To stare much longer would inevitably generate the possibility of catching her eye, and just now that was not his intention or desire. He turned and slipped behind the awning of a tall kiosk selling barrels of glistening olives bobbing in oil. He didn’t need to look down to know that Zouzou was by his thigh. The child was devoted to him and mindful, even at her young age, of the necessity of not wandering off—at least not from Oncle Laurent.

  He sat in a wooden chair pushed up to a table well hidden from view and settled Jem on his lap. Zouzou stood next to him: solemn, alert, curious.

  “Bonjour, Laurent.”

  He smiled at the woman who seated herself in the chair opposite him, then leaned over and kissed her proffered cheeks in greeting. She was flawless in that way of French women who know their assets and step into them as comfortably as breathing. He had often compared her to his Maggie. Adele Bontemps was completely secure in her effect on men. That was clear from the message in her eyes to the smile on her pink, full lips.

  “Are we hiding today?”

  “Not at all. Are we drinking?”

  Adele smiled and held up a single, slim hand without taking her eyes off Laurent.

  A bottle of clear amber pastis was set on the table between them, with a crystal ewer of water and two small glasses. Adele poured a healthy shot into each glass and added a small amount of water. Instantly the yellow liquid clouded.

  Laurent watched her eyes go to Zouzou as she lifted the glass to her lips.

  “Never mind,” Laurent said to Adele as he reached for his own glass. “The little ones keep my secrets.”

  Eight

  “Non. I forbid it.”

  “Okay, stop that, Laurent. You know you can’t forbid me.”

  “I am doing it.”

  “Well, no, you’re not. We live in the twenty-first century.”

  “You said this woman was no longer a friend of yours. Not for years. Why does this matter to you? Explain this to me.”

  “Okay. Lanie’s mother used me as the paragon of perfect daughterhood with Lanie growing up. Annie was going through a bad time and she—”

  “But this is something she did. Not you.”

  “I’m not doing it because of guilt.”

  “That’s not true. That’s all this is about. Your guilt.”

  “She asked me, Laurent.”

  “Hasn’t she caused enough problems? First with her own daughter, and now making you feel that her death has anything to do with you?”

  “I feel sorry for her, Laurent. And yes, I feel guilty because I left the friendship and I didn’t try to find out why she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I just gave up on her.”

  “And you think this giving up led to her death? You think if you had stayed friends she would not have divorced? Or been bitter and angry? You think you have that much power, chérie? Vraiment?”

  “I played a part in it. Lanie needed my friendship—”

  “You said she turned away from you.”

  “Yes, so what? She needed me!”

  “You are seeing this relationship through different glasses now, no? It is like an adult child of divorcing parents rewriting his memories of his childhood.”

  “Maybe it’s seeing the truth for the first time.”

  “I think it is foolish and self-indulgent to go.”

  “But?”

  “But I suppose I can see no real harm in it—as long as you do not climb out on any tree limbs. Eh? Promise me that? No skulking in caves or slipping into abandoned mines?”

  Maggie burst out laughing. “You’ve been reading Jemmy’s Hardy Boys.”

  “It is much the same with you, no? Promise me you will not be stupid. You are somebody’s mother now. Jemmy needs you in one piece. As do I.”

  “I promise. Two days. I’ll ask some questions—all of which will no doubt confirm that Olivier is the murderer—then reassure Annie and come home to my little family.”

  Laurent grunted but pulled her into his arms for a long kiss.

  *****

  Grace turned off the car but didn’t immediately get out. She listened to the sounds of the engine click and shudder as it settled into silence. She was pretty sure she was the only one who ever stopped at this dirt turnaround, half of a mile before the sign for the village of St-Buvard was visible. She didn’t remember when she’d gotten in the habit of stopping here. When she used to smoke, that’s for sure, she thought wryly as she noted the impulse to dig through her purse for a cigarette. She’d quit two years ago.

  Annoying, she thought with a smile. It was always so much more pleasant with a cigarette.

  Grace loved St-Buvard. That was almost the worst thing about leaving France a year ago, leaving this little world behind. Perched on the side of a hill with the remains of a Roman aqueduct at its base, St-Buvard was tinier than most little French villages. With one charcuterie, one bureau de tabac, and one café, St-Buvard was indeed petit. That was precisely why Grace and Windsor had settled there over eight years ago in a small, renovated château ten kilometers outside the village.

  Had it really been so long ago? So much had changed. So much was gone.

  She glanced at the cell phone sitting in its recharger dock in the console. She reached out and tapped it with a finger and then decided against calling.

  What would I say? Hi there. I’m sitting out in front of the village remembering how it used to be. Is your girlfriend there? Can you talk?

  Grace curled her outstretched fingers into a fist and placed it in her lap. She glanced at her watch. Maggie was probably en route about now, but there was a section of country from Aix to St-Tropez where cell reception was nonexistent. Perhaps Maggie was nearly to the coast? She picked up her phone.

  I am the last person to need advice on affairs of the heart. And God knows, Maggie is the last person I’d be mad enough to look to for answers in that category.

