Parisian Affair

by Gould, Judith

'Merde!' Ram swore, slamming a fist against the seat. 'The police. It'll be hours before we get away from them.'

  The look of fury on his handsome face was almost scary, but Allegra tried to remain calm. 'Oh, well,' she sighed. 'I guess I'll have to call my friend and have him wait on me.'

  'Don't breathe a word about the auction or the emerald,' Ram said hurriedly.

  'Don't worry,' she said. 'I won't.' She slid a hand inside her shoulder bag and gripped the ring tightly. Perhaps it was a coincidence that someone fired a shot into the club while she was there. Standing at the window, no less. But Allegra didn't think so, and with that realization, she felt her stomach twist into a sickening knot again. Somebody may have tried to kill me to get the ring, she thought. Not only that, but Ram took me to the club where the shot was fired. He might have set it up. Would he have done such a thing? she wondered. She didn't know, but she certainly didn't feel safe with him any longer.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bonneur, one of the two policemen who had been questioning her in the club's lounge, flipped a notepad shut and smiled at Allegra. 'You have my card in case you think of anything else, Miss Sheridan. I'm sorry we've had to detain you,' he added in slightly accented English, 'but that should wrap it up. You've been very helpful, and we appreciate it very much.'

  'You're welcome,' Allegra replied. 'If I'd thought I could tell you anything useful, I would never have left the museum, Monsieur Bonneur.' She knew that wasn't quite true, but she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. They had only asked her a few questions, and for that Allegra was grateful. She could see Ram looking toward her from the far end of the lounge, where another pair of policemen were questioning him. He smiled, but she thought that he looked anxious and impatient.

  'Could you thank Mr. Tadjer for showing me the museum?' she said to Bonneur. 'I would myself, but I really have to run.' I've got to get back to the apartment and hide the ring, she thought, and I've got to find out what Hilton Whitehead wants me to do with it.

  'Of course, Miss Sheridan,' Bonneur replied. He looked at her with a curious expression. 'But I'm sure he'll be ready to leave in a few minutes if you want to tell him yourself.'

  'I really have to run,' Allegra said, giving him her best smile.

  'Would you like for a policeman to escort you back to where you're staying?' he asked.

  'No, but thanks,' Allegra said. She waved toward Ram and saw him stand up abruptly and pull out his cell phone. Pointing to her wristwatch, she waved again and fled out the door to the courtyard.

  Once outside, she walked briskly toward the gate, training her eyes straight ahead, determined to give the very handsome Ramtane Tadjer the dodge. As she sailed out the gates, she saw the Bentley parked at the curb- side again, its engine running and Gerard, the driver, standing beside it.

  At that instant, he turned around, and his eyes widened in recognition. Without a moment's hesitation, he rushed around the big car toward her, and Allegra, ignoring him, began to run down the rue des Archives. Gerard reached out with one muscular arm and grabbed her arm with his hand.

  'Mr. Tadjer wants you to wait for him here,' Gerard said, a smile on his lips.

  'I'm sorry,' Allegra said, 'but I've got an appointment.' She tried to jerk her arm free, but his grip on her was so tight she could hardly move. She could feel the ring box squeezed against her, and began to panic. He pulled her toward the car, and she stumbled in her high-heeled boots. 'Let me go!' she cried, struggling against him.

  Suddenly Gerard's grip loosened on her arm, and she watched in horror as he slumped to the sidewalk. Then she saw blood spreading across the breast of his uniform jacket. Allegra stifled a scream and began to run down the street as fast as her feet would carry her, her eyes focused straight ahead of her and her hand clasped around the ring box buried in her purse. She was aware of passersby staring after her, but she didn't care. The apartment was only two blocks away.

  She didn't stop to catch her breath until she had reached the big black doors on the street. Gasping for air, she reached out and punched the security code on the little steel buttons, then shoved on the door. It didn't budge.

