In Their Footsteps / Thief of Hearts

by Tess Gerritsen

  For an eternity, Beryl stared at the face she knew from her childhood—the face so very much like her own. She touched the smiling lips, traced the upswept tendrils of black hair. She thought about how it must be for a man to so desperately love a woman. To lose her to another man. To flee from those memories of her to a foreign city, only to have her reappear in that same city. And to find that, even fifteen years later, the feelings remain, and there is nothing you can do to ease your anguish, nothing at all…so long as she is alive.

  Beryl shut the album and went to the telephone. She didn’t know how to reach Richard, so she dialed Daumier’s number instead and was greeted by a recorded message, intoned in businesslike French.

  After the beep, she said, “Claude, it’s Beryl. I have to speak to you at once. I think I’ve found some new evidence. Please, come get me! As soon as you—” She stopped, her hand suddenly frozen on the receiver. What was that click on the line?

  She listened for other sounds, but heard only the pounding of her own heart—and silence. She hung up. The extension, she thought. Someone had been listening on the extension.

  Quickly she rose to her feet. I can’t stay here, not in this house. Not under this roof. Not when I know he could have been the one.

  Clutching the album firmly in her arms, she left Reggie’s library and hurried across the foyer. After disarming the security system, she stepped out the front door.

  Outside, it was a cool night, the sky clear, the stars faintly twinkling against the distant haze of city light. She looked across the stone courtyard and saw that the iron gates were closed—no doubt locked, as well. As a bank executive in Paris, Reggie was a prime target for terrorists; he would install the very best security for his home.

  I have to get out of here, she determined. Without anyone knowing.

  And then what? Thumb a ride to the nearest police station? Daumier’s flat? Anywhere but here.

  She traced the perimeter of the courtyard, searching the high wall for a doorway, an exit. She spotted another gate, but it, too, was locked. No way around it, she thought. She’d have to climb over. Quickly she scanned the trees and spotted an apple tree with a branch overhanging the wall. Clutching the photo album in one hand, she scrambled up onto the lowest branch. It was an easy climb to the next branch, and the next, but every movement made the tree sway and sent apples thudding noisily to the ground. At the top of the wall, she tossed the album down on the other side and dropped to the ground beside it. At once she scooped up the album and turned toward the road.

  The blinding beam of a flashlight made her freeze.

  “So it’s not a burglar after all,” said a voice. “What on earth are you doing, Beryl?”

  Squinting against the light, Beryl could barely make out Helena’s silhouette standing before her. “I…I wanted to take a walk. But the gate was locked.”

  “I would have opened it for you.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.” She turned her gaze from the flashlight. “Please, could you drop the torch? It hurts my eyes.”

  The beam slowly fell, and stopped at the photo album in Beryl’s arms. Beryl had clasped the album to her chest, hoping Helena hadn’t recognized it, but it was too late. She had already seen it.

  “Where was it?” asked Helena softly. “Where did you find it?”

  “The library,” said Beryl. No point in lying now; the evidence was there, plainly in her grasp.

  “All these years,” murmured Helena. “He kept it all these years. And he swore to me—”

  “What, Helena? What did he swear to?”

  There was silence. “That he no longer loved her,” came the whispered answer. Then a laugh, full of self-mockery. “I’ve lost out to a ghost. It was hopeless enough when she was alive. But now she’s dead, and I can’t fight back. The dead, you see, don’t grow old. They stay young and beautiful. And perfect.”

  Beryl took a step forward, her arms extended in sympathy. “They weren’t lovers, Helena. I know they weren’t.”

  “I was never perfect enough.”

  “But he married you. There must have been love involved—”

  Helena stepped away, angrily brushing off Beryl’s offer of comfort. “Not love! It was spite. Some stupid, masculine gesture to show her he couldn’t be hurt. We were married a month after she was. I was his consolation prize, you see. I gave him all the right connections. And the money. He happily accepted those. But he never really wanted my love.”

