“Victor Orsini, right?” said the blue-eyed, red-bearded American behind him. “And you are?”
“John O’Shea. I’ve been looking for you.” Orsini shrugged, not recognizing the name. “My wife is Magdalena O’Shea.” Orsini stared at him. “What do you want?” “The answers to a few questions.” “About?”
“The usual. Art. Music. Your business.” A tilt of the head. “Your wife’s death.”
“Perhaps you should reconsider, Mr. O’Shea. These are dangerous topics. You wouldn’t want anything to happen…”
The man gazed around the crowded gallery. “You can’t hurt me, Mr. Orsini.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Mr. O’Shea. But I could hurt your wife.”
* * *
Orsini opened his eyes, gazed around the shadowed bedroom. Now, he knew what to do. He reached for his cell phone. When Dane answered, Orsini spoke only seven words. “Find Magdalena O’Shea. Bring her to me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
PARIS. AFTERNOON, JULY 6
Vanessa Durand wandered slowly through the sky-lit gallery of the nineteenth-century building known as Musée d’Orsay. Once a dark, abandoned railway station, the renovated art museum now had an airy atmosphere of space and sunlight. Pausing to enjoy the changing light on Monet’s gardens, she saw Michael Beckett in the next gallery.
The colonel looked hard and cynical. And very angry about the change in plans.
She stopped in the doorway, suddenly glad she was meeting with the colonel instead of Simon Sugarman. Sugarman was too unsettling, always looking at her with a question in his dark eyes. And now he’d brought another woman into his investigation.
It had to be the woman gazing at a luminous Pissaro, unaware of the colonel’s eyes on her. She’s quite lovely, thought Vanessa. Slender and raven-haired, Magdalena O’Shea reminded her of Sofia Orsini. But smaller—and far too casually dressed for Paris. Really, wherever did one find a French-cut t-shirt emblazoned with the words Piano Power?
She sat down next to Maggie O’Shea and crossed her silken knees as her jeweled hand motioned toward a darkly beautiful Van Gogh. “You are enjoying our collection, yes? I am Vanessa Durand.”
Maggie turned to study her. “They are exquisite.” Lowering her voice, she said, “I’m Maggie O’Shea. I’ve come to find Fee’s son. My godson.”
“She spoke of you often. How can I help?”
“An old friend, Zachary Law, may know where Tommy is hidden. Do you know him?”
“No. Is he the reason Simon asked you to meet with me?”
“Meeting you was my decision.”
Vanessa raised a surprised eyebrow. “Then perhaps Simon has met his match. But Simon always has his own agenda, I think.”
“So do I, Ms. Durand.”
* * *
Steps away, Beckett pretended to study a Sisley—no pretense needed, actually, it was quite beautiful—while leaning against the narrow archway to discourage curious tourists. Impressionists and classical music, he thought. How the devil did my world suddenly become so cultured?
He shook his head and moved closer to stand behind the two women.
* * *
“I found your phone number in my husband’s calendar,” said Maggie, suddenly surrounded by Vanessa’s spicy, expensive perfume. “You met with him last fall, here in Paris. John O’Shea?”
Vanessa stared at Maggie. “Yes, of course, he was looking for information on Fee and Tommy. I met with him at my gallery on Rue du Bac. Didn’t he tell you?”
Maggie’s voice dropped. “No… He.died very suddenly, in the South of France.”
“Mon Dieu! I did not know. How did it happen?”
Maggie shook her head, unable to speak of it. “I need to know what you told my husband.”
“He wanted to know about Sofia and Victor. Fee and I became friends when she moved to Rome. I have an art gallery there as well, on the Via Veneto. Fee introduced me to Victor.”
Maggie watched her thoughtfully. “After my husband left you, he went on to the Mediterranean coast. Hyères, just east of Marseilles.”
“I sent him there. I explained that, several months before Fee died, Victor hired me to catalog his art collection. He also commissioned me to search for an oil that he was most interested in possessing. A Lippi. Victor had given me a special postal office where I could contact him.”
“Hyères.”
