“You thought of the flowers too, didn’t you?” Darcy asked.
Griffin took her arm to escort her to a front pew. “We couldn’t have a funeral without flowers.”
“I agree, but the white roses are spectacular. It was very thoughtful of you.”
He responded with a raised brow, as though she should have discovered how considerate he was long before now. He slid into the pew after her and left room for Lucien to join them on the aisle.
Darcy sat back and wondered what it must be like to grow up in such a close-knit community. She’d changed schools and friends so frequently that she had no real sense of the permanence which pervaded the incense-scented atmosphere. Suddenly feeling very alone, she reached for Griffin’s hand and curled her fingers over his.
Lucien soon arrived, and next, the nuns, still preferring their traditional habits, filed in with their charges. The girls ranged in age from five or six through their teens and were dressed in neatly pressed navy blue uniforms. Many were weeping pitifully into their handkerchiefs.
One of the sisters sat at a pump organ, but it took vigorous effort on her part to bring it wheezing to life. Darcy didn’t recognize the somber hymn, and she thought it a shame they had not asked Griffin to play. Then she promptly dismissed the idea, for not even a man as gifted as he would be able to coax beautiful music from such an ancient instrument.
Sharing her thoughts, he leaned over to whisper, “Yes, I’ll buy them a new organ too.”
The priest was a sandy-haired young man who broke down and wept before he had completed the funeral mass. Although Darcy couldn’t follow his lengthy remarks in French, the little girls and nuns were all nodding as though he were paying Astrid an appropriate tribute.
What she recalled was Astrid’s delight in meeting Griffin, and how attentive he’d been to the frail young woman. With her classmates sobbing throughout the funeral, Darcy had to keep mopping away her own tears, while Griffin and Lucien sat silently absorbing the waves of sadness flowing around them without any visible sign of emotion.
As the service drew to a close, Lucien checked his watch, and Darcy leaned forward to speak. “We needn’t stay for the burial if you haven’t the time,” she whispered.
Griffin appeared relieved. “I’d rather visit the grave when the angel headstone is in place, but I should speak with the Mother Superior before we leave.”
Lucien and Darcy waited for him outside by the car. When he caught up with them, Lucien drew him aside. “Please excuse us a moment, Ms. MacLeod,” he begged and addressed Griffin in French.
Darcy dried the last of her tears, but when Griffin reacted to Lucien’s confidence with an anguished cry, she rushed to rejoin them. “What wrong?” she asked.
Griffin looked sick and recoiled against the Mercedes. “Tell her.”
Lucien did not look pleased to have to repeat his news, and his hushed tone failed to lessen the shock. “Astrid’s physician questioned the suddenness of her death. Tests revealed evidence of a morphine overdose.”
Stunned, Darcy reached for a plausible explanation. “Could the nurse have mistaken the dosage?”
“No,” Griffin exclaimed
through clenched teeth. “Vaughn did it himself after he’d sent the nurse and the others away and dispatched Octavio to kill us. Do you remember what he said, ‘We’ll deal with the dead tomorrow.’ Clearly he knew more than one person had died.”
Appalled, Darcy grabbed hold of Lucien’s sleeve. “Vaughn murdered his own daughter?”
“Yes, it appears so, but we’ll never know whether or not he also intended to take his own life.”
“No,” Darcy whispered. “I’ll bet he meant to leave us dead and walk away.” Her own anguish was mirrored in Griffin’s stricken expression. They’d been grateful to escape a life-threatening ordeal unscathed, but now Astrid’s murder would haunt them forever.
“That’s it, Lucien,” Griffin swore. “Tell Interpol I quit. I’m not contaminating my life another second with men like Lyman Vaughn. Let’s get out of here.” He yanked open the car door and helped Darcy inside. Once they were underway, he moved away from her toward the door and focused on the passing scene.
She didn’t feel like talking either, but she hadn’t expected him to book a flight home as soon as they returned to the Meurice. They had to gather their belongings quickly to leave for the airport, but when Paris had lost its magic, home was the perfect place to be.
On the flight, Griffin floated on his sedative-induced dreams, but Darcy was again too anxious to rest. She understood why the full force of the weekend’s horror had hit her lover so hard, but because she’d been with him every step of the way, she wished he hadn’t withdrawn from her so completely.
With the nine-hour time difference between France and San Francisco, even after a long flight, they landed in the late afternoon, close to the time they’d left Paris. Certain it would be wasted energy, Darcy made no effort to lift Griffin’s spirits on the drive down the coast. Instead, she stared out at the fog-veiled highway and wondered if he would fill his next composition with near-palpable despair.
He left the motor running in the Land Rover while he walked her to her door. “Give me a few days to sort everything out,” he asked.
“Take all the time you need.” Darcy reached up to brush his cheek with a fleeting kiss and hid her disappointment when he offered no affectionate gesture in return.
She unlocked her door and made it inside before the flimsy dam holding back her tears cracked wide open. She left her suitcase in the middle of the living room, turned off the lights she’d left burning and went straight to bed. It wasn’t until the next morning that she realized how little she could tell her friends about their trip.
George was watering the plants when Darcy came breezing into the nursery. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. How was your trip?” he asked.