Haunted Echoes

by Cindy Dees

  I glanced down and could see the joint swelling like crazy under her pant leg. That and her face was a pasty shade of white and glistened with a thin sheen of sweat. That crazy jump off the top of the machine must have wrenched it somehow. I looked up into the woman’s dark eyes. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  She grinned lopsidedly through her obvious pain. “Then does this mean you’ll give me a head start before you call the police?”

  She’d realized one of the Italians called her Dr. Moon in front of me, and that, as an Interpol agent, I would undoubtedly know who she was.

  “Answer me one thing,” I said. “Did you steal a statue recently from Elise Villecourt? She lives off rue de Bassano in Paris.”

  Ginny seemed a bit guilty. Then she looked me square in the eye and answered without hesitation. “I swear I did not steal it in the first place.”

  “Then as far as I’m concerned, you were never here. Tomorrow, I’ll have to do my best to apprehend you, but for today we work together.”

  Our eyes met in mutual understanding. She and I were square. She’d likely been sent after me to try to steal the statue, but instead she’d helped me rescue Robert and prevent disaster. And in return, I would say nothing of her true identity or her presence here. Thief or not, I owed her one. A big one. Tomorrow would be back to business as usual. I’d be a cop and she’d be a thief. But today, she had my silence and my gratitude.

  We made the miserable hike out together. And yes, there was a back way out. It dumped us on the far side of the mountain, not thirty feet from the road. Two cars were hidden in the brush between us and the tar-and-gravel surface. As annoyed as I was to make the discovery, I was more relieved not to have to climb down the other side of the mountain. I was sore and tired and stressed out, and Robert wasn’t in any better shape. And between the two of us we had to all but carry Ginny out. But she couldn’t afford to be here when the police arrived.

  Across the valley, the lights of a farmhouse glowed into the night. We’d done it. France still had electricity.

  Robert and I sat down on a rock and waited while Ginny made her way down to the road. She’d insisted on going alone. We heard the roar of an engine, and the silhouette of a motorcycle disappeared into the night.

  Robert grinned. “Nice Harley. Not quite like Penny, but not bad.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Someday you’ll have to tell me all about Dr. Moon.”

  “Someday. After she’s either caught or retired. But there’s this code of silence among thieves—”

  I put my hand over his mouth. “I know,” I said gently. “Let’s not think about the past anymore. I’m much more interested in the future.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  Ginny got an extra few minutes’ head start we hadn’t agreed to while Robert and I lost ourselves in sealing the deal. But eventually, I used my cell phone to call Catrina and Rhys to tell them where we were and to ask them to bring us help in the form of police and perhaps a helicopter for lifting everyone off the hill.

  The operation to retrieve the Italians from the chamber deep inside the mountain took hours. It was well into the night before the doomsday machine was declared fully disabled by the bomb squad, and we were all finally airlifted and driven off that hill.

  Robert was treated and released from the hospital with a fistful of painkillers. The guy Ginny had jumped on—the one I’d clocked twice—was in emergency surgery to ease pressure from intercranial swelling. The guy I’d kicked in the groin would probably live to father children, but the nurses told me they’d had to knock him completely out with morphine and valium because he was in such pain. I confess that I experienced satisfaction and not an ounce of sympathy at that news. The other two men were treated for minor injuries and turned over to the police for prosecution. Neither one of them was saying a word to the authorities.

  And then it was our turn to deal with the police.

  Robert was the easiest to clear. A quick phone call to Elise to verify that he and I had been trying to recover her stolen statue was enough to get any theft charges against him dropped. She told police we’d already been in touch with her to let her know we’d recovered the statue for her and were planning to bring it back to her in Paris immediately.

  But then there was the matter of the murder charges against me.

  It helped that I was able to produce my original Interpol badge. Its dinged up state seemed to impress the authorities. It took them about an hour, but they verified that it was an authentic badge. François Littmann, bless him, told them in no uncertain terms that I was an Interpol agent whether or not my identity had been erased from the agency’s computers by accident. Apparently, he also made a vehement statement to the effect that I was not capable of murder.

  It was probably the phone call from President Dupont that got me released, though. Elise wasn’t kidding when she said she’d be able to bring her own powerful friends to bear to stop the witch hunt against me. When the police told Dupont that I’d stopped some sort of electrical machine from firing in an underground cave, the president asked to speak to me directly.

  I took the phone receiver that the lead detective passed across the table to me.

  “Agent Reisner?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “France owes you a great debt of gratitude. Of course, given the…extraordinary…nature of the disaster you just prevented, it would not be prudent to make a public display of thanks to you.”

  I imagine the French people weren’t quite ready to hear about ley lines and ghosts and magic. “No public display is necessary, Mr. President.”

  “I’ve spoken with the police, and they assure me you have an airtight alibi for the night of Monsieur St. Germain’s unfortunate death. The combination of your companion’s statement, and that of a security guard at a hospital who remembers you emerging from the catacombs across Paris from the murder scene at approximately the same time of the murder, have convinced police you couldn’t possibly be the killer. I have been assured that all charges against you will be dropped.”

