Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer (16 page)

Finally, I managed to cry myself to sleep. When I awoke, it was to the sound of the door above me being jerked open, and my mother’s worried voice calling, “
Colette?!?
”

I mewled in response, still too frightened to move, and she barreled down the ladder toward me.

“Oh, Colette!” she cried, picking me up off the floor and hugging me tightly. My grandmother and father peered down into the darkness. They were arguing, sniping at each other, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I was focused on being in my mother’s arms, safe and loved and not dead.

Dad hauled me out and set me down in the hallway as Mom climbed back up.

Grandma looked down at me — and if I live to be a hundred and fifty years old, I’ll never forget what she said: “Get her off the rug, Leo — she’s covered in urine!”

Mom must have said something to her (and knowing Mom, it was a doozy of a something), because the next thing I remember is being home, and being plunked into a warm tub, and then given one of my dad’s oldest, softest T-shirts to sleep in.

And being tucked into bed and kissed good night and the door closing gently behind my mother …

Then screaming my lungs out.

I woke up Charlie, who cried because he thought we were all being murdered. He’d accidentally seen a TV show about someone who got murdered and he was going through a stage where he thought murder happened to everyone, like it was inevitable. He’d heard the phrase
screaming bloody murder
and ended up actually screeching the words, “
BLOODY MURDER! BLOODY MURDER!
” so loud that our neighbors woke up and called my parents to make sure we weren’t all being, you know, bloodily murdered.

I ended up sleeping with my lights on … until I was ten years old.

So, yeah, I was a foolish kid who did something foolish and then drew a lot of foolish conclusions about what had happened to me. I wouldn’t have died. It wasn’t like the story about the bride who gets locked in her hope chest and isn’t found until she’s just an old skeleton. The storm cellar was the first place they looked when they realized I was missing.

But still.

I gave Jules the broader strokes, leaving out the pants-peeing but leaving in the part about Charlie and the murder, since I thought it would be nice to end on a lighter note. Then, of course, I had to explain the phrase
screaming bloody murder
.

“Your grandmother must have been so sorry,” he said.

“Well … kind of.” I tried to remember any sorriness. Mostly she’d been angry about her hall rug.

Not that I blamed her. Grandma had other things going on in her world besides me … besides all of us, really. There were her cruises, her weekends in Miami or Saint Thomas. Her golf league, her charity groups. From the time I was old enough to know my grandma, I was old enough to know that we, her family, were somehow not enough for her.

Mom’s mother, Grandma Carol, can’t get enough of knitting and cooking turkeys and mailing us care packages.

But Grandma Lucille just never quite embraced that side of grandmotherhood.

In a way, that took away the biggest part of the hurt when Dad left. After all, how could he help it? Look who he’d had as an example.

Maybe, in discovering our heritage, I’d finally found the explanation for why people in my dad’s family had always been so concerned with outward appearances and material possessions. The Iselins were nobility. We were used to getting our own way and being surrounded by sumptuous settings. It was just in our blood.

“I think you must have been a brave little girl,” Jules said.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I said.

Another car came toward us. Jules took my hand and once again led me up onto the sidewalk, then back down again.

And then he didn’t let go of my hand.

We ate dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall that served incredible
steak frites
— just grilled steak with a pile of fries, but somehow it felt fancier here. We finished with the world’s most unbelievably delicious crème brûlée. Jules paid for everything, despite my protestations, and then we went for a walk along the Seine, where the breeze blew a steady stream of cold air that made us unintentionally huddle closer. After a few minutes of walking, Jules reached for my hand again, and I let him take it.

I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought he was plain-looking. His face wasn’t hollow-cheeked or angsty, but it was square-jawed and open and strong. His eyes may not have gleamed like Armand’s did, but they had a depth to them that Armand could never hope to achieve. Armand was all show — and Jules was all substance. I never felt like Armand was really seeing me for me — even when he stared directly into my eyes.

With Jules, I felt like he was seeing me even when we weren’t looking at each other.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Have you ever heard of someone named Véronique?”

He gave me a sideways look. “Ah … a lot of people are called that.”

“No, I mean, someone famous. A historical figure.”

His eyebrows went up. “Is it someone you’re related to?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe?”

Jules pursed his lips, and I was afraid I was going to drive him off with my crazy talk. So I changed the subject.

“What’s your favorite part of Paris?” I asked instead. “You’ve been everywhere, right? Is there someplace you never get tired of?”

He smiled at me, a dimple appearing just left of his mouth. “What time do you have to be back?”

“Ten,” I said.

He checked his watch. “We have time.”

“Time for what?” I asked, but he was already hailing a cab.

“Come on, and I’ll show you!” he said, pulling me inside.

A few minutes later, the taxi pulled to a stop in front of a narrow strip of lawn that ended in the brilliantly illuminated Eiffel Tower. I stared at it, shining against the dark sky, about four times bigger than I’d imagined it would be.

“Won’t we be coming here with the class?” I asked.

“Not at night,” he said.

“It doesn’t even look real.” I tried to gaze up at the top but couldn’t keep my balance.

“Here,” Jules said, standing behind me, his hands on my arms. “Now you can look.”