  She took a deep breath, then tapped in the numbers once again, more carefully this time. The door gave when she pushed on it, and she slipped inside the passageway and slammed the door closed behind her. She rushed through the dark tunnel and hurried up the stairs to the apartment after she reached the inner courtyard. Fumbling in her shoulder bag for the key, she nearly jumped out of her skin when the door across the little hallway opened.

  A young woman smiled. 'Hello.'

  'H-hi,' Allegra stammered breathlessly. She attempted a smile. Her fingers felt the key, and she withdrew it from her shoulder bag. In a moment of panic, she searched further until she found the suede box. As she unlocked the door, the young woman began descending the stairs, turning once to stare at Allegra with curiosity. She probably thinks I'm crazy, Allegra thought.

  The door swung open, and she stepped into the apartment, locking the door behind her. Slumping against it, she realized that her heart was pounding and she was covered with sweat and shaking. As she caught her breath, her eyes darted about the little studio wildly. Nothing out of the ordinary here, she thought. Thank God.

  When the nervous shaking had all but ceased, she went into the living room, dropped her shoulder bag on the sofa, and took off her coat and scarf, draping them over the back of a chair. She glanced at her watch. She still had an hour or more before Todd was due to arrive, plenty of time to shower and change, but that was out of the question right now.

  She knew she should call Sylvie again and tell her that someone might be trying to kill her to get the ring, although she wasn't absolutely certain about that. Should she call the police about Ram's driver being murdered right before her eyes? But when she considered the almost certain possibility of being detained by the police in a foreign country in a homicide investigation, she decided that calling them would be a last resort.

  Trying to clear her mind of all the conflicting thoughts and emotions that offered no immediate course of action, she decided that first things first: where to hide the emerald?

  She sat down on the sofa and riffled through her shoulder bag until she found the small pinkish beige box. Opening it, she stared down at the huge gem, which returned her gaze with a mute and magnificent sparkle. Why are you so special? she asked it. Why would someone try to kill for you? Why you with your imperfection?

  With a heavy sigh she shut the box, hiding the emerald from view.

  Now, where do I hide it? she asked herself anew.

  The oft chosen plan of hiding within plain view would definitely not work in this case, she decided. Clever as it might seem in movies or mystery novels, the ring was too big, too extraordinary, and attracted far too much light to be effectively hidden within view. Scanning the studio's single large room, she could immediately see that it offered very little in the way of a hidey-hole. Even the kitchen area, positioned as it was against one wall, didn't offer more than a single drawer, which was filled with silverware and other kitchen implements. There were no cabinets, only simple open shelves upon which basic provisions and dishware and the like had been artfully arranged.

  She got up and walked into the hallway. The one closet there was small, with a single shelf above a rod for hanging clothes. It could be thoroughly searched in a minute. She walked on into the bathroom. She'd put her bag containing all of her bath and cosmetic essentials on the vanity and had chosen towels from a large wicker basket on the floor by the shower.

  Running her gaze over the bathroom walls, she could instantly see that the room offered a multitude of possibilities. The ancient walls and pipes had been concealed behind built-in cabinets of various heights and widths with doors featuring intricate cutouts in a Moorish pattern.

  She began opening all of the doors and inspecting the contents. Most of the cabinets, she discovered, were filled with a plethora of shampoos, conditioners, scente
d bath oils and powders, and other grooming essentials. Near the floor, they were stuffed with cleaning materials. One turned out to be a laundry hamper, in which she saw piled T-shirts and underwear, all male. Paul's? she wondered. He'd said he lived nearby, but why would his underwear be here? Maybe he used the apartment occasionally, she decided, dismissing the thought.

  She returned her attention to the cabinets. Any one of these shelves would do, she thought. They were all stuffed with so many bottles and tins and boxes that it would take forever to do a thorough search for the ring, should anybody undertake one. She'd left the laundry hamper open and started to close it when it occurred to her that it offered a good temporary hiding place, as well. Rummaging through someone else's soiled underwear would not be an appealing task to most people. Reaching down into the hamper, she pulled out one load of the dirty laundry and placed it on the floor, then reached in to pull out the rest. Her hand struck against something hard, and she pulled out the rest of the laundry slowly, looking down into the deep hamper with curiosity.

