Cassie realized that in terms of her emotional reserves, she’d just hit rock bottom.
She was out of patience—it was all gone. She was sick of the children’s mind games, their agendas, their defiant rejection of her authority, and their refusal to understand the basic concepts of right and wrong. She couldn’t deal with it anymore.
Cassie imagined grabbing Antoinette by her slender shoulders and shaking her until her teeth rattled. She imagined lifting her hand and slapping her smug face, seeing her head snap sideways, that superior expression vanishing.
She took a vicious joy in thinking about exactly how much force she could put into that blow.
Cassie shoved the school bag back onto the shelf and marched out of the bedroom, banging the door behind her.
Priorities first, she decided. With her phone back in her possession, she could at least look up the agency’s number. It was already a quarter past ten. That meant it was still very early in the States; too early to use Pierre’s landline to call the agency. They opened at eight a.m. By the time they were open, Pierre might be back from breakfast. If he was around, she couldn’t exactly march into his room to make an important, confidential call for help.
Cassie let out a frustrated sigh. Was there seriously nowhere in this godforsaken place where a person could make a cell phone call? Now that she had prepaid minutes loaded, perhaps she should check. The estate was huge. Surely there must be somewhere that offered enough signal to allow for a phone call, even if there wasn’t enough to enable data. A sliver of signal would be adequate. One bar might do it.
Holding her phone in front of her, Cassie stepped outside and went hunting.
The front of the house yielded nothing. Cradled in between the hills, Cassie guessed there was simply no line of sight to an available tower—and if there was signal elsewhere, the stone bulk of the chateau itself would prevent it from reaching through to this side.
She was more hopeful about the back of the house, where that beautiful, dizzying view stretched for miles. Even the tiniest trace of signal from a faraway tower might be enough. In addition, today was clear, dry, and still, which meant a better chance of success. Cassie remembered Zane, of all people, telling her that bad weather affected cell signal. Heavy clouds, rain, and even high winds tamped down the signal. He’d learned that from his older brother, who was involved in maintaining cell towers.
Cassie rounded the corner and headed along the paved walkway, with the chateau’s high stone wall on her right. She kept her phone turned slightly to the open vista on the left, not knowing if that would help, but feeling it couldn’t hurt. She walked slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on the screen, where that frustrating “No Signal” logo was refusing to budge.
With all her attention focused on her phone, Cassie didn’t see the gutter ahead of her, a deep trench in the stone. Her foot caught in it and she almost fell, diving forward to save herself and her phone.
As she did so, she sensed, rather than saw, something heavy falling behind her—she heard the swift breath of sound as it fell, and felt it as a sudden chill of air.
A heartbeat later, the huge object crashed to the ground.
Cassie spun round, shouting in panic. Her heart hammered in her throat as she stared incredulously down at the heavy stone bust. It had fallen directly behind her, no more than a step away from where she was standing, and she realized in horror that her stumble had only just saved her, because if she hadn’t tripped and dived forward to save herself, it would have fallen directly onto her.
The marble head and shoulders were bigger than life-sized. It must weigh hundreds of pounds. Its solid form looked to be undamaged by the fall, but the large flagstone where it landed had shattered.
Weak with shock, Cassie stepped back to get a better view of the balcony, far above.
The statue on the left pillar of the balustrade was still in place. The one on the right had fallen. The balcony itself was empty, and she could see no movement there.
Had somebody seen her walking past, and pushed it?
She didn’t want to believe it, but it had been close—so impossibly close. She’d only just escaped being crushed.
Opportunistic, yes, but she had to face the reality that somebody genuinely could have been trying to kill her.
The only question was who.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
As Cassie stood, frozen by the realization that the statue could have been aimed deliberately at her, she heard a shout.
“What is happening? What was that?”
Pierre rounded the corner at a run, sprinting up to where she was standing.
Cassie saw genuine astonishment in his face as he stared at her, then up at the balcony, breathing hard.
All she could think at that moment was that it hadn’t been Pierre who pushed that bust over the edge. It would have been impossible for him to have run all the way from that upper balcony, down the staircase, out of the front door, and around the side of the house in such a short time.
“It fell as I was passing,” she said, her voice high and shaky. “It almost hit me.”
“It fell? That statue could not simply fall. It has been in place for centuries.” Pierre stepped back to get a better view.
“Look, you can see the podium where it rested.”
He squatted down and scrutinized the statue carefully.
“Unbroken, although we will need to replace the flagstone,” he said. “I will go and tell the vineyard manager to organize for it to be put back in its place.”
“It almost killed me,” Cassie said. Her head was swimming now from delayed reaction. Half a second slower, and she wouldn’t have had a chance.
Pierre frowned at her and Cassie knew that after what had happened between them yesterday, sympathy would not be forthcoming. In fact, she shouldn’t even have mentioned her near-escape from death. She didn’t want to be the focus of Pierre’s attention for any reason. It was better when his gaze passed over her dismissively, as if she was insignificant in his life, and her problems not his concern.
