Murder in Nice (30 page)

Floral designs were carved
in the columns at eye-level and the room seemed perfectly round,
with no other passageway except the one she’d just
taken.

The light was coming from a
set of eight high windows that flooded the area with moonlight. She
snapped off her light, hoping to save a few precious minutes, and
walked to the center of what looked like a rotunda.

What was this place? Could
it be the dungeon?
Except it had light and
space, whereas the cloister was much more forbidding. On the other
hand, for whatever reason, it was colder here.

Much colder.

She walked a slow circuit
of the room to feel its dimensions and to see if there was any
possible exit, but also to warm herself. Her teeth were chattering
again.

Maggie knelt in the center
of the rotunda and pulled the energy bar from her pocket. She
wasn’t particularly hungry but had read somewhere that eating
helped your body produce warmth. She wasn’t sure if that was true
but it was worth a try. She forced two bites down and put the rest
away. Before she finished chewing, an explosion of nausea gripped
her stomach and forced the food back up. She retched it out onto
the stone floor.

Her muscles quivered under
her sweater as she hunched over the vomit, and even in the cold she
felt a light sheen of perspiration form across her forehead. The
frustration of failing at even the simple action of fueling herself
brought tears to her eyes. She knew she was feeling helpless and
weak, cold and tired. And afraid. And any one of those things was
enough to derail her best efforts to find a way out of this
place.

“
Hello!” she called,
listing to the sound of her voice ricocheting around the stone
room. “I need a hand here! If you’re not too busy!”

She listened to the
reverberating of her voice as it dissipated into the walls.
“Hello,” she called softly, her voice pinging back to her in
gentle, mocking waves against the hard surfaces.
Screw walking for warmth
.
That’s probably a myth,
too
.

She settled down on the
hard floor and wrapped her arms around her knees, drawing them to
her chest. She could hear her heart pounding through her legs. She
closed her eyes and began to sing.

When Jemmy was a newborn,
Maggie sang to him. Laurent was delighted at this sign of normal
maternity from her, she knew, but she didn’t sing because she
wanted to provide lullabies for her little lamb—or at least, that
wasn’t the main reason. She sang because it gave her courage and
she could hear it in her voice—the strong tones, the spot-on keys.
And she sang because hearing her seemed to confuse Jemmy into
silence, at least temporarily.

In fact, Maggie remembered
years ago when she rode competitively but suffered from nerves she
would sing on horseback before her set. The singing, straight from
the diaphragm, always calmed both rider and horse.

Now, she gripped her legs
and sang
Amazing Grace
, all three stanzas, slowly and in varying pitches and
levels, listening to how her voice reflected back to her—strong and
sure.
Little Jemmy
. Maggie missed him so much right now, physically longing to
feel his chubby, active little body in her arms. She slapped a hand
to her mouth to stifle the sob that would spoil all her good work
up to now in keeping the terror at bay.

Why had she left him? Haley
looked at her like she was an alien, wondering how a loving mother
could leave her adorable child for so long. And why had
she?

Maggie looked into the dark
realms of the rotunda. Surely a church was as good a place as any
to admit she’d felt relief when she drove away from the house and
climbed onto the train that took her away from him.

Was she so insecure as a
new mother that she’d rather just run away? Is that what she was
doing? A cold needle of dread pierced her spine. Is that what she
saw in Annie too? Is that why she understood Annie’s guilt so well?
Because Maggie, too, was a bad mother?

I love my
baby
, she thought fiercely.
He may deserve a better mother than me, but I’m
what he’s got
. She rubbed tears from her
face that she hadn’t realized she’d shed.
Is that what Annie told herself too?

No. No way. When I get out
of here, I’m not leaving that boy until they pry my fingers off his
lunch pail on the first day of Kindergarten. I will not be that
Mom. I will not be Annie.

She jumped to her feet and
pulled out the sheet of paper again.
I am
coming back, Jemmy. Mommy’s coming back right this damn
minute.

“
Where am
I?” she said out loud. “The church passage, that
must
be that creepy
tunnel, leads to a natural cave, which is the dungeon, which leads
to the graveyard.” She looked around. “Is this a natural cave? Is
it even really a cave?” She glanced once more up at the windows
overhead. “Maybe they don’t mean
cave
the same way I do. But whatever
they call it, it is supposed to lead to a cemetery, by God.” She
pushed from her mind the other fact she knew about the dungeon:
that it was the place a prisoner could die of hypothermia within
fifteen hours.

She snapped the light back
on, noticing the beam was even weaker, and directed it to the far
wall—the most natural place to put a corresponding exit to this
maze. She walked closer, feeling the excitement of moving and
taking direction, when her foot slid in the vomit on the floor and
she dropped the light. As if on roller skates, she careened
helplessly across the floor before falling hard against a wall she
hadn’t seen.

Maggie heard her own scream
as she plummeted down, through the floor and past it, plaster and
stone and straw and dirt churning up around her as her body flailed
in the air, falling, falling…

*****

Grace walked down the smooth, wide steps to
the living room. The taxi would be at the front door momentarily
and she was sure she heard Laurent come in. She set her luggage
down in the foyer and saw he was seated in the living room facing
the French doors and the terrace. He had what looked like a glass
of whisky in his hand.

“
Howdy, stranger,” she
said. “I thought I heard you come in. Are you alright?”

Laurent looked up from his obvious
distraction and smiled mildly at her. “You are going out?”

“
I’ve got a taxi coming.
I’ll be gone tonight and possibly tomorrow. Haley has all the
details.”