  Gasping aloud, she let the laundry slip out of her hands and fall to the floor. Lying in the bottom, dully gleaming in the bathroom's soft light, was a gun. 'Jesus!' she exclaimed. 'What the hell is sweet little Paul doing with a gun?' After staring at it a moment, she reached in and picked it up.

  It was small but heavy in her hand. She turned it over and over, looking at it closely. She had no idea what kind of gun it was or precisely how to use it, but she suddenly realized that it might be useful.

  What the hell am I going to do with a gun? she asked herself.

  Almost as if it were a snake, she gingerly held the gun between two fingers and gently replaced it in the bottom of the laundry bin. She picked up the dirty laundry and tossed it back in the bin atop the gun, then shoved the bin closed. Scratch that idea, she thought.

  Eyeing the open cabinets again, she saw a roll of bandage tape, and she knew what she would do. Taking the tape out, she quickly taped the box with the emerald firmly closed, wrapping the tape around it three or four times to make certain it wouldn't come open. Then looking into the open cabinets again, she decided to tape the box to the backside of one of the many pipes running up and down the ancient walls, where it would be concealed by the contents of the cabinets. Getting down on her knees, she chose the one that was the most difficult to see and get to.

  She ran three strips of tape across one side of the box, leaving the ends of the tape sticking out, then carefully positioned the box on the back of a large pipe. Holding the box in position with one hand, she secured the tape to the pipe with the other, making certain that it was tight against the pipe. Sitting back on her haunches, she studied her handiwork. Only the most discerning eye would see the pieces of tape reaching around from the back side of the pipe. After she repositioned the multitude of bottles, tubes, and boxes on the shelf, she couldn't see even the pipe, much less the ends of the tape sticking to it.

  She stood up and closed all of the cabinet doors, then washed her hands in the sink, satisfied with the hiding place. She glanced at her wristwatch again. Oh, my God. I'd better hop in the shower if I'm going to be ready by the time he gets here.

  She quickly shed her clothes, showered, and dried her hair. She applied a bit of eyeliner, mascara, shadow, and blusher, and before leaving the bathroom, she liberally daubed perfume at her ears, the cleavage between her breasts, and her wrists.

  After wrapping a towel around herself and looking at her reflection in the mirror again, she decided that she looked and felt refreshed, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred today.

  Princess Karima's dark eyes were ablaze with fury, and there was a tremor in the hand that held the cell phone against her ear. It clicked irritatingly against her pearl earring, which only increased her anger.

  'What do you mean?' she asked in a quiet but threatening voice. She took a deep breath, trying to control the rage she felt, fearful that Marcus would overhear her. Although he was mixing drinks in the distant salon, she knew that he loved nothing more than spreading vicious gossip. Despite their friendship, he would gleefully get word out among their set that he had heard Karima have a tantrum after the auction, thus feeding speculation concerning her real feelings about selling her possessions.

  When she had listened to the fateful words once again, she abruptly felt something snap in her mind, and forgetting Marcus for the moment, she shouted into the receiver. 'You idiot. You filthy little shit! You're incapable of doing anything right. I don't want to hear of you or see you ever again!'

  She snapped the cell phone shut and flung it toward the desk, where it clattered against a vase of flowers before landing against a basket piled high with the day's mail. She tore off the turban that still encased her lush black hair and threw it to the floor, giving it a swift kick with her shoe. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Exhaling a stream of smoke toward the bedroom ceiling, she felt tears in her eyes. Not one to cry, Princess Karima was startled by this emotional reaction to the awful news.

  She looked about the magnificent bedroom where she and Stefano had plotted the extraordinary course of their lives together. He had been the great love of her life, and the emerald ring—more than any of the many other priceless gifts he had showered upon her—had represented that bond between them as had nothing else.

  Taking another long drag off her cigarette, she glanced at the clock on her desk. She had to get ready to leave for the millhouse in the country immediately, she realized. Marcus was waiting for her, and she must, to all appearances at least, carry out her plan as she had announced it. Marcus was no small part of it. She knew that he would report on her activities after the auction.

