She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes, not backing down in the face of the young man's anger. Behind him, she could see Martin was not pleased by her presence either. She waved her clipboard and held up her camera to make her point. It was her job, or kind of her job, and she wanted them to know that. They had no right to stop her.
It didn't seem to matter. This was definitely their domain and they knew it. Maybe the fact that their wine made all the money for the estate gave them some extra degree of power, or maybe it was pride in how well-kept and productive their workspace was. It was also possible they just didn't like strangers snooping around their barn, but whatever it was, she could tell from the looks on their faces they weren’t pleased.
The men talked quickly amongst themselves, their eyebrows drawn together in concern, with Bernard clearly looking angry. Jennifer finally held up the camera again, sliding the clipboard into her bag. She ignored the men's grumbles as she began taking pictures of the equipment, then the interior of the building.
It was her job. If the men didn’t like it, they were just out of luck. She could feel their eyes following her in harsh disapproval, and finally Bernard walked over to her again, then stepped so close she had to rear her head back to look up into his face.
“Really?” she asked sarcastically, her face deadpan as she locked eyes with the young man. “Is this a staring contest?”
The young man was doing his best to puff himself up and was within inches, leaning his body into her personal space. Jennifer instantly ran through a mental list of the ways she could defend herself if he moved one inch closer to her. Whatever she did, it would be sudden and painful, and she was dead certain he wouldn’t like it.
There were a few tense moments of Bernard staring down at her, his mouth pressed into a thin line of anger as Jennifer glared back. She’d been trained to handle guys bigger than this, and part of that training was to never show fear.
Finally, Bernard gave a snort of disgust and stalked away, muttering what almost certainly were French curse words under his breath. His father jogged after him and clapped an arm across his shoulders in commiseration, but Bernard shook it off, his father trailing behind him.
Jennifer could feel the adrenaline still coursing through her body as she watched them go. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to stop her and she imagined it wouldn’t be the last, but the question remained.
Why had they wanted her to leave? What were the two men trying to hide?
Chapter 6
After her encounter with the Dubois family, Jennifer needed to walk a bit to cool off her flaming temper. For all they knew, she was only doing her job, investigating for insurance reasons at the request of the owner. She had every right to poke her nose around in all the crevices and buildings that she wanted to, and the posturing that Bernard Dubois had done just made her angry. She’d been twitching with anticipation of having to flatten him if he had stepped one bit closer to her, and was almost sorry that he did not.
It would’ve blown her cover story, but it would’ve been really satisfying to see him sprawled on the floor, his mouth open in surprise.
She walked around the corner of the barn and gulped in deep, clean breaths. The air smelled of blooming lavender and dried rosemary, and she could see swallows swooping over the raked earth of the neatly groomed vineyard. Just another day in Provence.
Maybe a walk among the grapevines will help me clear my head, she thought to herself. Just as she was walking through the small gate, she nearly bumped into Robert Abeneau. He looked flustered and quickly tugged at the front of his canvas hat in apparent apology.
“Pardon,” he said as an apology, averting his eyes as he rushed by her. In one hand he carried a bucket, full of some sort of wet plaster, and there was a trowel hooked onto the bucket handle.
“Monsieur?” Jennifer asked, and the handyman stopped in his tracks and looked back at her with curiosity.
“Oui?”
It took some wrangling to communicate, because the handyman’s English was nearly nonexistent and Jennifer wasn’t willing to let him know exactly how much French she could understand. After a bit of fractured conversation back and forth, she was finally able to make him understand that she would like to see what his duties were, and have him show her around the chateau’s outside buildings. She could detect a bit of frustration on Robert’s face, probably because she was interrupting his daily chores, but he finally sighed and plodded along to give her a tour. Jennifer did her best to keep up with him, taking pictures as if she was interested in the replacement value of farm equipment and horse stalls and old wine barrels, when she was really trying to find out more about the chateau and its potential.
The buildings and their contents were important, it was true, but in her estimation the employees were, too. The day before, she’d seen Robert napping under one of the large plane trees just outside the wall, and that confirmed her suspicion that he was a little negligent in his duties to maintain the chateau from falling into further ruin. Maybe it was time for a midday nap, but she hadn’t seen him move at anything faster than a slow, lumbering speed. There was evidence of neglect everywhere, but maybe it was because there was just too much to do with the property this old. Either he needed an assistant, or he needed to move at a more deliberate speed.
He showed her around the shed that had been converted into a chicken coop, then took her back by the white beehives outside the stone wall. She’d always been fascinated with bees, and seeing the swooping flight paths of the little creatures as they hurried in and out of their boxy home made her smile.
He was grinning as well, and said something quickly in French that Jennifer did not understand. He cast a quick glance her way and seemed to realize her lack of comprehension.
“Beautiful, yes?” he asked slowly, and Jennifer couldn’t help but smile and nod in agreement.
“Yes.”
