Lucky Ce Soir, page 30
Lost in my memories and guilt, I jumped at the sound of the deep voice above me. Some cop I’d be—Romeo was right to deflect my desire to be deputized. “What? Not the renowned pastries?”
Enzo Laurent eased into the chair across from me. He looked disheveled as if he’d had little sleep and too much worry. Bags sagged under eyes that held a blank, haunted look.
“Thank you for coming.” I motioned to the server who rushed right over. “Coffee?” I asked Enzo.
“Champagne. The best you have. Two glasses.”
The server’s smile bloomed. “Oui, monsieur.”
“I hope that’s okay,” he said as he snapped open his napkin and laid it across his lap. “Like I said, the eggs are wonderful, the croissants, divine.”
“I’d like my eggs with ham, please.”
When the server returned, he ordered, then shooed her away as he did the honors with the Champagne. He eased the cork free with a quiet pop, then reached to fill my flute. “I was surprised to get your text. Very few people have my cell number.”
“Madame Bouclet gave it to me. I needed to reach you without any interference.”
He took a sip of the Champagne before he answered. “This is very nice. You will like it. Jeanne has always been a great friend.”
“She told me. I’m sorry for all of you.”
His forced smile fled. “Yes, it has been…”
“Living hell?”
He drank his Champagne with the vigor of a man finding an oasis after days in the desert. “Worse.”
I leaned across, placing my hand on top of his. “You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?”
His hand jumped underneath mine. He licked his lips and his eyes darted to see who might be listening.
“It’s okay. Nobody is interested in our conversation. I can help you.” I released his hand.
“Nobody can help me. If I don’t do what’s been asked…” He ran a hand through his hair and settled back in his chair. “How do you know of the blackmail?”
We both fell silent as another couple pushed through the door. They eyed the tables near us, but I shooed them away. They muttered—something about my lineage—but they did as I asked.
“I wasn’t sure, not until just now. But it makes sense.”
The server saw an opening to deliver our food, bowls of steaming scrambled eggs and a plate piled high with croissants.
“Guess I look as hungry as I am.” I shoveled in a bite, then groaned. The eggs perfectly cooked yet soft, the ham sliced into thin slivers—a total food orgasm. I waited a few more spoonsful before continuing the story. “Let me try to put this together. You tell me if I’m right.” A sip of bracing Champagne, then I dove in. “Your assistant, Daria, has been with you a long, long time. So long that she runs every aspect of your life, knows all your secrets…bore you a child.”
He winced as if I’d slapped him. “Guillaume.”
“He suffers from a genetic disorder, the same one that took your brother at a young age.” A guess, but a good one.
“My brother’s death, it tore my heart. When I found out I could carry the same gene, I vowed never to have children. I couldn’t deny Jeanne the chance at motherhood. She argued with me, but I would not relent. I made the right choice; I know this.” He pushed at his eggs but didn’t eat.
“Then Daria told you she was with child.” I ripped into a croissant. Flaky, rich, and oh-my-God wonderful.
“I was furious, demanded she end it. This is a very Catholic country. It would have been difficult but not impossible.”
“She refused.”
“And my worst fears were realized.” He threw back the Champagne remaining in his flute. “Do you have any idea what it is like to watch a child die?”
“I can’t imagine.” I thought of Christophe, his happy face, his unconditional love, his gentle touch, the soft ripple of his laughter. I couldn’t imagine living through his death. “Daria wanted you to accept him as your heir. You have no other children. French inheritance laws would give him half your estate, at least. Once he died, she could inherit it from Guillaume.”
“I refused, of course. My cousin’s son shows much interest and ability in not only wine but the business of wine. He will make a good partner to the Bouclets and their heirs. A good steward of our combined legacies. Guillaume will die, just like my brother. And I’d rather die before Daria inherited any of my estate.”
“But Guillaume’s health took a turn for the worse; time is short. Daria is running out of opportunities to convince you, so she upped her game.”
“In this digital world, she can be me.”
