The Paris Secret (20 page)

Simon scowled and abruptly told the driver to stop the cab. He tossed money at him and dragged me out of the barely stopped vehicle after him. We were in the Latin Quarter about a block from the Sorbonne’s campus.

“You want to know why I haven’t answered your calls?” He flipped open his cell phone and thrust it at me.

On the display screen was a picture of a bound and gagged Francoise sitting in a chair. The picture wasn’t the best quality but I could see she was wearing her school uniform and her eyes were wide and frightened. Her face was tear-streaked and her nose was running. A cut on her lip had dripped blood on her chin.

“Oh my God! Did you show this to Bellange?”

“Read the message.”

I scrolled down farther and saw the brief text message.
No Police or she DIES. I’ll B in touch.

“I got that an hour ago. I couldn’t call you back. I had to keep the line free.”

“It’s Sylvie Renard, Simon. She’s the one who has Francoise.”

Simon grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “She’s dead!” The more upset he became the thicker his accent got. “This has nothing to do with you. Go home where you belong.”

He shoved me and then walked away. I chased after him. When I caught up, I pulled the picture of Shannon Davies from my bag and pushed it in his face. The resemblance to Sylvie stopped him in his tracks.

“
This
is who they found in Sylvie’s trunk. Shannon Davies, Vincent Garland’s girlfriend. Sylvie played us all. She was behind everything. I’m not even sure Juliet Rice knew Vincent Garland.”

He snatched the picture from me and stared at it.

“Come on.” I took his hand and led him over to a table at sidewalk café. “I’ll explain everything.”

Simon gulped two glasses of wine as I broke everything down, nodding periodically when I stopped to see if he was following along.

“If she’s taken Francoise that could only mean one thing.” He looked up from his wine glass.

“She knows the crucifix you dropped at the Medici Fountain is the fake one,” I said, looking at the cell phone image of the terrified teen.

“And we’re back to that damned crucifix again.” Simon started to pour himself another and I put my hand over his glass.

“This won’t help. Trust me. I should know. We need to stay sharp.”

Simon’s cell phone rang in my hand. I was so startled I almost dropped it. So much for staying sharp. The caller’s number was blocked. I quickly handed it to him and he took a deep breath before answering it.

“
Allo.
” He listened for a minute then looked at me and put the cell phone on the table between us and pressed the speaker button. “We’re listening,” he told the caller.

“Did you enjoy my little performance at the Medici Fountain? I think it was my best one yet,” came the disembodied voice of Sylvie Renard.

I was confused, but Simon’s eyes narrowed. “You were the screaming tourist in the hat with the camera. You shot Garland and shoved him in the pond before we got there. You killed your own partner.”

“He’d already served his purpose,” she replied without a trace of emotion.

“How were you planning to get the crucifix from us at the fountain with Garland dead?” asked Simon.

“Oh that was simple. I just needed you to show up. The pickpocket I hired would have relieved you of the crucifix had you not dropped it when the cops showed up.”

“And Juliet? Had she served her purpose as well?” I asked.

“All she had to do was tell him where the crucifix was. Vincent never responded well to the word
no.
And don’t change the subject. I’m so disappointed in the two of you.” She sounded like she was chastising two children. “All you were asked to do was find the damned crucifix. And what did you do instead? Tried to fool me with that fake piece of shit.”

Unlike the terrified and weeping young woman we’d found at the bottom of the staircase at her father’s house, this Sylvie sounded ice cold.

“We have no idea where the crucifix is,” insisted Simon.

“Where’s Fran—I mean Phoebe Samuelson? We want to talk to her,” I blurted out. There was silence on the other end. “Put her on the phone now or we’re hanging up.”

Another agonizing minute of silence passed before we heard a small voice come on the line.

“Simon? Are you there?” It was Francoise. Her voice was thick with tears.

“I’m here,
cherie,
” Simon snatched the phone from the table. “Are you, okay? Has she hurt you?”