“You are hurt?” he asked, in a tone that told her he knew she wasn’t.
“No, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” she said defensively.
“If furniture was moved out of the room while it was being cleaned, one of the household staff could have knocked it over by accident,” he said.
Or one of the children, Cassie thought with a shiver, and if so, maybe it wasn’t an accident at all.
Pierre headed for the garage and climbed into the golf cart before driving down the sandy track in the direction of the vineyard.
Cassie decided to see if she could find out for herself who had been there.
The balcony belonged to one of the guest suites, in the wing of the house that was standing empty. She supposed a few of the rooms would have been occupied last night by the funeral guests, but didn’t know which ones. When she went upstairs, she found all the rooms were unlocked, with their doors closed. She went into the wrong room first by mistake. The inside of the house looked different, and seemed bigger, than the outside.
The next room was the right one. It was immaculate, with a four-poster bed neatly made with burgundy pillows and a cream bedspread. The door to the balcony was open, but there was nobody outside. She walked onto the balcony and looked down, her stomach churning as she surveyed the drop. Uneasy, she checked behind her and moved quickly away from the railing. She wondered if she would ever be able to look down from a height again without remembering the jolting shock she’d felt, and the sick dizziness that had filled her, when she had seen Margot’s body.
She gave the remaining bust a tentative wiggle. With its narrow base, wide shoulders, and large, imposing head, it was top-heavy and unstable. It wouldn’t have taken much force to push it off. Physically, even Ella could have done it.
One thing was for sure—there were no housekeeping staff in this room, or even in this wing. They must have finished their work earlier.
Pierre ha
dn’t even mentioned the possibility that it could have been one of the children, even though it was obvious that apart from the staff, they were the only ones who could have done it. Cassie wondered if it genuinely hadn’t occurred to Pierre, or more likely, whether he simply wasn’t allowing himself to consider the possibility.
She guessed this was an extension of his belief that the family name must remain squeaky clean, and untainted by scandal, at all costs.
Having narrowly escaped death, she was still none the wiser about who had done it, and the incident had only drawn Pierre’s attention to her again. On top of it all, she was convinced that there was no cell phone signal anywhere in the area. There hadn’t been the slightest trace downstairs, and when she checked her phone on the balcony, the stubborn “No Signal” sign refused to budge.
Frustrated, Cassie realized she’d have to wait until Pierre went out. Perhaps he would do so later, and then she’d use the landline to contact the agency, and damn the consequences if he found out.
Everything she’d tried to do that day had ended in disaster, and when Cassie thought of it from that perspective, it made her want to burst into tears. Antoinette had stolen her phone. Someone had tried to kill her. Everyone seemed to hate her apart from Marnie, the only friendly face in the whole chateau.
She left the room and, remembering her responsibilities, searched for the children. Ella was in her bedroom, and Antoinette was in the library. She was curled up in an armchair reading, smiling at Cassie innocently when she walked in.
Cassie bit back the urge to scream at her that she was a thief, and possibly a would-be murderer, too. If the statue had been pushed off its stand deliberately, she knew which child was the most likely culprit. It took all the remaining fragments of her self-control to ask her if she knew where Marc was, and when Antoinette shrugged dismissively, Cassie was tempted to grab her shiny ponytail and pull it until she screamed.
Marc was in the kitchen. He’d raided the fridge and found a plate with some iced cakes. He’d dropped one on the floor, and was marching triumphantly out of the scullery with another, when Cassie arrived.
She managed to catch up with him as he was heading for the orchard, having eaten half the cake on the run and thrown the other half down onto the immaculate paving in a shower of crumbs.
“It’s almost lunchtime, Marc, you must come in now,” she entreated.
“I’m not hungry,” he shouted gleefully, and she had to chase him again, all the way to the greenhouse with its broken panes. Cassie supposed she should tell someone about them but she didn’t have the energy, and if she told, she’d have to explain that Marc had done it while unsupervised.
It seemed better just to leave it be.
Her only tenuous link to sanity was the key to her bedroom. She could feel its reassuring shape in her pocket. When it was nighttime, she would lock her room, and nobody could get to her. She clung to that fact like a life raft. It felt like the only thing she still had control of.
Pierre joined them for lunch, which surprised and dismayed Cassie. Still more disconcerting was the cheerfulness of his mood.
“May I serve you some roast chicken, Cassie?” he asked genially, and she forced a polite smile.
“Marnie prepared this herself before she left. I feel it is one of her most accomplished dishes. Roast chicken, ratatouille, and gravy. Simple and classic. Do you like it, Antoinette?”
Antoinette smiled coquettishly, clearly delighted to be her father’s main focus of attention.
“It’s delicious,” she agreed.
“Margot never used to eat gravy,” Ella observed. “I don’t think she liked it.”
Nobody responded to this observation and there was a short silence after her words. Marc glanced at Margot’s empty chair before returning his attention to his meal.