As he continued the tour she made a mental note to recommend to Gable that if he did buy the property he should search for a different handyman, or at least someone to supervise Robert’s actions. The areas he showed her were both depressing and ugly, with lots of places that were so neglected they were probably going to become dangerous if not maintained right away. She hadn’t planned on making personnel recommendations, but in this case, she might make an exception. To her surprise, the chateau had a pool, if it could be called that. It was located behind the main part of the house and surrounded by a flat stone walkway, but it had been so unloved that the interior was growing man-high seedlings in the thick green sludge at the bottom, and a few large pieces of flat lumber had been stretched across in a half-hearted attempt to make sure no people or animals might fall inside. Elsewhere, doorframes had chunks of mortar coming out, screens were ripped, and part of the main courtyard wall was only standing because someone had stacked a three-foot-high pile of rocks behind it, propping the weak section in place.
When he was done showing her around, he looked at her and gave a noncommittal grunt. Apparently, this was his way of saying that he had to go back to work, or the tour was over, or perhaps he needed another nap, because he walked back into the darkness of the animal barn without another word.
Definitely not a keeper.
***
Gable’s response to her email was terse.
“You have one more day to get all information to me for further analysis. Goal is to learn possible price point for sale, and whether owner will object. Please supply ASAP.”
Jennifer set down her phone, irritated. It had taken her a while to get a good cell signal to send and receive emails, and then it felt like Gable was pushing her for more details. She sighed and tapped a quick reply, making a mental note to research how to get a decent wi-fi hotspot for her next mission.
If there was another mission, that is. So far, Gable didn’t seem overly impressed with her work.
One more day. She could do that. The worst that could happen is she’d get fired and go back to
Ravenwood Cove. She missed her friends and the beautiful little beach town, but the thought of returning as a failure stuck in her craw.
No.
This was her new life, and she was going to do her best.
Even if she had to poke in every dusty corner and make friends with every person at the chateau.
Chapter 7
After a day cataloging items in the various rooms and pretending interest in Madame Durand’s words as she followed her around, Jennifer was sick of it. The housekeeper was right on her heels as she went room to room, explaining in very broken English about where some antique stool had come from or how a group of paintings had been commissioned by some long-dead ancestor of the current owner. After feigning courtesy for several hours, Jennifer was ready for a break.
Every time she’d moved an old painting off the wall to check the back or had opened a closet door she’d had to deal with dust and an occasional startled spider. Along with the afternoon heat that was pouring through open windows, it was tiring and sweaty work, and she was grateful when Madame Durand finally seemed to give up and pointed her toward the cellar.
“Ici. Here,” she’d said, and handed Jennifer a large flashlight. “You…you need eet.” Her words were heavily accented and carefully chosen.
“No electricity?” Jennifer asked, making sure she spoke slowly and clearly. The housekeeper waggled her hand back in forth and shrugged noncommittally.
“Peut être.” Maybe.
Jennifer clicked on the flashlight, making sure it worked, then smiled at the housekeeper. “Merci beaucoup,” she said. Thank you very much.
She watched as Madame Durand turned and walked away, leaving her standing before a large, wooden door. From behind it, Jennifer could feel tendrils of cool, humid air wafting through, and when she opened the door the earthy, pungent aroma of an old wine cellar surrounded her. She took a deep breath and fumbled for a light switch on the wall inside, and experienced a jolt of relief when her fingers tripped across an ancient switch. Flipping it on, a single bulb illuminated a set of wide stone steps, leading downwards into the ancient basement. From somewhere ahead, out of her sight, there was a weak, barely visible light source.
Jennifer clutched her flashlight in one hand and pulled her shoulder bag closer to her as she started down the steps. She’d already met her share of bugs and spiders and had no intention of meeting any more than she had to. Two steps down, then three. Her heartbeat was pulsing in her ears, the only sound in an otherwise silent cave. As she reached the sixth step she noticed the light behind her was fading, growing darker, and she pivoted just in time to see the heavy door at the top of the staircase slowly swinging shut. Even with the lightbulb overhead, it was dark enough she felt as though she’d been sealed in. She gulped and quickly turned on the flashlight. The bright, piercing beam was instantly before her, shining on the wall with a welcome brilliance, and she took a deep breath as she continued down the stairs.
At the bottom, Jennifer looked around. The chill of the stone-enclosed space sank through her clothing and clung to her exposed arms. Shifting the flashlight’s beam to scan the area, she could just make out racks of hundreds of bottles of wine on the left side of the space, with shelving full of boxes and flanked by old furniture to her right. At the end, the huge basement stretched into murky darkness, its boundaries unknown. She picked her way through boxes on the floor, carefully watching every step as she moved toward the racks of dark wine bottles, lying on their side as they waited patiently to be uncorked and tasted. Jennifer carefully pulled one of the bottles out, and brushed the cloying dust off. The label was for Chateau Mersau, with a date handwritten on it from nearly sixty years ago. A quick check of the ones next to it on the shelf showed a progressive history of decades, and perhaps centuries, of local wine, much of it from right where she was staying.
