Part two of her trip was still ahead of her. And for all her brave talk with her father before she left, she feared it nearly as much as looking down into the face of her dead sister.
She was going to kidnap her own niece, smuggle her onboard an international flight and bring her back to the States.
From the patio of the Carlton Hotel, Maggie could see the Promenade de la Croisette, its grand royal palms lining the broad boulevard like Titans shading the procession of a monarch. The air smelled sweet yet citrusy. If her reason for being there were different, the afternoon would have been magical. As it was, she felt as if she had been catapulted into a guest starring role in somebody else’s nightmare.
“Have you been waiting long?” He appeared from behind her and was suddenly seated next to her, breathless yet cool in all this heat. His accent was Oxbridge. “Snarl-up in Nice, sorry,” he continued brightly. “You’re Miss Newberry, right?”
Maggie nodded, a prick of relief coloring her face. He was tall, with a straight English nose and eyes that missed nothing.
“I thought so. Easy to spot from your father’s description,” he said pleasantly. “Roger Bentley.”
Maggie shook his hand and felt relief sift through her. He looked competent. He looked like he knew what he was doing. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m a little nervous about all this.”
“Of course you are. But don’t you worry a tick. Do you have my package?”
Maggie reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope with thirty thousand euros in it and handed it across the table to him. His eyes never left hers and the smile never left his face as he tucked the envelope into his coat’s breast pocket.
They would be spending several days together, she reasoned. He had plenty of time to count it at his leisure. It occurred to her that she should make him count it in front of her so he didn’t accuse her later of shortchanging him, and she hated that the thought came into her head. She needed to trust this man.
He was the one who was going to find her niece and get them safely—and quietly—out of the country. Maggie wasn’t absolutely sure why her father had paid for false papers instead of just attempting to go through the French system of getting custody of little Nicole, but she assumed much of his decision had to do with the advice he had received from Bentley.
A waiter came and set down a tray holding a china teapot, two cups and a plate of cookies. Bentley must have ordered it before joining her at the table. For some reason, the thought made her uncomfortable.
“Did you know my sister?”
“Met her once or twice. I’m sorry about your loss, by the way. You identified her this morning?” He took a sip from his teacup.
“I did. She’ll be on the same flight with me and the little girl.”
“Very nice.” Bentley sugared his tea and picked up the teapot from the table. He poured Maggie’s cup.
“My father said you told him Nicole had been taken from Elise months before she…before she died.”
“That is correct.”
“He said you told him that the girl was…abducted…from my sister’s care.”
“By the child’s father. That is true.”
Maggie pushed her teacup away and leaned in closer to the table. “I’m just trying to find out where you fit into all this, Mr. Bentley. I suppose my question is, if you didn’t know my sister, what is your personal connection? Getting the license plate number of the car that snatched Nicole?”
“No, Miss Newberry. Driving the car that snatched Nicole.”
An hour later, Maggie stood on the terrace of the Gray d’Albion Hotel and dialed her parents on her cell phone. It was half past eight in the evening back in Atlanta and she knew they would be waiting for her call.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom.” Maggie watched the brilliant blue of the ocean in a constantly moving panorama of color. It hadn’t taken her very long to realize why all the movie stars and the rich were partial to the Côte d’Azur. It was undeniably gorgeous in anybody’s book.
“Darling, I’m so glad you called. Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I met the guy Dad talked to and he’s going to help us find Nicole.”
“Maggie, are you sure he’s all right? This all seems so...”
“No, really, he’s very nice. So, not to worry, okay?”
“Does he...did he know anything about Elise?”
Maggie could hear the hope in her mother’s voice. “Not really, Mom.”
“I see. And did that…did you…”
“It was her, Mom.” Maggie wanted to get the words out as fast as she could so her mother could begin processing them, mourning them, getting over them—if that was at all possible. “But this Bentley guy knows where Nicole is,” Maggie hurried on. “And he can help us get her.”