“Oui. I also gave your husband the name of an art dealer in Hyères who might have had some dealings with Victor.”
“Yes, Jacques Racine, at the Galerie sur le Port. It was in my husband’s notes. I called, but no one answered.”
Vanessa looked down at her hands. “You know, don’t you? If Victor didn’t hold the knife to Sofia, then he gave the order. Either way, Victor Orsini is a murderer.”
“You and I, we were her friends. Why didn’t we stop her from marrying him?”
“I don’t think we could have. You know that Victor is a seductive, charismatic man. She was Catholic—and already pregnant.” Vanessa hesitated. “He could be very cruel.” Vanessa glanced around. “But Victor is a powerful man, with powerful friends. He refused to divorce her without custody. She stayed because of her son.”
“A mother will do anything to protect her child,” said Maggie. “It was all in her letters.” She shook her head. “I should have insisted that she leave him.”
“We can only go forward.” Vanessa turned away. “I want to help you find Victor, for Fee. Since one of his passions is art, I’m concentrating there. A gallery owner heard a rumor that Victor was seen in the South of France. I’m driving down to Cannes this weekend.”
Something in Vanessa’s words caught at Maggie, like an unexpected arpeggio in a melody.
“Vanessa. You said that art was one of Victor’s passions. What are the others?”
“Music. He collects rare, autographed scores. He owns several rare violins as well, including a Gradoux-Matt and a del Gesù.” Maggie felt something click into place in her head.
She stood and held out her hand. “Thank you for your help. I’ll stay in touch.” She turned toward the arched exit.
“Just where the devil do you think you’re going, Mrs. O’Shea?” said Beckett from behind.
“A lecture at the Conservatoire de Musique,” began Maggie, but Beckett put his big hand on her shoulder. None too gently, she noticed.
“They’re expecting me. I’m a visiting pianist, remember? Mozart? Debussy?”
“What color is the sky in your world, Mrs. O’Shea?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PARIS. EVENING, JULY 6
Come in and close the door.
Returning to the Left Bank hotel, Maggie had turned to Beckett in the tiny lobby and offered to show him her husband’s calendar. Together they had ridden in the narrow lift, with the Golden wedged between them, to her room on the third floor.
The clock on the mantel was chiming the eight o’clock hour when they entered the garret room with its view of the rooftops of Paris.
Beckett watched as she flipped the lamp switch, and the room flowered with light. Beyond the arched window, he glimpsed a silvery curve of river and a sky streaked with purple above dark-angled rooftops.
“Come in and close the door, Colonel.”
He and the Golden watched as she crossed the room to the closet, spun the dial on the small steel safe. Then she handed him a thick leather book and a vellum envelope. “Johnny’s calendar. And my research. Read it all tonight. We can talk about it in the morning. I’ll want his calendar back, of course.”
He looked down at the worn ebony leather. “Of course.”
Her eyes stayed on his. “Do you trust her?”
“Who?”
“The art gallery owner. Vanessa Durand. I know she was Fee’s friend, but she sent my husband to Hyères. I had the feeling today that she knew more than she told us.”
“I’m beginning to trust your instincts, ma’am. I’ll talk to Sugar.”
She nodded and turned toward the window. He watched her in silence as she gazed out at the glimmering dusk, twisting the golden wedding band on her finger. Silhouetted in the half-light of the window, she was as beautiful as one of the paintings he had seen in the Musée D’Orsay that afternoon. But lost, bereft.
He turned away, unsettled by her quiet, raw emotion. The unexpected moment felt too intimate, making him feel like an intruder.
“The morning, then,” he said, giving the Golden’s leash a gentle pull. “Good night, Mrs. O’Shea.”
* * *
Alone in the small room, Maggie turned on the radio, kicking off her heels as the strains of classical guitar filled the intimate room. Two balloons of brandy were set out on the low table by the window. Two.
Maggie reached for the brandy, folded herself back into the cushioned window seat and watched the night gather its dusky cloak around the city. Edges blurred, lamps burned gold in narrow windows, a Bateau-Mouche strung with gay lights sailed slowly up the river toward Notre Dame. Above the steep rooftops, the Eiffel Tower was a glittering tracery of light against the deep cobalt sky.