  Again, Beryl tried to reach out to her; again, Helena rebuffed the gesture. Beryl said softly, “It’s time to move on, Helena. Make your own life, without him. While you’re still young…”

  “He is my life.”

  “But all these years, you must have known! You must have suspected that Reggie was the one who—”

  “Not Reggie.”

  “Helena, please think about it!”

  “Not Reggie.”

  “He was obsessed, unable to let her go! To let another man have her—”

  “It was me.”

  Those three words, uttered so quietly, chilled Beryl’s blood to ice. She stared at the silhouette standing before her, her thoughts instantly shifting to ones of escape. She could flee down the road, pound at the nearest door…. She shifted onto the balls of her feet and was about to make a dash past Helena, when she heard the click of the pistol hammer.

  “You look so very much like her,” whispered Helena. “When I first saw you, years ago at Chetwynd, it was almost as if she’d come back. And now, I have to kill her all over again.”

  “But I’m not Madeline—”

  “It makes no difference now who you are. Because you know.” Helena raised her arm and Beryl saw, through the shadows, the faint gleam of the gun in her hand. “The garage, Beryl,” she said. “We’re going for a drive.”

  Twelve

  “Amiel Foch,” said Daumier, flipping through a file folder. “Age forty-six, formerly with French Intelligence. Presumed dead three years ago, after a helicopter crash off Cyprus—”

  “He faked his own death?” asked Richard.

  Daumier nodded. “It is not an easy matter to resign from Intelligence and simply start work as a mercenary. One would be subject to constraints.”

  “But if one is declared dead—”

  “Precisely.” Daumier skimmed the next page and stopped. “Here it is,” he said. “The link we have been searching for. In 1972, M. Foch served as our liaison to the American mission. It seems there was a telephone threat against Ambassador Sutherland’s family. For several years, Amiel Foch remained in contact with the Sutherland household. He was later reassigned to other duties, until his…death.”

  “When he became available for private clients. To perform any service,” said Hugh.

  “Including assassination.” Daumier closed the folder and said to his assistant, “Bring in Mrs. Sutherland.”

  The woman who walked through the door was the same brash and confident Nina Sutherland that Richard had always known. She swept into the room, glanced around with disdain at her audience, then gracefully settled into a chair. “A bit late in the day for a command performance, don’t you think?” she asked.

  And a performance was just what they were going to get, thought Richard. Unless they shook her up. He pulled up a chair and sat down, facing her. “You know that Anthony’s been taken into custody?”

  A flicker of fear—just a flicker—rippled through her eyes. “It’s a mistake, of course. He’s never done anything wrong in his life.”

  “Murder through hire? Contracts with assassins?” Richard raised an eyebrow. “Ironclad charges, multiple witnesses. I’d say this is serious enough to warrant a very long stay behind bars.”

  “But he’s only a boy and not—”

  “He’s of age. And fully responsible for his crimes.” Richard glanced at Daumier. “Claude and I were just discussing what a shame it was. To be locked up so young. He’ll be, how old when he’s released, Claude? Fifty, do you think?�
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  “I would guess closer to sixty,” said Daumier.

  “Sixty.” Richard shook his head and sighed. “His whole life behind him. No wife. No children.” Richard looked Nina sympathetically in the eyes. “No grandchildren…”

  Nina’s face had turned ashen. She said in a whisper, “What do you want from me?”

  “Cooperation.”

  “And what’s my payback?”

  “We can be lenient,” said Daumier. “After all, he is just a boy.”

  Swallowing hard, Nina looked away. “It’s not his fault. He doesn’t deserve to be—”

  “He’s responsible for the deaths of two French agents. And the attempted murders of Marie St. Pierre and Jordan.”

  “He didn’t do anything!”

  “But he hired Amiel Foch to do his dirty work. What kind of a monster did you raise, Nina?”

  “He was only trying to protect me!”

  “From what?”