  As she slowly undressed and then put on the simple black cashmere sweater and slacks that Mimi had laid out for her, she began to feel better. Perhaps the ring was not lost to her after all. She could manage to get it back from the odious American lady. The failure this afternoon certainly didn't mean that future efforts would not succeed. She would simply have to put someone more adept in charge of retrieving the ring.

  She stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray, then slipped into flat, supple leather driving shoes. Marcus would be driving, but these were more comfortable after wearing heels most of the day. After refreshing her makeup at the vanity, she picked up the large silk Hermes scarf Mimi had selected—she would wear it for the drive with large dark glasses, a dramatic look for any paparazzi lurking about—then tossed her cigarettes in a carryall and picked up her quilted black Barbour jacket.

  At the door to the bedroom, she took one final glance around. She might never see this magnificent room again, but she felt little regret. The plan for the next stage of her life was a brilliant one, and this house would play no part in it. Closing the door, she walked to the salon, where she would have a quick drink with Marcus before leaving what had once been an extraordinary love nest for the chaste simplicity of her millhouse. There, she would formulate a plan for securing the emerald. Of one thing she was certain: she would go to her grave with it on her finger.

  Allegra hadn't heard the apartment's telephone the two different times it rang while she was in the thunderous shower. She had been enjoying the powerful jets of water from the enormous saucerlike chrome showerhead as they pummeled her body, massaging the day's kinks and worries away. When the loud knock came at the door, however, she had finished showering but hadn't had time to dress yet. She rushed toward it with a towel tied around her torso, released the locks, and swung it wide, prepared for Todd's smiling face and strong arms.

  'Ahh, Allegra,' Paul said nervously, trying to avoid looking at her towel-draped body.

  She held the towel tightly against her breasts. 'Oh, Paul,' she said. 'So sorry. I wasn't expecting you. I—'

  'I'm terribly sorry,' he said, remaining in the doorway. 'I tried to phone, but no one answered so I thought you must be out.'

  'Come in,' Allegra said, gesturing expansively with a hand.

  'I'll only be
a moment,' Paul said. 'I realized that I forgot ... I forgot to show you how to operate the coffeemaker.' He coughed a laugh. 'And it's a little complicated for Americans who've never used one like it. Sylvie called and said you'd be staying over the weekend.'

  'Yes, but coffee's not a problem,' Allegra said. 'Uh, let me throw on something quickly.'

  'Sure.' Paul turned and walked down the hallway toward the apartment's single room, leaving the door ajar behind him.

  Allegra ducked into the bathroom. 'I've been going out for breakfast

  and don't drink much coffee anyway. You don't have to worry about it.' She took the towel off and, neglecting a bra, slipped into the low-cut black ruffled Yves Saint Laurent blouse that she knew Todd would find alluring.

  'I'll just be another minute,' she called to Paul.

  'That's okay,' he replied. 'Take your time.'

  She unrolled the black leather miniskirt that she'd packed in tissue paper, and put it on, pleased to see in the mirror that it had survived her small carry-on with hardly a wrinkle.

  She padded out of the bathroom toward the living room. Paul stood in the middle of the room with a lost expression on his face. What's with him? she wondered. He's really an odd character.

  'About the coffeemaker—' Paul began.

  'Oh, Paul, really,' Allegra said, sitting down to put on her very high black Christian Louboutin heels. 'I'll not use it at all.'

  There was a knock at the still open door, and Allegra and Paul looked down the hallway in unison.

  Allegra jumped up. 'Todd.' She rushed down the narrow hall. His arms encircled her, and they kissed. Allegra loved his familiar warmth, his masculine scent, and the protective feeling of his arms. He jerked abruptly, and looking up, she saw his eyes focus across her shoulder on Paul, who remained standing in the room.

  'Oh, Todd. I'm sorry,' she apologized. 'This is Paul. Paul is Sylvie's friend who owns the apartment.'