“Maggie, just promise you’re being careful,”
“Yes, I’m careful. Bentley thinks I’ll have Nicole by tomorrow evening. I’m planning on being on a flight out of Nice to Atlanta either tomorrow night or first thing the next morning. But, I’ll call you first to confirm.”
“With...Elise.”
Maggie hesitated. “Yes, Mom. And Nicole.”
“Is...is the child’s father there?”
“I don’t think so. Bentley said Gerard left the area and left Nicole with some friends or something. That part’s sort of hazy. I drove by Elise’s apartment, though. It was tucked away off this little cobblestone walkway and there were big pots of geraniums and things all over the place. You would’ve loved it. It was really sort of beautiful.”
It was a lie, and Maggie didn’t know why she was telling it to her mother. She had no idea where Elise lived in Cannes, but every hint from Bentley indicated it was less than what most people would consider inhabitable.
Maggie heard unsteadiness in her mother’s voice and didn’t know whether to feel glad or guilty.
“Just be careful, darling.” The loud-and-clear subtext Maggie heard was, I’ve lost one daughter over there, I can’t lose another.
“I will, Mom.” She glanced out to sea. “Kiss Dad for me. And don’t worry, okay?”
Maggie disconnected and held the phone to her ear for another moment before dialing another number.
I wish I believed half of what I just told you, Mother. She rubbed her eyes and felt the exhaustion of the day descend on her as she waited for the call to connect.
“Selby & Parker’s Advertising.”
“Hi, Deirdre, it’s Maggie. Is Gary there?”
“Hey, Maggie. How’s Paris?”
“It’s Nice, not Paris.”
“Yeah, wow. Here’s Gary.”
“Maggie, you okay?”
“Hey, Gary. I’m fine. Just checking in.”
“There’s nothing going on here. Take us off your To-Do list. Attend to what you have to over there.”
“It’ll just be a few days. I’ll be back at my desk at the latest by day after tomorrow—”
“Will you stop? Take care of your business.”
“Okay, thanks, Gary. I’ll see you when I’m back.” Maggie disconnected and slumped one hip against the balustrade that contained the majestic stone terrace facing the sea. She had worked with Gary for five years, and recently she had begun to pick up on a restlessness in him that worried her.
It was hot out, even with the afternoon sun quickly dropping, and she needed a cool shower and a change of clothes before she met back up with Bentley. As she walked back to her hotel room, she ran her hands through her dark hair and tried to fluff it into some semblance of a casual, tousled look. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the elevator mirror, she looked like she’d been dragged down a staircase by her roots.
Her pale blue eyes were set in a heart-shaped face, lips full, chin strong and resolute. It was a pretty face, Maggie knew, but not like her older sister’s. Elise had been the great beauty of the family. Everyone knew that.
At thirty-two, Maggie had never been marri
ed and was mildly embarrassed by the fact. She worked out three times a week, indulged in a facial at least once a month and had the dead ends trimmed off her straight dark hair every six weeks without fail. Now, standing in a foreign hotel and staring at her reflection in the mirror, waiting and wondering if she could really trust her new companion, Maggie found herself in a situation she couldn’t control simply by picking up the phone or rearranging her schedule. She felt out of kilter with her body, her diet, and even the simplest attempts to communicate the most basic requests.
Before she left the elevator and its floor to ceiling mirror, she thought she saw a fleeting hologram of her sister Elise’s face form and dissolve over her own. Maggie fought the feeling of melancholia that accompanied it, shaking herself out of the mood.
Missing her and getting sad helps no one, she reminded herself. Combine it with jetlag and I’ll only succeed in making myself useless in every way.
Two hours later, after a quick shower and a nap, she pulled on a pair of slim white capris and a singlet she knew showed her figure off to full advantage. Although she wasn’t one bit interested in Roger Bentley in that way, she still wanted to look good. If not for him, then for all the gorgeous people milling about this Mecca of beauty.
