Seen and Not Heard (Maggie Bennett 4)

Poor Josef was torn, but a fair man in the end. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I think Vidal is right. The Americans wouldn’t be likely to butcher him. It had to have been Bonnard.”

“And I expect he’s after the Americans right now,” Louis said grimly. “How long will it take us to reach Jassy?”

“Four hours if we drive directly and the weather’s not too bad,” Vidal replied.

“Make it three,” Malgreave answered. “And we may find a promotion for you.”

And Vidal, whose ambition more than equaled Josef’s, stepped on the gas.

CHAPTER 23

Claire gripped the steering wheel, hunched forward, peering into the rainy night. “We’ll be all right, Nicole. We’ll find a phone, we’ll call the police again. If they won’t listen we’ll stop and find a farmhouse, a store, anyplace where someone will help us. We’ll be all right.” Deliberately she kept from mentioning Tom, his body lying in that ever-spreading pool of blood, his long limbs stretched out, limp, useless. Dead.

Nicole said nothing, but Claire needed all her concentration for the road, and she didn’t dare glance at her. “We must have just missed Marc,” she murmured, more for her own sake than Nicole’s. “He probably went looking for us after he … hit Tom. We must have passed him in the dark and he didn’t even realize it. We’ve been lucky, Nicole. Really, we’ve been very lucky.”

Still no response. “And maybe Tom’s not hurt too badly,” she said, knowing she was lying, knowing he was dead. “Maybe Marc just clubbed him on the head. Head wounds bleed terribly, but they’re not always that bad. Maybe he just knocked him unconscious. We’ll go get help, and get him to the hospital, and I bet he’ll be fine. Just fine.” Even to her own ears the excuses sounded lame. She ventured a brief, worried glance at the child beside her. Nicole was sitting very still, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her body swaying with the turns of the old car, her face completely, frighteningly blank.

“Nicole,” Claire said, hearing the panic in her voice and no longer caring. “Nicole, sweetheart, talk to me. Are you all right?”

Absolute silence. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t blink her solemn black eyes, didn’t do a thing but sway with the motion of the speeding car.

“God damn his soul to hell,” Claire muttered tearfully under her breath. “I’ll make him pay for this.” And Nicole, lost in some safe, peaceful world of her own, merely stared straight ahead, into the stormy night.

He moved from the shadows on silent feet. He’d enjoyed watching them, watching her panic and tears. She’d be back. He knew it, he knew it with instincts that were so well-honed they were automatic. She would be back, and he would punish her then.

He looked down at the American’s body. He would have rather used his knife, but the man was too big and too fast for him. He’d settled for hitting him o

ver the head, and the satisfying crunch of wood against bone and flesh had told him it was enough.

He would have liked to have taken his time. He’d paid Rocco back for his disloyalty, for his coveting Claire and Nicole. This man, who’d stolen his women, deserved worse.

But not now. Later, after Claire came back. He’d make the two of them watch. Then Nicole, and then Claire.

If only he had more time. He didn’t dare stretch it out much past dawn. The police would come looking, and he had to be back in Paris, mourning the death of his mother-in-law and the disappearance of his stepdaughter and the deranged woman he’d been living with. It must have been the accident she’d been involved in in the States, he would say, his eyes wide and innocent. Somehow it must have turned her mind, until she confused poor Nicole with the child in Massachusetts. He’d had no idea how her madness had flowered until Nicole said something to him.

And he’d been too late to stop her. She’d killed the American who’d befriended her, murdered the child, and then taken her own life in a fit of remorse. He would have to be very careful in his punishment of her. Any signs, any marks on her slender, pale body, would have to be in keeping with the story he wanted the police to believe. He’d have to forgo the pleasure of teaching her the lesson she deserved. Still, having her watch him with Parkhurst’s corpse and Nicole would be consolation enough.

He sank to the cobbled floor, his legs folding gracefully beneath him. He would wait. Wait for Claire to return, as return she must. And he would be ready.

Claire lost track of the time. She took a dozen wrong turns, the narrow, muddy roads ending in front of the skidding tires of the Peugeot. Each time she yanked the car around and tried another way, all the while keeping up an idiotic, cheery, one-sided conversation with the silent Nicole. Nothing seemed to dent the wall of silence that surrounded the child. She’d shut herself off from everything, having seen too much death.

Claire couldn’t blame her. If only there was someplace they’d be safe, someplace they could hide. But wherever they went, Marc would find them. The police, those stupid fools, would stand by and wait until they were slaughtered, would wait until Marc wiped out half the old women in Paris before they finally did something. By then it would be much too late for them.

When she first saw the lights in the distance she didn’t even notice them. Too many times had she hoped for signs of civilization, only to be passed by a speeding, oblivious driver who had no intention of stopping to give directions or aid to a fellow motorist. Besides, she would have been afraid to signal, terrified that one of them would be a white Fiat with a familiar figure in the driver’s seat.

But this time the lights weren’t headlights. They were the dim, unmistakable lights of a small village, the warm glow emanating from windows, and shining overhead the small public phone that sat conspicuously by the local market.

“There’s a phone, Nicole,” she said, her voice raw from its nonstop monologue. “We’ll call the police, and they’ll send someone to help us. I promise you, darling, I won’t let him get us.”

Nicole said nothing. Claire pulled up beside the phone, climbed out, and pulled Nicole with her. Like most pay telephones in France, the instructions were in both English and French, and Claire sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving as she fumbled for the proper coins. This time she had to get through, this time someone would help her.

Goddamnit, didn’t anyone speak English in the Paris police? she fumed as she repeated, over and over again, her name, her nationality, as she was passed from barely bilingual subordinate to slightly more bilingual superior. “Someone is trying to kill me,” she finally shrieked into the telephone. “He’s already murdered countless people, he just killed my friend, and now he’s trying to kill me and my little girl. You’ve got to help me.”

The calm, expressionless voice came again. “Please to give your name, visa number, nationality, and address.”

“I’ve given you my name,” Claire shouted, in tears. “I can’t give you my visa number—I’ve lost my passport.”

“That’s a very serious matter, madame,” the voice said sternly.