Seen and Not Heard (Maggie Bennett 4)

Too many things were happening at once. Claire picked the smallest issue she could face. “I thought you hated Americans.”

“Oh, I don’t hate them. I don’t much like them when they’re tourists, but once they’re home I don’t think I’ll have any trouble. Besides, your television is much, much better. And you have Burger Kings on every corner.”

“Not quite every corner,” she said faintly, settling back in her seat.

“Well, close enough,” said Nicole with more animation than Claire had ever seen her exhibit. “Tom says we’ll have a great time.”

“Oh he does, does he?”

Tom took one large, strong hand from the steering wheel and covered her clenched fists. The warmth of his flesh touching hers, the strength in those capable hands, soothed her, chasing away the nightmare they were living through. “He does,” Tom murmured.

Claire looked at him, tears stinging her eyes. For a proposal it definitely counted as one of the stranger ones. But then, their entire relationship was peculiar. She wasn’t quite sure when it had turned from friendship into courtship, but turn it had. She’d known him only a few weeks; they had kissed, but never made love. How could she consider sharing the rest of her life with a man she hadn’t slept with?

She glanced down at the hand covering hers. Honest hands, gentle hands. She didn’t have to sleep with him to know he’d never hurt her, would be tender and loving and more than she deserved. She looked up and smiled brilliantly through her unshed tears.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll have a great time.” And Tom’s hand tightened on hers.

The small house in the Paris suburbs was empty when Louis Malgreave let himself in the front door, but then, he hadn’t expected Marie to be home. She never was these days, and tonight he was back early. He couldn’t stomach one more minute of Josef’s hangdog expression, Gauge’s bland stupidity, the mute frustration of the telephone that didn’t ring. He wanted to hit someone, very hard, and the only thing he could do was leave before he shoved his fist into Gauge’s fat face.

So close, so very close. If it weren’t for a comedy of errors the Americans would be safe, and Bonnard and Rocco well on their way to being caught. Instead they were still bumbling around like fools in the dark, waiting for still another lucky break that they no longer

deserved.

Malgreave snapped on the lights in the living room, illuminating the rain-dark afternoon. For some reason the house felt even emptier than usual. As if part of its soul had been torn away. He held himself very still, not reaching for the cigarette that was second nature to him, not slipping off his soaked raincoat. Fear made him silent, a deep, terrifying fear such as he’d never known. He’d faced death countless times, murderers so savage they surpassed comprehension, and never had he flinched. Right now all he wanted to do was turn around, walk out the door, and run away, run from what awaited him.

But running wouldn’t change it. He yanked off the raincoat, dropping it in a puddle on Marie’s spotless carpet, and started slowly up the stairs.

The bedroom looked so empty without her. The dresser was stripped of its bottles of scent and makeup, the closet bare of her clothes and shoes. Everything was gone, suitcases full of belongings, and all she’d left in the place of those years of accumulations was a small, lavender piece of paper propped on his pillow.

It was probably dowsed with her own special scent, Malgreave thought, making no move to touch it. The traces of it would linger on his pillow as he tried to sleep, forcing her into his unconsciousness as she would permeate every waking hour.

Turning on his heel, he went back downstairs without reading the note, heading into the kitchen. He had a bottle of American bourbon whiskey, and he poured himself a dark, tall glass of it. The name had always amused him—after the old kings of France. Something so very American, with such a very French name. He opened the refrigerator, hanging on the door and staring at the interior, the neatly labeled leftovers, the packages of meat and cheese and butter. Marie never had strange things growing in the back of her refrigerator. Everything was always accounted for, neatly dated and labeled and used before it grew too old.

He took another sip of the whiskey, then turned away to the sink to add a bit of water. He reached for the faucet, then dropped his hand. Marie always kept the medicines on the shelf above the old iron sink. His blood pressure medicine was there, along with some old antibiotics and a bottle of aspirin. Usually they jousted with seventeen different bottles of vitamins, minerals, fish oil, rose hips, and the like, all part of Marie’s strict beauty regimen since she’d started losing weight and making a life without him. Now his medicine sat alone on the shelf.

As he was alone. He stared at the empty space above the sink for a long, hard moment. And then he began to cry.

“Here we are,” Tom announced unnecessarily a few hours later. He’d pulled to a stop in front of a huge, monolithic structure, and Claire peered up at it through the rainy darkness. “Home sweet home,” he added, turning off the engine.

“Where are we?” Nicole piped up from the back seat, asking the question Claire had grown tired of repeating.

If Tom was aware of their silent doubts he didn’t show it. “It’s an old stone barn. It’s been abandoned for years—my partner and I considered leasing it to store our wine barrels while we waited for the stuff to age. It would have been perfect, cool and dark and huge.”

“Why didn’t you?” Claire asked.

“For one thing, we only had twelve barrels—not enough to justify the expense. For another, our wine didn’t age. It just turned to vinegar. Come on, you’ll love it. It’s about five stories tall, with catwalks and haylofts and tiny windows set up high. It’s made of solid stone—it could withstand an invading army.”

“If we had our own army armed with crossbows at every window,” Claire said. “The question is, will it withstand Marc?”

“Bonnard’s probably still in Paris, waiting for us to show up back at my apartment. Even if he did have any idea where we were headed, he’d never find us here. This is at the back end of beyond—Jassy’s more than twelve miles away over treacherous, twisty roads.”

“Only twelve miles away? We’ve been driving for more than three hours.”

Tom managed to look sheepish in the dim light of the car. “I missed my turn a few times. Which is only to our advantage,” he hastened to add. “If I couldn’t find my way here, how will a stranger manage? I threw some blankets in the trunk; there’s probably some old straw left in here. We’ll bed down for the night and deal with things in the daylight. We’ll try the police one more time, and if they still won’t listen I suggest we head over the border into Switzerland.”

“No passports.”

Tom grimaced. “I forgot. Well, we’ll make the police listen. If worse comes to worst we’ll get in touch with the local gendarmes. Even if they’re worse than the Paris police, at least they could offer us decent protection.”