*****
How can it be closed? Does that mean Zouk’s not in Cannes? Maggie cursed herself for not following up before she climbed on an airplane and flew to France. Although, she reminded herself, there had been plenty of distractions.
She sat in a café on the same street of Zouk’s shop and, after ordering a coffee she most certainly would not drink this late in the day, punched in Zouk’s phone number on her cellphone. Was this whole trip just one big expensive mistake? If she didn’t connect with Zouk, was it all for nothing?
“Allo?”
“Yes, Madame Zouk? This is Maggie Newberry, Elise’s sister?”
“Ah, yes, Maggie. I have been waiting to hear from you.”
“I’m actually in Cannes now. I just got in a few hours ago.”
“Oh, tut!”
Zouk made a noise Maggie had heard Laurent make many times. It gave her an instant feeling of connection with the woman.
“Maggie, I am in Paris. I am so sorry. The season is over on the Côte d’Azur, yes?”
“Right, well, I’m just starting to see that,” Maggie said as she watched the traffic on her street. Last spring this same street had looked like Mardi Gras there were so many tourists, cars and shoppers. Today, it could be any sleepy backwater French village…with multi-million dollar hotels in spitting distance.
“Can you come to Paris? I am free tomorrow.”
“Paris?” Could she do that? Maggie tried to think how complicated that might be.
“There is a train every hour from Nice,” Zouk continued, as if interpreting Maggie’s hesitation. “It is two hours on the TGV. I will meet you at my shop, yes? What time would be good?”
Am I really going to Paris?
“Er, yes, tomorrow would be…no, actually, I have some interviews tomorrow. Can we make it Wednesday?” She was supposed to be flying home on Wednesday. Maggie did a fast calculation. She would change her return flight to leave out of Charles de Gaulle and push it back a day.
“Wednesday is also very good for me. Shall we say two?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you, Michelle. Merci.”
“Until Wednesday, Maggie. Au revoir.”
Maggie sat in the café and drank the coffee—and two more—while her head buzzed with thoughts triggered by the change of plans. Later, after she’d trudged back to the hotel full of coffee and pastry as her dinner, she sat down on the bed and shook out a few postcards she’d bought on the walk back from a tissue-thin paper sack.
She thought about calling her mother, but decided against it. She was too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to be shoring up anybody else at the moment. Besides, she’d be home in a few days. And hopefully with some answers.
Her phone began vibrating on the writing desk in the corner of the room, and when she glanced at the screen she felt her spirits lift. “Hey, Laurent. I was just thinking of you.”
“You have not crashed yet?” His voice sounded strong yet sweet. Maggie smiled just to hear his low rumble of a voice, all guttural r’s and sliding z’s. So excitingly French, she thought, and wondered, not for the first time, how much of her attraction to him had to do with his foreignness.
“No, I’m just about to. Have the cops come out with a line on Deirdre’s killing yet?” Maggie ran a hand through her hair.
“Nothing they are sharing.”
“Figures.”
“So I will be at the airport at five, yes?
She hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation.
“I had to push my flight departure back a couple of days, Laurent.”
He didn’t answer.
“Turns out Zouk’s shop in Cannes is closed for the season, so she’s in Paris. I’m taking the train up there to see her on Wednesday.”
“You are going to Paris.”
She now clearly heard the coldness that had been underlying his tone for the full conversation. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror that hung opposite the bed.
“I have to.”
“You don’t.”
“Well, okay. I’m going to. I didn’t fly all the way over here to say, ‘Oh, not home,’ and just leave.”
“This is a mistake.”
“I know you think that, but I don’t know why you do.” Maggie realized she was too tired to make sense. The last thing she wanted was to start a transatlantic fight when she was so jet lagged she couldn’t see straight. “Look, Laurent, let me go, okay? I’m beat and tomorrow’s a big day for me.”
“Fine.”
“I miss you. It’s killing me to be apart like this.”
“Then come home.”
“I am coming home. Just as soon as I talk to these people.”
“Who know nothing.” His voice came across the line without emotion or energy.
“Well, I’ll at least find out once and for all what they do know.” She was surprised she still sounded coherent given how weary she was. They were both silent for a moment. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said finally. “And I’ll be home two days after that. I love you, Laurent.”
“Et je t’aime aussi,” he said, almost sullenly.
After she disconnected, it occurred to her that she’d forgotten again to ask him about his chef gigs. I must be the worst, most self-absorbed girlfriend on the planet.
She picked up a postcard showing the Isles de Lerins and thought of her office back in Atlanta. She thought of Pokey and Patti, Bob and Jenny, Gary and the rest of them and how they must have reacted to the news of Deirdre.
She imagined the look on each of their faces when they realized little Deirdre wouldn’t be showing up for traffic meetings any more. She felt so far away tonight from the people she cared about.
I should be with them. I should be sharing their grief in the office. My God, Gary is probably having a full-blown, living color nervous breakdown about now.
She looked again at the postcard with its picture of the Promenade de la Croisette and remembered the afternoon with Laurent at the abandoned house on the coast. Suddenly, from out of nowhere and for the first time since she’d met him, she had an unmistakable feeling of doubt trace down her spine. A question began to form unbidden in her head that she’d never fully considered before.
Who was he, really?
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 32