“I’m okay. Just give her what she wants so I can come home. You, Mom and me being together is all that matters. Remember Disney? It’s the key to…” We heard a muffled cry like something was being pushed into her mouth and Francoise was silenced before she could finish her sentence.

“It’s all so touching but I don’t have time for this nonsense. You know what I want and you know what I’m capable of. Taking another life means nothing to me.”

“And how do we know if we find you the crucifix that you’ll let her go?”

“Crucifix? No, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do much better than that to get back into my good graces. I want the book. I want the
Aurum Liber.
And you two are going to find it for me.”

“If we couldn’t find the crucifix, how do you expect us to find the
Aurum Liber?
” asked an incredulous Simon.

“Your father’s society has been searching for that book for forty years. What makes you think we can find it?” I added.

“Because you have more incentive than they did. If you don’t meet me at noon tomorrow with the book, for every hour that you’re late, this little bitch will lose a body part. I think I’ll start with the fingers first.”

Simon buried his face in his hands.

“You’re asking the impossible,” I said. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

Sylvie laughed and a chill went down my spine. “Okay. I’m a reasonable person. I’ll give you a choice. You can either get me ten million euros by midnight tonight. Or the
Aurum Liber
by noon tomorrow. It’s your choice.”

How the hell were we supposed to get ten million euros? I nudged Simon and mouthed the word
Claire?
He shook his head no.

“She spends it as fast as she earns it and if she tries to get that much from Marty’s trust, the police will know,” he whispered.

There was no doubt that Sylvie would kill Francoise. We needed to buy as much time I we could.

“We’ll get you the
Aurum Liber,
” I said.

Simon’s face turned bright red with outrage. He put his hand over the receiver.

“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “You’re going to get her killed. We have no idea how to find that book.”

I pulled the phone away from him. “Are you there, Sylvie? Did you hear what I said? We’ll get you the—”

“I heard you,” she replied. “Tomorrow. Noon at Notre Dame. Don’t keep me waiting.”

“Wait!” shouted Simon. Sylvie didn’t speak but she hadn’t hung up yet. “I swear if you don’t have Phoebe with you tomorrow, alive and well and without a hair on her head harmed, then the deal is off and I’ll throw that damned book into the Seine before I let you get your hands on it.” The light on the phone went out indicating that she’d finally hung up.

I could tell Simon didn’t know whether to kiss me or kill me. “You wouldn’t happen to still have that key, would you?” I ventured.

“No. I forgot to get it back from Francoise but I’m pretty sure I know where it is,” he replied, finally smiling.

“You do?”

“Didn’t you hear what Francoise was trying to tell us on the phone just now? Remember Disney. It’s the key.”

Disney is the key? It took me a minute to get it. “She hid the key in that picture of the three of you at Euro Disney!”

“I told you she was a smart kid.” He beamed as proudly as a father.

I thought Simon would just zip back to Claire’s Samuelson’s apartment to get the key while I waited at the café for him. But since we had a bad habit of getting separated, he insisted I come with him. I was not pleased, and neither was Claire, who alternated between glaring at me when no one was watching and sobbing on Simon’s shoulder.

We’d already been there an hour and Simon had been unable to tear himself away from Claire to retrieve the key from Francoise’s room. I tried to get it but Thierry Bernier, who had taken over the shift for Bellange, was watching me like hawk. The police had already confiscated all the computers in the house, thinking Francoise may have met up with someone she’d met online.

“I’d have thought you’d be in a hurry to get back home, Madame Sinclair. I’m surprised you’re still lingering in Paris,” said Bernier coolly after cornering me in the kitchen. He was dressed in a black suit that emphasized his lanky build and made him look like a funeral home director.

“You make me sound like a rash that won’t go away, Lieutenant. Am I bothering you?”

“Madame Samuelson doesn’t need the distraction of your presence here with her daughter missing. Unless you know something about this case you aren’t telling me, you are only in the way. Or are you just trying to get more media attention for yourself?”

