A Temporary Ghost (The Georgia Lee Maxwell Series, Series 2) (23 page)

I wanted to be strong enough not to ask my next question, but I wasn’t. “And— what about me? Was all that just to—”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “At first, I was trying to get you on my side. I could tell you were alert. I thought you could be dangerous. Later— no. Last night was something I gave myself because I knew today was bearing down on me.”

“But— you pushed me down the bluff.”

“Last minute panic, trying to scare you into giving up. It was my last try. I hope you can forgive me one day. Hurting you made me— disgusted with myself.”

I didn’t suppose I’d ever know whether this was true or not.

Blanche was sitting on the floor, knees bent and head sagging. “Ross,” she said, the name almost inaudible.

He went and knelt beside her once more. “You fought hard, tiger.”

“I wanted to stop Georgia Lee. It’s my fault she found out.”

“Somebody would have found out sooner or later.”

“I betrayed you. I let you down.”

He put his arms around her. I thought about courtly love, about unrequited passion, about
The Book of Betrayal.

I left them there and went to the house to telephone the police— in Beaulieu-la-Fontaine and New York.

REUNION

The squatty statue stared at me with baleful eyes. At the tip of the flamboyant extrusion Kitty had referred to as his “private parts,” there was indeed a chipped place. On the rug, next to the open carrier waiting to transport her to Montparnasse, Twinkie sat placidly washing her face. Miss Innocence.

“How much do you think it cost?” I asked. “Round figures.”

“I have no idea. Swear to God,” Kitty said.

I suspected she had an idea, but the sum was so vast she didn’t want to tell me. “It was probably Luc’s favorite,” I said glumly.

“Luc has forgotten it ever existed, and so should we.” Kitty took the statue from the end table at my elbow and closed it up in one of her built-in cabinets. It had been banished from the shelves after the accident. Out of sight, out of mind— I hoped.

The room was filled with gray Paris twilight. The chestnut blossoms had faded in my absence, but the leaves were broad, dark green, and cool-looking. I’d arrived a couple of hours ago and Jack, back from Rome, had picked me up at the Gare de Lyon. As we lurched through the traffic towards Kitty’s place, he told me things had been happening in Paris, too. He had moved out of the house in Neuilly where he lived with his wife, Claire, and their two teenage children, and was staying in a borrowed apartment on the Ile St. Louis. When I said I was sorry, he set his jaw and didn’t answer.

I told them about it as we sprawled in Kitty’s living room drinking Sancerre. I tried to be dispassionate, which was less difficult because I’d told it a lot over the past couple of days. I began to see how Ross and Vivien had become experts at their story, learning its rhythms and eccentricities until it was burnished enough to shine like truth.

Now, when I looked at events in Provence, they had taken on inevitability. Ross had confessed to the two murders, burnishing yet another account of the events of that winter night. Strangely enough, the considerable notoriety of the case had provoked interest in his art, and prices for his work were said to be spiraling upward. As for the others, Alexander’s legal troubles with the Rolex scheme would give Vivien ways to spend her money and time. And Blanche—

“Blanche is the one I worry about,” I said, apropos of nothing, after Kitty had put the statue away.

“Will you hear from her, do you think?” Kitty asked.

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t blame Blanche if she avoided me forever. “I asked her to write.” My voice sounded more forlorn than I wanted it to.

Jack moved in briskly. No emotional scenes for him. “Did you find out why Blanche and Ross didn’t go to the lawyer’s office in Carpentras?”

I nodded. “Ross knew I was getting to the truth. He probably suspected I’d show up, so he refused to go. Blanche told me she stayed behind when she heard Ross wasn’t going, but Ross didn’t know that. She had hoped, I guess, to have time alone with him.”

Kitty said, “She knew all along Ross was guilty?”

“She suspected— feared. She’s the only one who knew he and Vivien were lying about being together that night.”

Jack lit a cigarette and tossed the match in Kitty’s fireplace. “A tissue of lies,” he said dramatically. He’d gotten his story out of it. I’d called from Provence.

“It’s a wonder it all held together as long as it did,” I said. “So many lies, so many people willing to lie in the name of love.”

During our thoughtful silence, Twinkie got up. After an arched-back, shuddering stretch, she strolled to one of Kitty’s brocade-covered chairs and began energetically sharpening her claws on it.

Galvanized, I yelled, “Twinkie!”

She put her ears back and glanced at me without stopping her primary activity.

I jumped up and clapped my hands loud, which Twinkie hates. She let go of the chair and galloped out of the room. I said, “God, Kitty, she’s destroying everything!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kitty said, but I thought she was furtively inspecting the chair.

“That’s it. Time to go. Now,” I said.

“Alley oop,” said Jack, and got to his feet. He was going to drive us and save me the agony of taking a taxi with Twinkie.

I went down the hall to find her. I was back in Paris. We were on our way home. My career as a ghost was over.

#

Dedication

To Paule Lafeuille

WE GUARANTEE OUR BOOKS…
AND WE LISTEN TO OUR READERS

We’ll give you your money back if you find as many as five errors. (That’s five
verified
errors— punctuation or spelling that leaves no room for judgment calls or alternatives.) Or if you just don’t like the book—for any reason! If you find more than five errors, we’ll give you a dollar for every one you catch up to twenty. Just tell us where they are. More than that and we reproof and remake the book. Email
[email protected]
and it shall be done!

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK…

Try
Hurricane Season
,
another great book by Michaela Thompson.

http://amzn.com/B00BMZ708M

Or
PAPER PHOENIX
,
a romantic cozy set in San Francisco

http://amzn.com/B00DD0B6HK

Other Books by Michaela Thompson

Hurricane Season

Paper Phoenix

The Fault Tree

Venetian Mask

Magic Mirror

A Temporary Ghost

Riptide

A Respectful Request

We hope you enjoyed
A Temporary Ghost
and wonder if you’d consider reviewing it on Goodreads, Amazon (
http://amzn.to/1eHsXFo
), or wherever you purchased it? The author would be most grateful. And if you’d like to see other forthcoming mysteries, let us keep you up-to-date. Sign up for our mailing list at
www.booksbnimble.com

HOW ABOUT A FREE BOOK?

Keep up to date on terrific new books, and get a freebie at the same time!

First click
here
to join our mailing list and get Louisiana Hotshot!

Confirmed grump Eddie Valentino placed the ad. Hotshot twenty-something Talba Wallis knew exactly how to answer it.

And thus was born the dynamic duo of New Orleans private detectives, one cynical, sixty-five-year-old Luddite white dude with street smarts, and one young, bright-eyed, Twenty-First century African-American female poet, performance artist, mistress of disguise, and computer jock extraordinaire. Think Queen Latifah and Danny DeVito in a hilariously rocky relationship— yet with enough detective chops between them to find Atlantis.

5.0 out of 5 stars Julie Smith’s Triumphant Return

Long time fans of Julie Smith's witty mysteries will not be disappointed by this new title. Spinning off a character from her latest Skip Langdon mystery “82 Desire”, Talba Wallis, this book definitely ranks up there with Smith's Edgar Award winning “New Orleans Mourning.”

Click
HERE
to get Louisiana Hotshot!

About the Author

MICHAELA THOMPSON is the author of seven mystery novels, all of them originally published under the name Mickey Friedman. She grew up on the Gulf Coast in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, the locale described in
Hurricane Season
, and still spends a significant amount of time there. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and a freelance journalist, and has contributed mystery short stories to a number of anthologies. She and her husband, Alan Friedman, live in New York City.