“And she has. First, in fabricating signed documents showing illegal collusion between you and Jean-Charles and telling Frank Liu about it. She didn’t count on Liu calling her bluff and hiring Victor Martin to look into it.”
“But he was good and found her so-called evidence.”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized there must’ve been something real underneath it all, something that had Enzo and Jean-Louis running scared, something Daria knew about. Of course, hitting Enzo with my suspicions would only make an enemy of this wary ally, so I kept my suppositions to myself. “Yes, and she killed him. She put him in a barrel of counterfeit wine to throw off the authorities. To make them think this whole thing was about fake wine when it really was about blackmail.”
“How did she know the wine was fake?”
“At first, when she had it delivered from M. Fabrice’s shop, framing the order as originating with you, I don’t think she did. But she poisoned the wine and then sent it to Jean-Charles’s restaurant at my hotel in Vegas. Nigel Wilde was the recipient, and he called foul in a most public way.”
“So she used the rest to steep Victor and put us all off the scent.” Enzo picked up a fork and swirled his eggs around but didn’t eat any. “Nobody died in Vegas, did they?”
“No, I caught it early. Really sheer luck or Nigel Wilde would’ve been a goner.”
“Not a huge loss…” The hint of a grin as he worked for a joke.
“Yes, agreed, but the law…”
He waved the idea away. “Oh, I know. It doesn’t lessen the punishment even if society is better off.”
“The Nigel Wilde thing was brilliant. He’d crow to the moon that the wine was fake.” Yeah, I could see the whole story now. “Then she stole all of Jean-Louis’s wine, something counterfeiters would do. Supply and demand and all of that. Even though she had planned to steal it all along, the theft worked into her cover-up.”
“She planned the theft?” Enzo looked wounded more than pissed.
“She’s been using her inside knowledge to be a very bad girl.”
He didn’t ask for more. What he knew had already deflated him.
“I thought the theft would kill Jean-Louis.”
“It might yet. We need to find that wine.”
“One thing I can’t figure out is how Daria knew about the wine cellar. The entrance is hidden in Jean-Louis’s office. No one knows about it. I never breathed a word.”
“Her son. He used to play there. Knew every nook and cranny, Madame Bouclet told me.”
“I never knew.” Enzo seemed to be happy he somehow wasn’t at fault.
“The night he died Victor Martin was waiting for you outside the kitchen door at the Bouclets’.”
“Yes, Daria sent him to make sure I told Jean-Louis about all of it.”
“Jean-Louis threw you out.”
“He couldn’t believe I had been so dumb. He didn’t understand. He has a brilliant wife to help him in his work.” His pain was palpable.
“And the man you tangled with in the kitchen?”
“I didn’t know him. He was in a tux. Long black hair. Handsome, I think a woman would say. Exotic looking.”
Sinjin. As I thought. That’s where he picked up Victor Martin. He must’ve been there to meet with his mole. The theft was imminent. “I know the man.”
“And Emma? Why would she do such a thing?” Hurt let the air out of him.
“You knew about her? That’s why you tried to warn me?” The final piece.
“Yes, but I still don’t understand why.”
“Woman scorned. Greed. Who knows? I guess you’ll have to ask her.”
“I don’t think you can help me.” He stared at his food in distaste.
We finished our meal in silence. Enzo paid, I was too slow to win in a fight for the bill. “Let’s walk,” I said as I bundled up and headed for the door. “I’m at the Raphael, so it isn’t far.”
The chill cut right through me as we rounded the corner heading back toward the hotel. We’d made it a few blocks before Enzo spoke. “How are we going to get her?” he asked.
“We’ll have to convince the police to bring her in for questioning.” Or force her into doing something stupid. Neither seemed like fool-proof plans.
“I’ve been such a fool.”
“Yes, you have,” a woman said before I could answer. She stepped in beside me. A scarf wrapped around her head and covered the lower half of her face. She pressed the barrel of a gun into my side.
Daria.