  Wasn’t it just amazing dumb luck that Maggie had found Laurent? And then kept him?

  Grace dropped the phone back in its dock. Now that’s a thought. What if it really is a skill you’re just born with?

  Because while it was absolutely true Maggie had the fashion sense of a demented Minnie Pearl, and equally true she tended to blunder her way though her marriage like a bull on steroids, it was also true that her friend had a man who was deeply in love with her.

  Grace turned the car on. She had plenty of time—thank you, Haley. She had a good three hours before she was to meet Gabriel at Le Deux Garçons in Aix. Her stomach clenched briefly when she thought of him.

  Stop that, she admonished herself. You’re just nervous.

  She would arrive in town with plenty of time to park and see if there were any new boutiques on the Cours Mirabeau. It was positively startling to her that it had been so long since she’d been to Aix.

  She drove down the narrow tree-lined road away from St-Buvard, feeling the cool breeze of her car’s air conditioning gently rearrange her long curls a
s they framed her face. Bless Haley for watching Zouzou today, she thought again with a smile, and felt her mood lift.

  Her eyes strayed to her purse. Perhaps she would stop at a tabac in Aix. Surely one cigarette wouldn’t hurt.

  *****

  Maggie tapped the pedometer but the numbers didn’t budge. There was no way she hadn’t walked more steps than it was reading.

  Stupid thing. Probably measuring in kilometers or something useless like that. She sighed and clipped the pedometer back onto the waistband of her white linen shorts. Grace had begged her not to wear the shorts—said they’d make her look big-bottomed and she’d never be able to keep them from wrinkling desperately—but they were cool and comfortable.

  She really wished she’d listened to Grace.

  Laurent had driven her to the Aix train station early that morning, where she caught the train to Fréjus on the coast. Her brief conversation on the phone with Bob Randall assured her she’d have “loads of fun” and would finish the tour in a little more than two days.

  That was just about the limit of Laurent’s patience. To be honest, Maggie wasn’t sure what she would do on the tour or even what questions to ask. She had no overriding reason to believe Olivier was innocent. Really, she was just collecting information, talking to the people who had known Lanie, and then checking it off her list so she could call Annie back and tell her she’d done her best.

  What did it mean that Olivier was not the father of Lanie’s unborn child? Could it have been as easy as the fact that Lanie had an affair? Well, she certainly had never reported a rape, so it was a pretty safe bet if it wasn’t Olivier’s that Lanie had stepped out on him.

  Unfortunately, the baby not being Olivier’s now gave him a motive. Poor Olivier, Maggie thought, shaking her head as she watched the flat expanse of French countryside fly by her window. Way to have that one turn around and bite you on the butt. She hoped his attorney would at least argue that if Olivier had known the baby wasn’t his would he logically have begged for a DNA test? Clearly, he assumed the baby was his.

  But if you took Olivier out of the picture for just a moment the news meant that the father of Lanie’s baby—whoever that was—might have a class-A motive for killing her. Especially if, say, a knocked-up tour guide on your popular television travel show displayed a propensity to reveal her sources?

  Talk about public broadcasting, Maggie thought grimly.

  The parting at the train station with Laurent had not been exactly icy, but neither had it been very mushy either. Maggie knew he wasn’t thrilled with her leaving—especially not with a house full of guests—but she also picked up on a certain amount of relief to have her gone for a bit. In many ways, that scared her more than anything else.

  What in the hell is going on, Laurent? She prayed that Grace would have better luck in the next two days.

  When her train arrived in Fréjus, Maggie saw Desiree standing on the platform waiting for her.

  Guess she got the short straw.

  It was just barely midday and Maggie found herself wondering where lunch fit into the itinerary. She cursed Laurent for keeping her too well fed. She was always hungry now, and the time when she could walk away from a tarte de pomme or even a simple cassoulet was long ago. At this rate she would never lose the baby weight.

  “Bonjour, Desiree,” she said brightly as she descended from the train onto the platform.

  The woman nodded curtly at her and forced a return greeting out between clenched teeth. It was probably her association with Lanie, but it was very clear Desiree didn’t like her. In fact, hadn’t liked her from the get-go.

  “We are to meet the others at lunch,” Desiree said, turning away as Maggie ran to keep up. Desiree was wearing four-inch heels on her sandals, but her long legs were athletic and she had to stop more than once to wait for Maggie to catch up to her. That was all the more embarrassing because Maggie knew Desiree was older than she was.

  It didn’t matter. She consoled herself that she was logging in the steps on the pedometer, which might allow her to indulge in a little dessert at lunch. With a sinking heart, she saw as they left the train station, that Desiree was not leading Maggie to a parked car. Clearly the woman had walked to the station.

  The more steps I rack up, Maggie told herself reasonably, the more I can relax at lunch. She thought that she would look at her two days away from Laurent and his kitchen as an opportunity to fast—or at least cut down to three meals a day—but she felt her resolve waiver the closer she got to the restaurant section of Fréjus.