“I don’t know anything. The media is overrated. And whether or not I’m a distraction is not for you to say.”

I left him in the kitchen and went to the living room where Claire was sitting on the couch with Simon, staring at a phone that wasn’t going to ring. She may not win an award for mother of the year, but Claire Samuelson looked like she’d aged ten years since I’d seen her on TV yesterday. I handed her the glass of bourbon I’d poured for her in the kitchen and she snatched it out of my hand and drained it. It was her third.

“Why doesn’t that damned phone ring? Where is she, Simon? Why is she doing this to me?” Claire wailed. Her face was blotchy with tears. She was dressed in a pale blue silk kimono that washed her out. Her long blond hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail.

I rolled my eyes and had to clasp my hands together in my lap to keep from giving this self-centered woman something to really cry about. I’d wondered the whole way over to the apartment whether we should tell Claire where her daughter really was. She deserved to know. Simon vetoed the idea. And he’d been right.

“She’ll be home soon. I promise,” said Simon. I could tell he’d had enough, too. “I need to go to the bathroom, Claire. Maya will sit with you. I’ll just be a minute.” Simon eased out of Claire’s grasp and kissed her cheek before looking over at Bernier, who was on his cell phone with his back to us, and heading off down the hall.

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” asked Claire, casually swirling the ice at the bottom of her glass. My face grew hot.

“Don’t you have more important things to be worrying about than my sex life?”

“It’s no big deal, honey. I’ve already had my turn. There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun with Simon Girard as long as you don’t get attached. You see,” she said, leaning so close to me I could smell the bourbon on her breath, “Simon’s still hurting over his dead wife and he’ll stick his dick in every woman in Paris if he has to just to make himself feel better.”

So, this was where Francoise got her cattiness. She’d certainly learned at the feet of a master. I glared at her.

“Did you think he loved you? Oh, you poor thing.” Claire laughed and my face burned hotter.

The doorbell rang and Bernier answered it at the same time Simon reappeared in the living room, patting his pocket to let me know he had the key. I stood as none other than Diana Hughes of BBC World News arrived with her camera crew in tow to tape a public appeal for information and the safe return of Phoebe Samuelson. Thankfully, she barely glanced my way. Simon and I were able to slip out the door unnoticed as a stylist went to work on Claire to get her ready for her close-up.

“Anything yet?” asked Simon from across the tiny hotel room.

“Not since you asked me two minutes ago,” I snapped. I was rereading Juliet’s journal for any clue as to where she could have hidden the crucifix.

After leaving my room earlier, and not wanting Claire showing up at his brother Luc’s, Simon had checked into the Timhotel in the Latin Quarter. I didn’t think it was possible to have a room smaller than the one I’d had at the Bienvenue. I was wrong. There was hardly enough room to turn around let alone think.

“Are you sure there was no locker at the Sorbonne that that key could have fit?”

“For the thousandth time,
non.
I already told you Francoise had searched the Richelieu and tried the key everywhere in the building she could get to before Claire called and demanded she come home.”

“Maybe there’s some other campus facility she used while she was there.”

“Anything is possible, Maya. The problem is we have no idea whether she even visited the same places she did when she was here back in April.”

“Yeah, but she hid her flash drive in my camera for a reason. Something in her journal must be clue, otherwise why bother?”

I continued to reread the entries made during and after Juliet’s stay in Paris back in April. My tired eyes were starting to burn when something I hadn’t paid much attention to before jumped out at me.

“Maybe this person she visited when she was last here might know something.”

“Who?” Simon came and leaned over my shoulder.

“Jean Taris. See.” I pointed to the journal entry dated April 5, the day of the embassy reception where she met Sylvie. “It says,
Spent an hour at Jean Taris’s.
Maybe that’s one of her colleagues.”

Simon chuckled. “Jean Taris was a French Olympic swimmer in the thirties.”

“Maybe they were friends.”

“He died years ago. There’s a public pool named after him not far…” His voice trailed off as the answer hit us both at the same time.