Help had arrived—proving there is no fool like a gloating fool. She was a candidate for the stupid criminal show, but she didn’t realize it yet.
“How…?” Color rose in Enzo’s cheeks.
“I get your text messages on the computer. You forget, I know all your passwords, everything.” She didn’t gloat; she merely stated a fact, comfortable in having the upper hand.
“Daria, haven’t I given you enough?” Enzo crumpled in defeat.
“Money,” she spat. “My son deserves your name, your position.”
“My estate.”
“Guillaume is dying. Time is short. You both must come with me.”
I nodded to Enzo. “She has a gun.” We needed to get her alone, out of the public eye. Find the wine. Come on, Enzo, play along. I got this.
As if he’d heard me, Enzo capitulated. “Daria, I will do anything you want, but you must let Lucky go.”
Chapter Twenty-One
DARIA ESCORTED us into a waiting car.
Enzo took the front. I slipped in beside Daria in the back.
I patted the phone in my pocket. Yep, still there. If I’d guessed right, she’d trek us through the sewers and catacombs to the wine stash where she would have Enzo sign a declaration of parenthood.
Daria was crazy but efficient. Although, her plan left out the whole Victor/Claude angle. If I could figure it out, so could someone else.
A good thing as I wasn’t too sure whether I’d be singing later or someone might be crying at my funeral.
Daria kept the gun trained on my side. “Make any move I don’t like, Enzo, and Lucky’s done.”
The driver kept flicking glances in the rearview. Dead eyes.
We crossed the Pont de l’Alma then snaked our way through the Seventh. On the other side of Les Invalides, he took Boulevard Saint-Germain, then angled south on Rue Bonaparte, closing in on St. Sulpice. The driver pulled into a side street barely wide enough for one car and stopped.
Gillian had been right.
He put the car in park, then stepped around the front of the car. Bending, he tugged at a handle flush with the narrow sidewalk, opening a trap door. Then he retook his position behind the wheel. Again, a flash of those dead eyes. Well, he wouldn’t be any help, but he wasn’t going to decrease my odds by joining his boss in this little underground trek either.
Foot traffic was nonexistent. No help there.
“You first.” Daria used the gun concealed in the long sleeve of her coat to gesture Enzo over to the hole. “Remember, you so much as flinch…”
Enzo acknowledged her threat with a tired wave as he grabbed the handrail and disappeared down the steps.
“You next.” She prodded me with the gun.
I stifled the urge to break her arm. But she was the quickest route to that wine. I started down. Virtually complete, the darkness of the catacombs seemed almost tangible. When I reached the bottom, I could barely see Enzo in the thin beam of muted daylight angling through the trap door. The damp air held a hint of death and decay. The walls of the narrow tunnel were cool to the touch and scarred with the tool marks of the quarrymen who had dug them out centuries ago. The bones of two million souls found their final resting place down here. I felt the pain of the unremembered, the chill of their presence.
Enzo eased in next to me, lifting his chin in suggestion as Daria’s feet appeared. She bent down, the gun pointed at my chest. “Don’t even think about it.” The gun never wavered as she finished her descent. With one hand, she raked back her scarf, exposing a small headlamp which she pulled lower on her forehead and flicked on. “That way.” She motioned straight ahead into the darkness.
Enzo took the lead with me behind, Daria’s gun in my ribs, her breath heavy behind me. Her light bobbing as she walked barely pierced the darkness. As we walked, I worked to remember our path. One hundred steps. A hard right. A wider tunnel. Bones tossed like pick-up sticks. Some we had to step over. This part of the catacombs bore little resemblance to the carefully curated public section with its lights, endless stairs up and down, and meticulously piled femurs and skulls, some arranged in patterns like hearts. Here the bones were piled willy-nilly. Some femurs, a few skulls, but mainly the lesser bones that didn’t lend themselves to tidy, artistic stacking. The whole thing had me feeling Death breathing down my neck.
Not today, asshole.
I counted my steps and visualized our path on Professor Kirkland’s map with Gillian’s markings. We should be getting close to the step-through.