  Of course. The security guard who chased us out of Val de Grace and tried to arrest us! I’d completely forgotten about him.

  “My freedom is all the thanks I need, sir.”

  And that was that. I was no longer a wanted criminal, and neither was Robert. Ginny’s name never came up, and the Italians weren’t saying a word, so they weren’t likely to blow her cover, either.

  I was fairly certain the police already had Armande St. Germain’s murderer in custody. Between the four Italians who’d been arrested, one of them had to have done it. The cops did tell me they’d picked up some footprint evidence and a couple partial fingerprints both at the murder scene and at my apartment. They believed the two events were linked. When I suggested they try to match the four men they had in custody to that forensic evidence, the police agreed readily.

  It was well after midnight when one of the detectives, who were by now treating Robert and me with casual friendliness, stepped into the interrogation room where we were waiting for news and finishing up a late snack of sandwiches and wine.

  “You were right, Agent Reisner. We got a match. Two of your guys from the cave match the fingerprints from the St. Germain murder.”

  Outstanding! Now Robert and I were positively in the clear.

  “Who are those guys?” I asked.

  “Who do they work for?” Robert added.

  The detective frowned. “They had no ID on them and they don’t exist anywhere in the police records system. No fingerprints, no photos, nothing. And they’re refusing to give us even their first names. Whoever they’re working for must be bloody powerful to inspire such loyalty—or such fear—in his flunkies.

  “So there’s no way to find out who they work for?” I asked in dismay.

  The detective shook his head. “Not unless they start talking. And I think the odds of that happening any time soon are zero.”

  Damn. I looked over at
Robert. “We’ve got to find out who’s behind this. We’ll all be in danger until we do.”

  He nodded and put a comforting hand over mine. “All in good time, sweetheart. We’ll keep investigating. Just not tonight. Let’s give ourselves a little time to recuperate, regroup and do more research. But I promise—I won’t give up until we nail whoever tried to murder Elise.”

  He left unspoken the part where the same person or persons were trying to kill us, too.

  “Oh, and you have a visitor,” the policeman interjected.

  Here? At this hour? Surely Elise hadn’t made the trip down her in her fragile state of health. “Is it a woman?” I asked.

  “No. It’s a priest.”

  I expected Rhys to walk in the door. So I was stunned when Father Romile—that’s right, the librarian from the Vatican—came into the room. My stomach sank. So much for our freedom and bright future. He was going to accuse us of theft and we’d be right back in trouble with the police. Robert and I exchanged chagrined glances.

  “May we have privacy?” the priest asked the detective.

  “Of course. I’ll make sure the intercom is turned off. Give me a moment.”

  I glanced up at the speaker mounted high in the corner. I almost wished it would stay on. Maybe Father Romile would be more circumspect in the tirade he was about to launch at us.

  The cop poked his head back in to let us know all recording and monitoring devices were turned off. And then Father Romile turned to the two of us.

  “Is there anything you’d like to confess to me?”

  I sighed. “You know we stole the map. We’re sorry. Really. But it was a matter of life and death.”

  He chuckled dryly. “You didn’t steal it. We let you have it.”

  I stared at the little man, whose eyes were twinkling merrily. “You didn’t honestly think it would be so easy to waltz out of the archives with a priceless map, did you? We let you go. And believe me, we had a hard time of it, holding off the Swiss Guards until you made it into the museum.”

  “We who?” Robert demanded. “Who exactly let us have the map?”

  “Ah, my son,” the priest answered seriously, “The Church is not always of one mind. There are factions within it. Disagreements. You could even say politics.”

  Where was he going with this line of reasoning? He’d said some startling things the first time we’d talked to him in the Tower of the Winds.

  “We, too, are plagued with certain…extremist elements…both within the Church and loosely attached to the fringes of it. When the power outages began and Madame Villecourt expressed her concern that ley lines might be the delivery method of these attacks, we undertook research on our own to see if she was correct.”

  I don’t know about Robert, but I was staring open-mouthed at the wizened man.

  Father Romile continued, “I compared every ley line map the archives owns to the sites of the power outages. It became clear right away that whoever was perpetrating the attacks was using a ley line map of some kind. But which one was the question. There are many such maps from many different time periods. The key was to find the right one. Then, you came along a few days later and said that Madame Villecourt sent you. We made a quick call to the airport in Rome to verify that her jet brought you to Rome, and then we took you to the map.”

  This clever fellow had pulled a whammy on us! He played us as slick as any con man!

  He grinned at me, his dentures big and white. “I’d love to see your statue again some time, Miss Reisner. I’m afraid I used it as my excuse to make my exit and startle the two of you into copying or taking the map. But really, I have no objection to Black Madonna images. Yours appeared to be of exceptional quality.”

  “Unfortunately, I broke her earlier this evening.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  I unzipped the corner of my backpack and pulled out the carefully rolled up ley line map. “I believe this is yours, Father. And thank you for letting us borrow it.”

  He laughed and took it back, tucking it into a document tube he pulled out of somewhere on his person. “I’m glad we could be of assistance to you.”