  The aroma of cooking seafood, saffron and garlic seemed to fill the air as she and Desiree turned down one narrow cobblestone street. Directly ahead, Maggie saw the road dead-end into a large outdoor restaurant. The umbrellas over the tables were a deep green and gave the impression of a lush garden among all the stone and brickwork. Dee-Dee stood up from one of the large tables and waved to them.

  Everyone was there. Jim and Janet Anderson looked up from their wine and dishes of olives and smiled blandly at her and then went back to their conversation. Bob Randall stood up from the table and spread his arms out to Maggie although he had not even looked in her direction when they met in Nice.

  “Madame Dernier,” he boomed out. “Come sit next to me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you agreed to serve as our guinea pig for this tour!”

  Maggie noticed that Desiree simply sat down and lit up a cigarette. Her job was done.

  “We have a huge order of fried calamari coming,” Dee-Dee said, pouring Maggie a glass of rosé wine.

  So much for the diet, Maggie thought with resignation as she reached for the wineglass.

  Lunch was prolonged and wonderful. After the first hour, Maggie stopped keeping mental notes to share with Laurent and just sat back and enjoyed the foie gras au torchon, the heavenly moules Provençale steamed in white wine, olives and garlic and, oh, the amazing rack of lamb with the juniper demi-glace. Maybe she would tell Laurent about that one. She tucked her pedometer into her purse. It felt like it was pinching her waist every time she turned in her seat.

  Just from a cursory examination of the small tour group, she could see that Jim and Janet were a closed society unto themselves, caring only for each other’s conversation or company. Dee-Dee had said they were wealthy, so it was possible they used that as a reason not to socialize too closely with the others.

  On the other hand, the others were all deeply crazy in one form or another.

  Randall was the sun around which everyone revolved, that much was clear. Maggie could still feel the charm radiating off him. It wasn’t just that the sought-after prize came at his discretion, and that it included working closely with him. It was also because the man had an aura of charisma that seemed to draw everyone into his sphere—even waiters and shopkeepers, Maggie noticed.

  Full and thickheaded from the afternoon wine followed by multiple cups of espresso, Maggie wondered how any of them were going to perform in any kind of coherent manner for the afternoon tours.

  “We took the day off because of you,” Dee-Dee said.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that,” Maggie said, her eyes watching as Desiree drunkenly tugged at Randall under the table.

  “Well, some of us will be working, of course,” Dee-Dee said tartly. “Some of us are always working.”

  “Tais-toi,” Desiree snarled.

  “Now, girls,” Randall said, his arm going around the back of Desiree’s chair. “We’ve had a lovely lunch, haven’t we? Let’s don’t ruin it. Are you tired, darling?” he said to Desiree, his eyes glossy with drunken lust.

  Looking at Dee-Dee and not Randall, Desiree smiled slyly and nodded. Maggie thought it was the first smile she’d seen the woman give. It wasn’t pretty.

  Randall and Desiree stood up and staggered away from the table without a backward glance.

  “Disgusting,” Dee-Dee said, watching them retreat down the long street and disappear.

  Maggie turned to her. “I thought
you said they weren’t an item. I thought you said it was all in Desiree’s head.”

  A loud bark of a laugh made Maggie turn in surprise to the Andersons at the end of the table. They were both watching Maggie.

  “Is that what Dee-Dee told you?” Jim said. “Well, that is truly pathetic. Even for our little Dee-Dums.” He laughed again.

  Dee-Dee jumped to her feet, lost her balance and fell back into her chair, knocking her wineglass over onto the table. She was successful on the next try, grabbing her purse and making the best possible show of swanning out of the outdoor restaurant. Maggie watched her go and then looked back at the couple.

  “So Dee-Dee’s got a torch for Randall?” The couple exchanged a look, trying to decide if it would be appropriate to condescend to converse with her.

  Finally, Janet leaned across the table. “It’s a fascinating study in human behavior. Dee-Dee wants Bob but Bob wants…wait for it…Lanie.”

  Maggie frowned. “But isn’t he sleeping with Desiree?”

  “Didn’t I say it was fascinating?”

  “Don’t forget the best part,” Jim said as he placed a hand on his wife’s arm. “The best part is that Desiree knows that Bob really wanted Lanie.”

  “But Lanie said no?”

  “Supposedly,” Janet said, her eyes glittering with cryptic meaning. Maggie reminded herself that according to Dee-Dee, Lanie had said yes to Jim. And while that might give him bragging rights since it sounded like she wasn’t totally undiscerning, it also gave his wife, Janet, motive.

  Maggie looked back down the narrow road where Desiree and Randall had vanished.

  “So Desiree is sleeping with Randall, but everyone knows he preferred to be with Lanie—who he couldn’t have.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wow,” Maggie said. “Desiree must have hated Lanie.”

  “You could say that,” Janet said, leaning back into her chair and reaching for her wineglass.

  *****

  Grace walked across the lawn, a basket of just-cut zinnias in her hand. The sun hadn’t set yet and the warmth of the day seeped into her thin linen tunic.