She spent some time walking around the perimeter of the room, looking for structural faults, but also keeping an eye open for any item that might be of extreme value. Gable was a collector of the most serious kind, snapping up antiquities and rare things freely and frequently as he bought up land and buildings. The jumble of items in storage didn’t catch her eye much, and she jotted a few notes down, then kept moving around the wall. About ten yards back she could see a tall iron rack, with several canvas-draped, rectangular items hung from it, up against the stone blocks in the wall. She shone the light on her feet to be sure she wouldn’t trip and made her way there, then leaned forward and slowly, carefully, lifted the corner on the dust-streaked fabric. As soon as her flashlight shone on what was underneath, she gave a small gasp.
The covered items were paintings, and from the glorious colors of the paint and the classic, medieval look of the portraits and people depicted, they were old. Very old.
There were three, all draped, all dirty and in need of cleaning, but the beauty of the life-like flesh tones and sweet expressions of the people who smiled out at her was exceptional. A quick, excited survey of what she was seeing made her think they were probably from the sixteenth century or so, and she quickly pulled out her camera to document her discovery. It took a bit of wrangling to lift the dusty canvas high enough to get decent photos of the paintings. She finally got what she wanted, including a photo of a signature in the corner of the smallest painting, a lovely Madonna and child. She took several more shots, grinning, then looked at the metal rack. It was huge, heavy and unmovable, and she mentally grimaced. Anyone who knew anything about classical paintings knew that it was just as important to know what was on the back of a canvas as on the front, since sometimes notes of ownership or clues to the artist’s identity was were visible there. Jennifer remembered also that some canvases got reused. When the painter was unhappy with a version they would sometimes repaint it, and the back might reveal that.
To get behind the paintings she’d have to squeeze between the stone wall and the heavy rack. She could already feel her skin crawling at the thought of what critters might be back there, but mentally braced herself, remembering her military training.
If she got this information, it would probably be enough to finish up her report. She could turn it in to Gable and Mrs. Wheaton, then drive back to civilization. She pictured booking herself into an expensive hotel with a huge bathtub and a licensed masseuse, all bug-free.
It took a bit of maneuvering to slide behind the rack, and then some yoga-level stretching to move the canvas cover aside enough to see the backs of the paintings. As soon as she pulled the fabric aside she smiled, already seeing an inscription in charcoal in big sweeping letters on the back of the first painting. Leaning back a bit to take a photo of the nearly illegible script, her back against the stone wall, she pressed the button on her camera, the flash lighting up the entire room.
And then, she was falling.
Falling backward, falling downwards.
Plunging into absolute darkness.
Chapter 8
The shrill scream Jennifer heard was her own.
She slammed onto a hard floor, landing flat on her back after falling through the broken wall. The breath whooshed from her body from the impact. Her eyes were wide with fear and the desperate attempt to find light, any light, to make sense of whatever or wherever she was, and see what was around her.
She winced and gasped as she lay on her back in the darkness, trying to catch her breath as her fingers scrabbled frantically around her. She’d been holding the flashlight when she’d fallen, but it had flown out of her hand and must be nearby.
Please let it be nearby, she prayed. Please…
Finally, the fingertips of her left hand touched cool, smooth metal and she instantly grabbed at it. Hoping that the bulb still worked, she used her other hand to find the switch on the flashlight and pushed it.
Pure, blessed, wonderful light flooded the room.
But it wasn’t a room.
Looking around her, Jennifer’s mouth gaped open in absolute shock. The beam of light on the ceiling showed vaulted arches,
colored with deep blue paint and spattered with gold stars. Brightly striped stone columns as thick as her body upheld the roof, and stylized painted angels playing medieval instruments topped each one. The floor beneath her wasn’t the stone slabs in the basement she’d left, but was hardpacked earth. There was the smell of ancient fires and stale air around her, and she swung the flashlight beam quickly around the rest of the room, trying to get her bearings.
Whatever it had been, she could tell this place was a place of worship and respect. There were religious symbols painted on the plastered walls, and inscriptions in Latin that she could not read. Remnants of an iron cross hung from one column. In the corner, a pile of rubble marked what had almost certainly been a cave-in, blocking whatever entrance had been used by worshipers. The broken wall, where she’d leaned on and had tumbled into the new space, was gaping open, a few blocks of stone scattered on the floor.
Gingerly, Jennifer hauled herself to her feet, feeling her ribcage. After a quick assessment, she was satisfied that she hadn’t broken anything, even if she was going to have some spectacular bruises appear in the next few days. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heartbeat, and slowly worked her way around the perimeter of the room.
As soon as she saw the thick stone slab, the size of a grown man, against one wall, and noticed the stylized skeleton carved into the top, she knew exactly what she’d discovered.
It was a crypt.
A very old, long-sealed crypt where the faithful dead, often selected for their monetary generosity or piety, lay in wait for the final days of the world.
A quick scan of the rest of the room showed several different niches in the walls, and one child-sized stone box with ancient crosses carved into the lid. The thought of the small body in there, and how many parents had grieved for babies lost to child mortality, made Jennifer’s heart hurt.
Perils in Provence Page 4