  Nina’s head drooped. “The past,” she whispered. “It never goes away. Everything else changes, but the past…”

  The past, thought Richard, remembering Heinrich Leitner’s words. We’re always in its shadow. “You were Delphi,” he said. “Weren’t you?”

  Nina said nothing.

  He leaned forward, and his voice dropped to a quiet, almost intimate murmur. “Perhaps it started out as a bit of a lark,” he suggested. “An amusing game of spies and counterspies. Perhaps you liked the excitement. Or was it the money that tempted you? Whatever the reason, you passed a secret or two to the other side. Then it was classified documents. And suddenly you were in their pocket.”

  “It was only for a short time!”

  “But by then it was too late. NATO intelligence got wind of it. And they were closing in. So you worked out a way to shift the blame. Somehow you lured Bernard and Madeline to your little love nest in Rue Myrha. There you shot them both.”

  “No.”

  “You planted the documents near Bernard’s body.”

  “No.”

  Richard grabbed Nina by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “And then you walked away and went on with your merry life. Isn’t that how it went?”

  Nina gave a pitiful sob. “I didn’t kill them!”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I swear I didn’t kill them! They were already dead!”

  Richard released her. Nina sank back into the chair, her whole body shuddering with sobs.

  “Who killed them?” demanded Richard. “Amiel Foch?”

  “No, I never asked him to.”

  “Philippe?”

  She looked up sharply. “No! He was the one who found them. He was frantic when he called me. Afraid he’d be accused of it. That’s when I called in Foch. Asked him to make arrangements with Rideau, the landlord. A cash payment to change his testimony.”

  “And the documents? Who planted them?”

  “Foch did. By then, the police had already been called. Foch had to slip the briefcase into the garret.”

  Jordan cut in, “She’s just admitted she’s Delphi. Now we’re supposed to believe some other mysterious culprit did the killing?”

  “It’s the truth!” insisted Nina.

  “Oh, right!” sneered Jordan. “And the killer just happened to choose the very flat where you and Philippe met every week?”

  Nina shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t know why he chose our flat.”

  “It had to be you. Or Philippe,” said Jordan.

  “I would never…he would never…”

  “Who else knew about the garret?” asked Richard.

  “No one.”

  “Marie St. Pierre?”

  “No.” She paused, then whispered, “Yes, perhaps…”

  “So Philippe’s wife knew.”

  Nina nodded miserably. “But no one else.”

  “Wait,” Jordan suddenly interjected. “Someone else did know about it.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “What?” said Richard.

  “I heard it from Reggie. Helena knew about the affair—Marie told her. And if Marie knew about the garret on Rue Myrha, then—”

  “So did Helena.” Richard stared at Jordan. With that one look, they both knew what the other was thinking.

  Beryl.

  Instantly they both turned to leave. “Get us some backup!” Richard snapped to Daumier. “Have them meet us there!”

  “The Vanes’ residence?”

  Richard didn’t answer; he was already running out the door.

  “Get in the car,” said Helena.

  Beryl halted, her hand frozen on the door handle of the Mercedes. “There’ll be questions, Helena.”

  “And I’ll have the answers. I was asleep, you see. I slept all night. And when I woke up, you were gone. Left the compound on your own, never to be seen again.”

  “Reggie will remember—”

  “Reggie won’t remember a thing. He’s stone drunk. As far as he knows, I never left the bed.”

  “They’ll suspect you—”

  “It’s been twenty years, Beryl. And they still don’t suspect.” She raised the gun. “Get in. The driver’s seat. Or do I have to change my story? Tell them I thought I was shooting a burglar?”

  Beryl stared at the gun barrel pointed squarely at her chest. She had no choice. Helena really would shoot her. She climbed into the car.

  Helena slid in beside her and tossed the keys into Beryl’s lap. “Start the engine.”

  Beryl turned the key; the Mercedes purred to life like a contented cat. “My mother never meant to hurt you,” said Beryl softly. “She was never interested in Reggie. She never wanted him.”