Besides, in her experience dealing with recalcitrant clients at the ad agency where she worked, the better she looked, the more pliable the client became—especially the male clients, of course, but she had seen it work across the board. She tucked her purse under her arm and hurried through the lobby of the Gray d’Albion Hotel. If there ever was a time she needed to be in control, or at least perceived to be, it was now.
One of five seafood restaurants studding the Rue Felix-Faire, Petite Bouche was tiny, frill-less, staffed with the prerequisite surly waiters and absolutely crammed with Mediterranean charm. Bentley had chosen for them to meet at the little restaurant because it was so close to Maggie’s hotel.
She saw him immediately in the outdoor dining section. A bottle of wine was already being opened as she approached.
“I took the liberty of ordering the wine,” he said. She was impressed and surprised by the fact that he half stood as she neared.
She sat down and dropped her purse in the extra chair. “My mother doesn’t know what to make of all this.” She waved her hand at the dining room. “Me, here in Cannes, everything covert and under the table. You.” She looked directly at him.
“I should think not.” He poured Maggie a glass of wine. “Not the usual thing at all.”
The hours that created the meal and their conversation—much of it talk that had nothing to do with her quest for her sister’s child—flew away in a swirl of wonderful food, more wine than she ever drank in a week, let alone a single meal, and the peaceful sounds of the ocean and the wandering guitar-playing minstrels.
At one point, Maggie stared at their dining table as if she’d never seen it before, let alone spent an unanticipated two and a half hours having dinner at it. A chipped crock of goose paté, a platter of half-eaten pommes frites, mushrooms Provençal, the ubiquitous Evian bottles (four of them), and the remains of two platefuls of veal and pasta.
Her eyes fell upon the pretty white saucers with the little primroses painted on them, each looking like an original, not part of a set. She pressed a finger to the crumbs, only a scattering of evidence to tell of the sticky-sweet strawberry tarts they’d both had.
“I hate to ruin the evening,” Maggie said, accepting another glass of wine, “but can you tell me how you came to be driving the getaway car, and how you know Nicole’s father...and where exactly the slimy bastard is now?”
“The slimy bastard, as you say, is no longer on the Côte d’Azur, I’m told.” Roger took a savoring sip of his wine and Maggie half expected him to smack his lips in satisfaction.
“A friend of mine asked me to help him. Gerard Dubois—the child’s father—is his cousin, and he had reason to believe that Gerard’s child needed rescuing from the mother, who he said was unfit. I’m just repeating what he said, you understand.”
“It’s okay,” Maggie said, feeling a wave of exhaustion. “Please, go on.”
“Well, he said the mother was a drug addict. I was asked to give assistance in snatching the child so that she might live with her more responsible parent.”
“Gerard.”
“Right-e-ho.” Roger squinted into the crowd, as if expecting to see someone he knew, then played with the stem of his wineglass. “In any case,” he continued, “my participation in the kidnapping, as you call it, amounted to driving a car to an address.”
“My sister’s apartment here in Cannes.”
“Hardly an apartment, but where she was living, yes. I waited with the motor running. My friend came out of the…dwelling, with the child in his arms. He deposited l’enfant in the car and I departed.” He shrugged and took a sip of his wine.
“Where did you take her?”
“To an apartment near here. A jolly nice woman was waiting for us. She took the girl. That’s it.”
“Were you paid?”
“I told you. I was helping a friend.”
“Will you take me to this address?”
“If you like, Miss Newberry, but I can tell you the child is no longer there.”
“How do you know?”
Bentley sighed and motioned to the waiter hovering in the wings of the café. “I know, Miss Newberry, because I just do.” He turned and spoke briefly to the waiter, his French competent but abrupt. The man disappeared into the restaurant. “Look, she’s not there any longer but I believe I know where to find her, and isn’t that the whole point?”
“I’d like to see this place that you took her. Is it a permanent address? Does the woman live there all the time or was it just a temporary thing?”