“Juliet brought a bikini with her. I tripped over the top the night I found her body!” I shouted, jumping up.

“If she swam at Jean Taris, then she would have used a locker for her clothes. Let’s go.”

I grabbed my coat and followed Simon out the door.

Piscine
is the French word for pool. And Piscine Jean Taris was on rue Thouin behind the college Henri-IV, a five-minute walk from the Timhotel. It was dark outside as we hurried down the crowded streets, bumping into people out on the town for dinner or some Friday night fun. It was already well past nine o’clock and the cafés and bistros were filled to bursting. I was afraid the pool would be closed. But a quick call by Simon confirmed they were open until eleven o’clock.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before,” I said, practically running to keep up with Simon’s long strides. “I didn’t give that bikini top much thought. I just figured she swam at one of the hotels she was staying at.”

“Jean Taris is popular with academics from the Sorbonne. She may have even had her own personal locker.”

It was quiet and pretty deserted when we arrived. A muscular young man was the only attendant in sight as we searched the halls for the locker room.

“
Peux je vous aide?
” inquired the attendant. I assumed by the inflection of his tone that he was asking if we needed help.

“
Oui,
” Simon replied and pulled out the small key. He rattled off something in French. The young man took the key and recognition flashed across his face. He nodded.

“
Un moment,
” he said and walked away.

“Where’s he going?”

“I told him I forgot and left my things behind in a locker here last week. He’s going to check locker 419.”

We smiled at each other. The anticipation made it hard for me to stand still. Then Simon swore out loud. The attendant walked toward us empty-handed.

“It was empty?” I asked.

“Items left behind in lockers for more than a week get moved to our equipment office and have to be claimed in thirty days or they are discarded,” replied the young man in English. “Please follow me.”

We followed him through to the pool area where a few people were having a quiet night swim. The smell of chlorine was thick and the water in the pool cast lazy undulating shadows on the tiled walls. In the distance, through the wall of windows, I could see the dome of the Pantheon. No wonder Juliet had liked to swim here. It was beautiful. The attendant had reached the office before us and was dragging a large cardboard box out from inside the door.

“When you’re done looking, just leave the box here and let me know before you leave.” With a smile he was gone and Simon and I got on our knees to hunt through the large box.

The box was crammed with everything imaginable, T-shirts, swim trunks, swimming caps, goggles, towels, a half a dozen flip flops with no mates, lighters, watches, glasses, jeans, a man’s suit jacket, a pair of size ten stilettos that made Simon laugh.

“Maybe I should give these to Max as a peace offering, eh?”

“Keep looking,” I said as I pulled a dog-eared copy of Italian
Vogue,
a metro map and a leather-bound book out of the box.

The more we looked, the less likely it seemed that we were going to find the crucifix. Finally, we got to the bottom and had only succeeded in making a mess. The floor around us was strewn with the contents of the box.

“It was made of gold. Someone probably took it. Shit!” I threw the book back into the box and it landed face up and the front cover fell open. Inside was a bookplate that read in fancy scroll lettering, “From the library of Evalyn Hewitt.”

The book was
Rappacini’s Daughter & Other Stories
by Nathanial Hawthorne. “Rappacini’s Daughter” was the story of a botanist who had a beautiful daughter who was as toxic and deadly as the plants in his garden. Granted, Rappacini’s daughter, Beatrice, wasn’t a psycho like Sylvie Renard. Though her touch was deadly, she was a good person. Still, the connection between Beatrice and Sylvie’s beauty and their lethal natures had not been lost on Evalyn Hewitt. Had she given the book to Juliet to warn her about her own child?

“What is it?” asked Simon.

“I think this may have been Juliet’s.” My voice was barely a whisper as I was afraid speaking louder would somehow make what I’d just said not true.

I flipped through the pages, and when I got to the center, I discovered the book had been hollowed out. A gold crucifix and a folded piece of parchment paper, yellowed and faded with age, lay in the secret compartment.