Seventy-five steps from the corner, Daria barked, “Stop.”
I felt the slight brush of air from my left.
Daria pulled a couple of beams back, letting them fall. The last one fell, exposing a narrow step-through. No one would’ve seen this unless they knew it was there. So tight, it was more like a slip-through. Enzo and I would both have to sidle through. Wraithlike, Daria wouldn’t have the same trouble. “You go.” With a waggle of the gun, she urged Enzo through.
He pulled in his breath and angled into the opening. Still, I had to give him a little push before he popped through. Holding my breath was enough to get me through, picking up some dirty smudges along the way. Daria, as expected, slipped through unsullied.
From this point, the danger increased as did Gillian’s guesswork as to which room might hold the treasure we sought.
Hence my tolerance of Daria.
In this section, the going was slower. We had to step over fallen supports, piles of bones, rocks; you name it. The roof lowered here enough that I had to crouch. Enzo too. He’d started to limp, his breathing heavy.
Again, I counted steps. This time I added turnoffs to the count. They wouldn’t have gone far, not with all that wine. We’d passed three turnoffs and gotten two hundred steps in when Daria said, “Left here.”
I wondered if the Nazis used this step-through and abandoned branch. Evil lurked here. Or my imagination worked overtime. Either way, I was pretty creeped out and pissed beyond seeing red.
Fifty more steps and I felt rather than saw the walls of the tunnel move away as the space opened up, becoming less cramped, the air less stale, the sounds we made echoing rather than reverberating around us. Behind me, Daria flipped a switch and we were blinded by light.
Blinking as my eyes teared, I whirled. A quick blink. I steeled myself against the pain, then launched myself into the woman who had turned slightly to hit the lights. She wasn’t as stupid as Liu and his goons. Of course, she didn’t suffer from male arrogance and their pathological underestimation of the fairer sex.
I caught her with my shoulder. A glancing blow, staggering. Landing on all fours, I ignored the screaming of my ribs. I pulled my knees underneath me. My hand found something hard, round.
A bone.
I fought the recoil and grabbed it. Pushing with all I had, I bounded toward Daria, raising the bone high. As she brought the gun around to bear, I pulled down. The bone caught her across the forearm. The gun fell, and I kicked it to the side. The dirt of the floor obscured its final resting spot.
“Mano a mano, bitch.”
A moment of hesitation, then she faded back and ran into the tunnel through which we’d come. “Stay here,” I barked to Enzo as I lunged to follow Daria. “It’s dark, and you have no light. I’ll be back.”
I dove into the darkness. Harder going this time as I followed the bobbing light in front of me. Fueled by adrenaline and running on fury, I ignored the pain of the knee-knockers, ignored the danger of putting my weight on the decaying supports, ignored my body bruised and battered. Some of the supports shifted, raining dirt. But they held.
The light closer now, Daria’s ragged breathing reverberated. Mine joined hers, but anger trumped fear. The woman was mine.
I ran crouched over, my hands feeling for things in the dark to trip me. Higher than expected, one caught my foot. I fell hard, but kept my legs churning. Pain streaked through my chest taking my breath. The thought to take out one of the supports occurred to me, but I dismissed it. That could trigger a cave-in and trap us all.
The light disappeared. She’d taken the turn, but she’d gone right. I swung my arms up like a left-handed batter. As I made the turn, I swung. The bone shattered as it hit flesh. Breath left in a whoosh.
Taking a play out of my playbook, Daria had killed the light and waited to pounce. Ten feet from me, the light popped on as she ran. My swing hadn’t stopped her, but it had slowed her down. I put my head down and churned as fast as I could make my legs go. I needed to stop her before the main tunnel. There, she’d have much less bulk to carry on tired legs and no impediments.
She slowed to take the next turn. I kept churning. Expecting a right, I was surprised when she took a left, working her way deeper into the maze. She was too far ahead. All I could do was follow as she made turn after turn, two right, a left, another right, followed by two lefts.
Remember Lucky. Remember.