“Where has Marnie gone?” Cassie asked, worried. She’d hoped to be able to speak to her this afternoon and find out if there was another phone she could use.
“She asked for the rest of the day off; she had an errand to run. She has had a few days off recently, but she is a hard worker. We cannot begrudge hard workers their leisure time, especially when they perform so well. After all, those who put their hearts into the job are the ones who are well rewarded. It’s always important to please your employer.”
His gaze met Cassie’s over the table and he gave her a meaningful glance. She had no difficulty in picking up the innuendo. The fact that Pierre was saying this in front of the children, the day after Margot’s funeral, made her want to vomit.
With a superhuman effort she kept her expression neutral and forced the food down, hoping that keeping quiet might help her to become invisible to him again.
“I am going into town this afternoon on business,” Pierre announced as the plates were cleared.
“When will you be back, Papa?” Antoinette asked.
“By early evening.”
“Can we play a game?” She smiled again.
“Perhaps we can. You know how much I enjoy games.” But as he spoke, Pierre was looking at Cassie, not at his daughter.
She thought he’d been about to say something else, but at that moment, there was a knock at the front door.
Pierre stood up.
“I will answer it. I am on my way out anyway,” he said.
Cassie stood up too, feeling as if her nerves had been put through the shredder. She walked out of the dining room, overhearing Pierre’s brusque conversation with the visitor at the front door.
“Madame, there is nothing to see here. Margot’s funeral service was yesterday, and I am leaving the house now. If you wish to spend some time remembering her, let me direct you to the churchyard where her ashes are buried.”
He paused.
“You are a reporter? Then you may contact my office for a copy of her formal obituary. Some information on her life, together with excellent photos, is available. Here is my business card with the relevant details. I am still grieving and have nothing to say to you.”
Pierre closed the door firmly behind him, and a few minutes later she heard his car leaving.
Now was the time to act, Cassie decided. She wasn’t going to wait another minute.
She marched up the stairs and along the corridor to Pierre’s bedroom. Taking her cell phone out of her jacket pocket, she scrolled through until she found the agency’s number. Then, lifting her chin determinedly, she turned the door handle.
It was locked.
The reality hit her like a punch to the stomach.
She tried it again, rattling the handle. This door had never been locked, and now it unmistakably was.
There was no way she could access the landline now. She could make no calls this afternoon and receive no good advice. Her only means of communication was gone.
Cassie turned away from the door, shattered. This must be her punishment for rejecting him yesterday.
How had he even known she’d come into his room that first time? Clearly, he’d guessed it or sensed it, and she’d been found out. And now he was telling her that he knew, and he was going to stop her, because this was part of the sick power game he was playing.
Thinking of that, thinking of his odd satisfaction during lunch, Cassie had another premonition of disaster.
She’d left her bedroom unlocked that morning, as Marnie had asked her to do, because she and the children had been at home and housekeeping needed to clean.
Cassie went back down the corridor, took the key out of her pocket, and closed the bedroom door. Then she tried to lock it.
This time, though, the key wouldn’t go in properly. It wouldn’t fit at all, and she couldn’t make it turn. She wiggled it, jiggled it, pushed and pulled. She twisted it with all her might until she stopped, because she knew if she kept trying, the slim metal shaft would simply snap off in the lock.
She took it out and put it back in again and tried a second time in case the lock had developed a glitch, or there was a flake of rust in the way, or he
r own panic had just meant that she’d done it wrong.
It was the same no matter how many times she tried. She couldn’t turn the key and she couldn’t lock the door.
Pierre had found out she’d been locking it for her safety.
Tonight, he was making sure she couldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Cassie threw the useless key across her bedroom as hard as she could. It hit the wall and jangled down onto the floor. She didn’t bother picking it up. She turned her back on it and slammed the door as she left.
The low-grade fear that she realized she’d been living with ever since Margot died was erupting into full-blown terror.
She told herself that this was just Pierre playing mind games with her and punishing her for fighting him off yesterday. She tried to reassure herself that she still had options open to her and could sleep in Ella’s bedroom if she had to.
But she couldn’t do that all night, every night. She had no idea when her passport would be returned, and she couldn’t call anybody to ask for help.
Cassie breathed in deeply. She had never felt more trapped or defeated. She was sharing the house with an adulterer who’d set his sights on her, and with a suspected murderer. She had no idea if these were one and the same person, or whether they were two different people. Who had pushed Margot over the balcony? And who had shoved that statue off the pedestal, sending it crashing to the ground as she passed?
Why, oh why, had she overdosed so badly on her meds on that night of all nights, resulting in confusion and nightmares and muddled memories that meant that not even she knew what had really happened, or what role she herself had played in all of this?
She plodded downstairs and went to the kitchen, wondering where Marnie had gone. For all she knew, Marnie had actually quit her job. She couldn’t believe anything she was told anymore.
One of the other kitchen staff was working in the scullery but the kitchen itself was empty.
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