The waiter returned with another bottle of red wine and two chilled bottles of Evian. He deposited the mineral water, one at each of their elbows, and began to decant the wine. Bentley watched the man intently, as if ready to jump in and do the job himself if necessary. Bentley was handsome, Maggie decided, but his features were sharp, nearly hawk-like.
The waiter finished pouring the wine and left. Maggie reached out and touched Bentley’s hand as he reached for his glass.
“You told my father Gerard was a very bad man.”
Bentley looked at her sadly. “I did not know it at the time.”
“But he is bad.”
“Yes, Miss Newberry. The child is, in my opinion, in some danger by remaining with Dubois.”
“He’s had her for six months now.”
“So I would say that time is probably critical, wouldn’t you?”
Maggie looked around the restaurant, as if expecting to see Gerard and her niece seated nearby. “Is she in Cannes?”
“Oh, not Cannes. Surely you must be aware by now of the cost of a single room for one night in this town? I imagine, as Monsieur Dubois didn’t have a pied-à-terre here himself—and probably wouldn’t have been foolish enough to have taken the girl there even if he had—that she is somewhere in the country.”
“And that’s where she’s been all this time?”
“Presumably.”
“And you think you’ll be able to find this place?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“May I ask how?”
“Why don’t we see how things go, shall we? I hate to tip my hand—and by doing so, get your hopes up in case things go awry. Let me try a few avenues, knock on a few doors, and see where it all leads.”
“I’d like to be a part of this door knocking, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m afraid that is impossible, Miss Newberry.” Bentley pushed aside their collection of dishes and glasses and drew an ashtray toward him. “I would suggest instead that you try to enjoy what the South of France has to offer. Why not hire a car and see the palace at Monaco tomorrow?” He lit his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of gray-blue smoke into the air above her head.
Maggie nodded. She knew he was right.
“Just leave it to me, Miss Newberry. If all goes well, by this time tomorrow you will have your niece, her forged papers and two tickets back home to the U.S. Everything neat and tidy.”
Maggie stared off into space, across the tables of diners and into the happy nighttime streets of Cannes. Dark gypsies, bejangled and braided, waved their wares of bracelets and bells, beaded necklaces and earrings from the sidewalk in hopes of attracting attention. Some accompanied their selling with soft crooning, which caught on the calm Mediterranean breeze and wafted back to Maggie at her table. The music of the night mingled with the scent of olives and lemons and dusky perfumes that pooled in the air over the little café.
The sensation of being slightly drunk seemed to muffle her hearing and her vision, and she found herself woozy and unclear. But Bentley was right about one thing; she had come here for a single reason: to find Elise’s lost daughter. Elise, herself, had been lost a long, long time ago.
Later that night, after she’d fallen into a fitful sleep that gave her no real rest, Maggie awoke, pushed back the duvet and scrambled out of bed. She flipped on the light in the bathroom and stood on the cool tile as she waited for her heart to stop pounding. She looked at her reflection in the warped mirror over the bathroom sink. Oh, Elise.
They hadn’t heard from Elise in three years. At the age of thirty-two, she had dropped out of sight, with only the briefest, most painful glimpses of her filtering back to them in Georgia. Elise had dropped out of her art classes. Elise had had a baby. Elise was arrested. Drugs? Prostitution? Assault? The news was always vague, and always bad.
Maggie rubbed her hands over her eyes and turned out the bathroom light. She went back to bed, her head throbbing from the night’s overindulgences.
As she tried again to drop off to sleep, her mind began to relentlessly review and catalog the day’s events. She groaned and attempted to block out the image of Elise on the cold gurney, the puffed mass of tissue masquerading as a face unrecognizable and hideous. It was then, when she was trying not to remember the sights and odors of the experience, that a single memory shot through the rest and made her sit bolt upright in bed.
Too distracted by the horror of everything else at the time, Maggie only this minute registered what she had seen: a discolored puckering or dimple was half hidden by the stringy brown hair arranged around the body’s shoulders.
Just above Elise’s right ear was a bullet hole.
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 2