  It was nearly 4:00 a.m. and Robert and I were seated back in the kitchen of Catrina’s farmhouse sipping tea before it finally occurred to me to check on the Black Madonna statue. I knew the lady was broken. I’d heard the pieces of her grinding around in my bag ever since we left the cave. But I hadn’t had the stomach to look at her until now. I reached into my rucksack and pulled out a piece of her. It was her head and upper body and all of the baby, except for its chubby little legs. The second large piece of the statue was the lower half of the woman and the rest of the baby. The urn at her feet had broken free.

  Catrina gasped and leaned forward to look at the broken statue. “She’s beautiful!”

  “She was a lot prettier when she was in one piece,” I replied wryly.

  Rhys picked up the two largest pieces and held them together. “She can be repaired, I think. She won’t be quite like new, but she’ll look pretty close.”

  I sighed. “But that won’t help the statue’s owner. I have a feeling the Lady’s magic has been destroyed. This statue won’t be able to save Elise’s life.”

  Catrina frowned. “Elise Villecourt?”

  “You know her?” I asked, startled.

  “She’s the one who called me and asked us to help you and Robert. She’s an old acquaintance. A long-time patron of the Cluny and a lovely lady.” Catrina looked down at the broken statue. “I had no idea she owned a Black Madonna statue like this.”

  I shrugged. “She told me she puts the Lady away whenever guests come to her home.”

  “I can see why. This thing is priceless.”

  Robert frowned. “Actually, my research on the piece shows it to be of moderate value for its age. It’s an exceptionally executed piece, but the non-Christian elements—the sword and the urn to name two—not to mention how happy the Lady is, bring down its value as a Madonna image.”

  Catrina rolled her eyes at him. “Silly man. That’s not what makes her priceless. She’s a religious relic, not of the Christians, but of the Marians.”

  I commented, “You wouldn’t believe the wild things that have been happening around this statue. I’ve been having the strangest dreams. And seeing ghosts, and we think she bestows some sort gift of Life upon her owners.”

  Catrina and Rhys exchanged loaded looks. “You’d be surprised what we might believe about visions and relics,” Catrina said quietly.

  I nodded. “That’s why we were in such a hurry to get her back to Paris. Without the statue, Elise Villecourt is dying. But now—” I broke off, too choked up to go on.

  Rhys said quietly, “Let’s have a look at the other shards and see if we can put some of them back where they belong. Maybe the effect will still happen if we put her back together exactly.”

  I reached into the bag one more time and scooped up the surprisingly large number of chips that had fallen off of her. I dumped them on the kitchen table. And it was my turn to gasp.

  Rich hues of cobalt-blue and brilliant red spilled out onto the wooden surface.

  Catrina and Rhys both came half out of their seats. “Do you know what that those are?” Catrina managed to croak.

  I looked down at the colorful bits of stone all entangled in a clump of what looked like wool fibers. “They look like mosaic tiles to me.”

  Catrina nodded slowly. “Where did those come from?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t put them in my bag. Only the Lady, the ley line map and our spelunking gear were in my bag when we went into the cave.”

  Robert reached out and took the two big pieces of the statue from Rhys. Gently, he tilted them apart. “If I’m not mistaken, this statue was hollow. I bet those little stones were hidden inside her. The wool was probably wrapped around them to keep them from rattling.”

  My stomach lurched with a burst of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for Elise yet! If those color
ful stones were the source of the statue’s magic and not the statue itself, theoretically, we could hand over the tiles to Elise and she’d get better. Eagerly, I expressed the idea aloud.

  Catrina shrugged. “I doubt the stones will reverse any aging she has done in the past few weeks. But perhaps they might give her relatively good health and physical comfort for the remainder of her life.”

  “That’s enough for me,” I replied.

  Robert looked over at Rhys. “Would you mind if we borrowed your car again? We need to get to Paris right away. We have some tiles to deliver.”

  As I reached out to collect the tiles, Catrina reached out at the same time to reverently touch the collection of tidbits. But Rhys shot out his hand and stopped her fingers from connecting with the stones.

  “Not tonight, darling,” he murmured. “You never know what these might do to you.”

  I frowned, but when neither he nor Catrina offered up an explanation, I didn’t push the matter.

  Rhys distracted me then by tossing a set of car keys across the table to Robert. “I filled it up on the way home from the hospital. It’ll need a quart of oil when you get to Paris.”

  Robert looked over at me. “Shall we be on our way?”

  As we packed up our things, Robert came across his cell phone. He dialed a number on it and waited a long time.

  “No answer.”

  “It is the middle of the night. The person you’re calling is no doubt asleep.”

  He exhaled in frustration. “I’ve been trying to call him for the past couple days at all different hours, but he never answers. Something’s wrong.”

  “Him who?”

  “My client. I need to tell him that not only did I trace the provenance of his statue, I found it and destroyed it, too.”

  “Perhaps you should just tell him you couldn’t come up with anything on it.”

  He grinned over at me. “Good plan.”

  “Maybe we should run a provenance search on your client and figure out who he is. See if he’s connected to Elise’s theft and the attacks on her and us.”