I leaned back until I could see the tip-top of the tower. I was so engrossed in the sight that it took me a second to realize that I was leaning back against Jules’s chest.

One of our hearts was pounding, but I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.

I leaned back a little further and looked up at his face. “
Bonjour
,” I said.

“
Bonsoir
,” he said, his eyes twinkling down at me.

I stood up and turned around. “Can we go up?”

“To the top? You are not afraid of height?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Height is the opposite of what I’m afraid of.”

“Then, yes, of course,” he said. “As long as the line’s not too long.”

It was rather chilly, so the line was manageable, and within thirty minutes we found ourselves at the top.

I’d never been so high in the air before, except on planes. I looked at the cityscape below us, the way the warm, amber-tinted streetlights mixed with the whiter lights of the buildings on the meandering streets. The river curved gently away, crisscrossed by glowing bridges.

The breeze made me shiver, and then I was wrapped in Jules’s arms.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

I didn’t get … what he liked about me.

To be honest, my week in Paris was making me wonder whether there really was a
me
. Who was I? Did Colette exist as a human, or was she just a pathetic mash-up of other people’s expectations?

Maybe Colette is the person who asks these questions
, I thought.
Even if she doesn’t have the answers.

Too hard to explain. I shook my head. “Never mind. Say something in French.”

He said something, his voice sliding over the words in a way that made me feel kind of melty inside.

“What did that mean?” I asked.

“It was a question,” he said, a dimple appearing in his cheek. “I asked if … if you mind if I kissed you.”

“How do you say no in French?” I said.

“
Non?
” he said, mildly surprised. His expression was miserable. “I’m sorry, Colette, I —”

“
Non
,” I said, putting my hand on his cheek. “
Non
, I don’t mind.”

So he kissed me.

As we pulled apart — but not too far apart — I stared up into his eyes, warm and blue and earnest.

I’m in Paris, and I met a boy, and he really likes me, and I kissed him. At the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Maybe things were a mess back home. Maybe I was losing my mind and/or being stalked by an evil ghost. Maybe when I got back to the hotel Hannah would kill me for abandoning her in the Catacombs. Maybe I only had three days left in Paris with Jules.

But just for now … just for this moment … life was good.

AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK
Friday morning, Armand sat at his desk, his notes in front of him. His files were immaculately maintained — he had learned that from his father, who was an excellent businessman.

He thumbed through them to the letter
I
, for
Iselin
, and pulled out the page he’d been creating for the American girl. Silly fool! She represented one of the most powerful and prestigious families in France, and even with the full knowledge in front of her, laid out like a banquet, she didn’t know what to do with it.

Not to worry. Armand could advise her. He pictured them attending formal functions together, being introduced as a
duc
and
duchesse
— the hot couple in the magazines. Sure, she needed some instruction to be able to present herself in the proper manner, but it wasn’t her outside that mattered — it was her blood. Her noble lineage.

Most of Armand’s friends were completely uninterested in marriage, but Armand wanted to marry young — provided he found the right girl. And as he stared at Colette’s biography, pieced together from bits of information he’d collected from the internet, he felt fairly confident that he’d found her. Of course, she was only sixteen, but he could wait two or three years, until she was an adult.

And then think how powerful their families would be — united.

Think first of your legacy
, his father often told him. Armand followed this advice as well as he could. He’d seen it work for his father — the way he’d found the most beautiful woman to marry and have his children, though there was no love in their marriage. What was love compared to honor, nobility, the respect of millions of people? Armand certainly didn’t love Colette and in fact he doubted he ever could; there was something about her that made him impatient and irritated. Their marriage might not be a happy one — but it would be an important one.

And Armand was desperate to be important.

He thought over his plans for the next day. He would go to the hotel, tell Colette he needed to see her alone, and declare his intentions of uniting their families when she reached eighteen or nineteen years old. She would protest — she was always protesting about something — but then he would kiss her.

And Armand knew how to kiss a girl in a way that would change her mind about pretty much anything.

As for Hannah, she’d been a useful tool to get to Colette, but she was growing tiresome. Her latest idea was to transfer to a French school so she could be near him! He almost relished the idea of telling her he’d never really been interested in her. As if he would have anything to do with such a vulgar fool — as if mere money could buy her the kind of pedigree he demanded from the girl who would be his wife.

No, there was only one choice. And he was going to break the news to Colette very soon.

She might not be happy about it, but given enough time, he could wear her down. He was sure of it. After all, he had to think of his legacy.

There had been one small obstacle — that loser Jules. According to Hannah, Colette had gone out to dinner with him the night before. But Armand had spoken to Jules first thing this morning and let him know that Colette was off-limits. And Jules was too much of a goody-goody to put up a fight for some silly American girl.

Carefully refiling the page, Armand placed the folder in its hanging file and surveyed his desk to be sure it was spotless. He wondered for a moment if Colette kept her things clean.

Well, she would learn to, if she was to be his wife.

He glanced down as his cell phone lit up with yet another text message from Hannah. His nostrils flared in distaste. How desperate! At least Colette had this much going for her — she had dignity and didn’t act like a lovesick child.

Spritzing cologne on his wrists, he took one last look at himself in the mirror and then opened the door that led from his bedroom to the living room.

Then he stopped.

He wasn’t alone.