It had been a long, exhausting day, beginning with her sunrise run. And ending just an hour earlier, with a sunset concert in Sainte-Chapelle. It’s where a visiting musician would go, Colonel.
In the tiny Gothic chapel, as the last light fell like jeweled rain through the high stained-glass windows, she had listened to the small orchestra play Haydn’s Symphony No. 45. The Farewell Symphony.
Each musician lit a candle fixed to his or her music stand, until the whole chapel flickered with candlelight. As each instrument reached the end of its score, that musician rose quietly, blew out the candle and left the chapel, until the last violinist played alone. When he played the last note, he, too, blew out his candle. Farewell. In the sudden, silent darkness, she’d felt Beckett’s eyes on her.
Maggie refilled her brandy glass as night turned the rooftops blue. She was so tired of drowning nightmares and maddening colonels and vast empty beds. The guitar suite ended and Ravel began his sensuous, slow beat in the air.
Music swirled like smoke around her, stroking and teasing. When she closed her eyes, the music became phantom lips on her skin. Desire stirred, then leaped with sudden flame deep within her body. Johnny. I miss you so… The Bolero beat quickened, matching her pulse.
A sudden and passionate grief jolted through her. Here in Paris, Johnny was everywhere she looked. The book stalls, the outdoor cafés, the narrow cobblestoned streets. She could see his face reflected in the dark waters of the Seine. Hear his voice, sighing in the shifting leaves outside her window.
Johnny? she tried.
She waited. Only silence.
Maggie touched the empty seat cushion beside her. Hugging her knees tightly to her chest, trying to hold herself together, she looked down into the empty brandy glass as if she were looking into a crystal ball. Her husband had discovered something in France. Something important. Something that had led to his death? She felt like the violinist in Haydn’s symphony. Blowing out the last candle, sitting alone in the dark silence.
Farewell…
Oh, God. Will I ever remember what it’s like just to be happy?
* * *
The red soccer ball sailed through the air. A flash of sleek golden fur. The thin legs of the boy, pumping like pistons across the dusty square. The sudden gleam of sunlight on metal.
No, Farzad!
A deafening roar. Blood. Blood everywhere.
Beckett flung out his hand, searching for his weapon. Soft damp sheets beneath his fingers.
A bed. He was lying on a bed. Still dressed, his head on a down pillow.
Breathe.
He squinted, eyes settling on a bureau in the dim light, a mirror. A jacket flung over a chair. There, the double window. A smooth golden head, still as a carving, silhouetted against the cobalt square of night beyond the glass.
“Hey, Dog. You awake, too?”
The Golden remained motionless. Okay. You’re in Paris, he reassured himself. Two doors down from Magdalena O’Shea. He allowed himself a small smile, remembering Sugarman’s aggravation over the last-minute change of hotels. Not to mention the expense. Score one for the piano player.
Okay, breathing back to normal. Almost.
His fingers searched, found his glasses on his chest. Must have fallen asleep while he was reading. The calendar! Where was it? He twisted, saw it had fallen to the floor.
Long day, longer night. He thought again of Maggie O’Shea, of the sunset concert in the tiny chapel across the Seine. Colored lights falling like rain through the high stained glass windows, touching her skin with jewels. While he sat watching her, listening to…Haydn, she’d said. A long time since he’d listened to classical music. Then the violinist had blown out the last candle, leaving them in shadows and silence. A long time since he’d known a moment of such beauty and peace.
In the vast empty bed, he felt a sudden, inexplicable sense of loneliness. Glancing over at the Golden, he snapped his fingers. “You lonely tonight, too, fella?” Beckett gently patted the bedding beside him. “C’mon, boy. Come here.”
The Golden turned away, dark eyes glistening and scars burning like long thin swords in the light of the streetlamps.
Beckett nodded. “Two strays in this world, you and me—two lost souls—who somehow found each other.” He sighed, closed his eyes. “Afghanistan,” he whispered into the darkness. “It never goes away.”