  “But he wanted her. Oh, I saw how he used to look at her! Do you know, he used to say her name in his sleep. There I’d be, lying next to him, and he’d be thinking of her. I never knew, I never really knew, if they were…” She swallowed. “Drive.”

  “Where?”

  “Just go out the gate. Go!”

  Beryl eased the Mercedes out of the garage and across the cobblestoned courtyard. Helena pressed a remote control and the iron gate automatically swung open. It closed again behind them as they drove through. Ahead stretched the tree-lined road. No other cars, no other witnesses.

  The steering wheel felt slick with her sweat. Beryl gripped it tightly, just to keep her hands from shaking. “My father never hurt you,” she whispered. “Why did you have to kill him?”

  “Someone had to be blamed. Why not make it a dead man? And the fact it was Nina’s secret flat—that made it all the more convenient.” She laughed. “You should have seen how Nina and Philippe scrambled to cover things up.”

  “And Delphi?”

  Helena shook her head in bewilderment. “What about Delphi?”

  So she knows nothing about it, thought Beryl. All this time, we’ve been chasing the wrong clues. Richard will never know—will never suspect—what really happened.

  The road began to curve and wind through the trees. They were headed into the depths of the Bois de Boulogne. Is this where they’ll find me? she wondered, dismayed. In some lonely copse of trees? At the muddy bottom of a pond?

  She peered ahead to the road beyond their headlights. They were approaching another curve.

  It may be my only chance. I can let her shoot me. Or I can go down fighting. She pointed the car on a straight course. Then she hit the accelerator pedal. The engine roared and tires screamed. Beryl was thrust back against the seat as the Mercedes lurched forward.

  Helena cried out, “No!” and clawed for control of the wheel. A split-second before they hit the trees, Helena managed to swerve them sideways. Suddenly they were tumbling like helpless riders in an out-of-control carnival ride. The Mercedes toppled over and over, windows shattered, and the two passengers were flung against the dashboard.

  The car came to rest on its roof.

  It was the blare of the horn that dragged Beryl back to consciousness. And the pain. Excruciating pain, tear
ing at her leg. She tried to move and realized that her chest was wedged against the steering wheel, and that her head was somehow cradled in the small space between the windshield and the upside-down dashboard. She pushed away from the steering wheel. The effort made her cry out in pain, but she managed to slide her body a few precious inches across the crumpled roof. For a moment, she rested, gasping for breath, waiting for the pain in her leg to ease. Then, gritting her teeth, she pushed again and managed to slide through into a larger pocket of space. The front seat? Everything seemed so mangled, so confusing in the darkness. The tumble had left her disoriented.

  But she was not so dazed that she didn’t smell the odor of gasoline growing stronger every second. I have to get to a window—have to squeeze through before it explodes. Blindly she reached out to feel her surroundings, and her hand shoved up against something warm. Something wet. She twisted her head around and came face-to-face with Helena’s corpse.

  Beryl screamed. Suddenly frantic to get out, to escape those sightless eyes, she squirmed away, clawing for the window. New pain, even more excruciating, ripped through her shattered leg and flooded her eyes with tears. She touched window frame, bits of glass and then…a branch! I’m almost there. Almost there.

  Half crawling, half dragging herself, she managed to squeeze through the opening. Just as her body rolled onto the ground, the dirt beneath her seemed to give way and she began to slide down a leafy embankment. She landed in a ditch near some trees.

  A burst of light suddenly shot into the sky. Through eyes blurred with agony, she looked up and saw the first flicker of the inferno. Seconds later, she heard the popping of glass, then a terrifying whoosh as a fountain of flames engulfed the vehicle.

  Why, Helena? Why? The flames blurred, faded into a gathering darkness. She closed her eyes and shivered among the fallen leaves.

  Three miles from the Vanes’ residence, they spotted the fire. It was a car, upended, stretched diagonally across the road. A Mercedes.