“
Bon
.” He turned away from her and back to his thoughts again.
That was totally
not
like Laurent. Perhaps now would be a good time to see where it
all led.

“
Haley went to bed early,”
Grace said, reaching for his glass and taking a small sip. “She had
a headache.”

Laurent said nothing. His eyes followed the
horizon of his vineyard—he couldn’t see even a quarter of it at
this time of night. But, of course, he knew where it was without
looking.

“
Heard from Maggie today?”
she asked. “I thought she was coming home tonight.”

Laurent absently patted his shirt pocket. “I
left my phone upstairs. The battery was dead. She was supposed to
come tonight, but you know Maggie. It might not be until
tomorrow.”

“
I hate missing her but
I’ll catch up with her on Sunday. Have you seen Ben this
evening?”

“
I have.”

“
Well?”

Laurent shrugged. “I believe he’s found
other living arrangements.”

Grace stood in front of Laurent. “I’m not
sure how familiar you are with the direct approach.”

A corner of his mouth twitched in a
near-smile. “I am married to Maggie, no?”

“
Good point. So, what’s
going on, Laurent? What’s going on with Ben and what’s going on
with the vineyard? Spill, darling. I’m not leaving until you
do.”

“
And if your taxi
comes?”

“
It will wait. What. Is.
Going. On?”

Laurent sighed. “I may be making a change of
plans.”

“
What the hell does
that
mean?”

“
Where is the young man?
Asleep, yes?”

“
Jemmy? Yes, he’s been in
bed for hours. Quit stalling.” Grace sat down in front of Laurent
and crossed her arms to appear resolute.

“
I have thrown Maggie’s
brother out.”

“
Bravo. About time.
Next?”

“
It’s possible I broke his
nose in the process.”

Grace clapped a hand to her
mouth to stifle the involuntary and very unladylike guffaw that
threatened to erupt. “Oh, dear lord. Well
done
, darling Laurent. But what do you
mean ‘change of plans?’”

Laurent didn’t answer immediately, looking
around the room as if trying to memorize certain furnishings. Grace
had the sickening, unmistakable feeling that he was saying
goodbye.

“
You’re scaring me,
Laurent,” she said softly.

“
I believe I am in the
process of securing Maggie and Jemmy’s future,” he said. “I feel
confident that I am, but tonight a few obstacles were
introduced.”

“
Obstacles how?”

“
Maggie’s brother works for
the corporation that has bought out the village co-op.” When Grace
looked confused, he said, “Not just our co-op. They have contracted
controlling operational shares in co-ops all over France and Spain
and Italy.”

“
Okay.” Grace adopted her
best
I’m listening and trying to be
patient
face.

“
Jean-Luc and I are the
only ones in St-Buvard who did not sell the rights to our wine
production. Jean-Luc, because I asked him not to.”

“
What do you mean, sell the
rights?”

“
The right to work it as my
own vineyard.”

“
So if you contract with
them you’d still produce wine but the corporation would be in
control?”

“
Oui
,” Laurent said. “There would be no Domaine St-Buvard label. I
would have no control over how the wine was produced or marketed.”
He stood and walked to the French doors. “Like the others, I was
offered a long-term contract with the American conglomerate to
lease out pieces of my vineyard to
negociants
.”

“
That sounds horrible. Can
you just not sign?”

“
Yes, but I do not own the
machinery necessary to crush and process my own grapes. That was
the co-op’s. Without them…” He lifted his shoulders in a heavy
Gallic shrug and then turned back to Grace. “Just this week I found
an investor who would work with me and Jean-Luc and a few others to
form our own crush operation. It would be hard work, to be sure,
and the money…well, we would be poor for a very long time. But I
would own my own wine.”

“
I know there’s more to
this story,” Grace said, “because you still don’t look
happy.”

“
Maggie’s brother is in
trouble back in America. His company is pressuring him to have me
sign the contract.”

“
And so I guess he’s
pressuring
you,
right?”

Laurent laughed hollowly. “You could say
that.”

Grace sat quietly and watched Laurent as he
reached for a cigarette. She knew he rarely smoked, and never in
the house. She waited until he’d expelled the first long draught of
smoke.

“
I thought you were having
an affair,” she said.

Laurent snorted. “And I thought I was
hallucinating the day I saw you riding a bicycle in the
village.”

“
You saw me? Why didn’t you
say something?”

He shrugged. “You were so happy to be on
your secret spy mission. I had no heart to spoil your fun.”

“
The woman was one of your
investors, I guess?”

“
Oui
.”

“
I’m sorry, Laurent. I’m an
idiot. I guess I see cheating spouses everywhere these
days.”

“
Windsor did not
cheat.
You
left
him.”

“
I know.” Grace let the
words echo quietly in the air between them. She saw Laurent retreat
to his own thoughts again. “Is the thing Ben is trying to pressure
you with…your past?” His eyes glittered in the near dark as he
glanced at her. She was almost sure she registered a benign
amusement in them.

“
Oui
,” he said dryly.

“
Does he have anything?”
she asked quietly.

“
I don’t know.
Peut-être
.”

“
Oh, Laurent. Sign the
contract. That bastard! I hope you did break his nose. Do you think
he’ll really try to use what he has against you? He wouldn’t dare.
Maggie would never speak to him again.”

“
She doesn’t really speak
to him now.”

“
His parents will disown
him if he does this.”

“
It doesn’t matter,”
Laurent said, rubbing a hand through his hair. “He says he is
attempting to avoid prison himself.”