Beckett breathed deeply, searching his mind for a kinder memory, a moment—a quiet, undamaged place. His cabin, shining like a lantern through the pines. Fishing on the lake with Red. A woman sitting quietly in a pool of jeweled light, the last notes of a Haydn symphony lingering in the air. He felt himself drifting down into sleep.
Just for a moment, in the split second before he fell, he thought he felt the mattress dip with weight, a settling, a warm breath near his face.
Peace.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PARIS. MORNING, JULY 7
It had rained in the night, but now the morning was brilliant with early sun that edged the old Paris Opera House in gold.
The dark Peugeot pulled up to the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines. Maggie O’Shea stepped from the car and dropped lightly into one of the cane chairs under the green and white umbrellas of the Café de la Paix.
The man leaning back in the chair had his eyes half-closed. He was dressed in boots, jeans, a navy turtleneck, and a camel jacket. Light played on the strong, rough planes of his face. An unlit cigarette was jammed between his lips. Maggie studied him from behind her dark glasses.
“Tough night, Colonel Beckett?”
Without opening his eyes he quoted, “Of all the gin joints in the world, Mrs. O’Shea, you had to walk into mine…”
So he, too, liked old movies. “Sitting with your back to the wall…watching for me?”
Beckett opened his eyes and the corners of his mouth moved.
“Be careful,” warned Maggie. “You almost smiled.” She bent to pet the Golden curled warily behind his chair. “Didn’t he, fella?”
Beckett slid a dish toward her across the small marble table.
“What’s this?”
“Egg, sausage, and Brie on a buttered croissant.”
“I’d rather die.”
This time he laughed.
* * *
He had been in the café for twenty minutes, listening for the dusky voice, a sound a man couldn’t forget. And he’d known the minute she’d arrived. She was boyishly dressed, with a faded blue sweatshirt tied around her hips and a bright yellow NYPD cap on her head. Her long hair was caught back in a braid. No make-up, silver hoops dangling from her ears, sunglasses so big they covered half her face.
“You look like a teenager,” he said. “Exhausted and scruffy.”
Maggie ignored him and gazed out over the swirling traffic toward the old Opera House, shining like an antique jewel in the sunlig
ht. Behind the sunglasses, her face was unreadable. The smell of coffee and baked bread drifted from the café. “It’s so beautiful here,” she said.
“Too much traffic.”
“The outdoor cafés,” she went on, “the ancient churches…”
“Le Big Mac. All those damned nervous little dogs.” He looked down at the Golden and raised a bushy eyebrow. The Golden raised his chin, seeming to agree.
Maggie tossed her cap on the table, lifted the dark glasses to the top of her head, and stared at him. “Why are you so growl-y?”
“Growl-y?” He reached for his old lighter, flicked the flame, and glared at her over its flare. Then he tossed the unlit cigarette into the ashtray, his eyes still on Maggie.
Warm from running, she closed her eyes, arched her neck, and held a glass of ice water to her cheek.
He dropped his eyes to the small print on her fitted bright red t-shirt, reached for his glasses, stopped and lifted his coffee cup instead.
“It says,” offered Maggie, “When the Going gets Tough, the Tough go Chopin.”
He crossed a booted foot over his knee and regarded her. “You are a piece of work.”
“Is that a compliment or an accusation?”
“Not sure yet,” he told her honestly.
“Why do you keep staring at me like that, Colonel?”
“Just tryin’ to figure out why you’re still here, ma’am. What makes you tick?” His silver brow spiked. “I understand about your godson. But I can’t help thinkin’ you’ve still got a few prize heifers locked in the back barn.”
She looked at him as if he’d read her thoughts. “I’m private, Colonel. Perhaps you’re just not used to women who don’t like to talk about themselves.” She leaned toward him. “I’d rather talk about that explosion yesterday. Did it have anything to do with why you’re here?”
“What makes you think so?”
“The look in your eyes this morning. I know the Secretary is safe, but—one more anti-US attack, so close on the heels of that bombing in Amsterdam. I read that the CIA’s Chief of Station in Paris was at that meeting at the bistro as well. They named him—”
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