I held the Moret Crucifix in the palm of my hand and the gold glistened and shimmered in the light. Simon let out a whoop of joy. We hugged and kissed each other and then we quickly stuffed everything back into the box and rushed back to the hotel.

“Think she’ll settle for just the crucifix?” I asked as I lay across the bed that night or rather early that next morning.

“Not when you promised her the book.” Simon was stretched out next to me. He stroked my hair, twirling one long strand around his finger.

It was four in the morning and we were exhausted from racking our brains studying the crucifix and trying to figure out how to decipher it and find the
Aurum Liber.
The parchment paper that was with the crucifix was no help, either. It was just an old faded genealogy chart. I was staring up at the ceiling, trying to blink sleep away. Neither of us said anything for a while.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Simon.

“About two daughters born hundreds of years apart, both as the result of an affair,” I said, rolling onto my back. “One daughter was shut away and hidden in a convent, denied a family and a life of her own, but ultimately accepted her fate thinking she was doing something noble, while the other daughter was accepted, loved, cherished and despite all that, has caused nothing but death and destruction.”

“There’s really no way to know what makes us who we are, Maya. But you can’t compare Louise-Marie and Sylvie. They were born in different worlds.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” I was also thinking about the circumstances of my own birth and how it had shaped me. What kind of person would I have been if my mother had kept me? Simon nudged me.

“Come on. We need to focus. I think we should forget about meeting Sylvie and try and find where she’s holding Francoise. If I can enhance that cell phone picture, maybe we can tell where Sylvie’s keeping her.”

“How much time would that take?”

“Not much time at all if I send it to a photographer I know at
Le Monde.
I know one who owes me a favor.”

“We can’t risk your friend running that picture in the paper. Sylvie will cut her losses and take off.” By cutting her losses I meant Francoise’s throat.

“He was a friend of Justine’s. He’ll be discreet.”

“No. We can’t risk it,” I said. “And how will Claire feel knowing we knew where her daughter was all along and didn’t say anything?” I could just see Thierry Bernier’s amused expression as he slapped cuffs on us for obstruction.

“What do you suggest then?”

“We keep trying.” I sat up and walked over to the table where the crucifix and the parchment lay. “Why would Juliet have hidden this genealogy chart with the crucifix if it didn’t mean something? There must be a clue on here somewhere if we could only read the damned thing.”

The only word on the chart we could read clearly was the word
Father
underlined with a large exclamation point written in the upper left hand corner. It was newer, fresher ink and must have been added by Juliet. The names on the chart were faded. The dim lighting in the hotel room didn’t help. Simon and I had deduced that this must be the same genealogy chart Bernard Fouquet made to trace the family tree of Sister Cecile, whom the dying Sister Louise-Marie had entrusted the crucifix and the
Aurum Liber
to, on her deathbed.

“You know there was a copy machine in the office behind the front desk. I bet we could make a copy and make the writing on it as dark as possible. It might help.”

“I guess it’s worth a try. But…” I smacked my hand against my forehead. “Man, I must really be tired.” I started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop.

“But what?” asked Simon. “What were you going to say?” He grabbed me and shook me.

“I can’t believe I forgot!”

“You are starting to freak me out, Maya. What are you babbling about?”

“When I was in library school I took a class on document preservation. We learned some old school techniques to restore faded ink!”

“How?” Simon asked, looking excited.

“Liver of sulphur.”

“Come again?”

“It’s used in jewelry making to oxidize silver and bronze. If we apply it to this parchment, it will turn the faded writing black.”

“Just where do you suggest we get this stuff?”

“A jewelry store. I’ve seen tons of them around.”

“And they won’t be open for a few hours yet. Time we can’t afford to waste. Are you sure we can’t use something else?”

“Okay. Okay. Let me think.”

“I still don’t see why we can’t just use a copier,” said Simon, holding the parchment paper under the desk lamp.

“Because it will just make what’s already visible on the paper darker. It won’t restore what’s faded.”

He made a disgusted noise and I rethought his idea to enhance the cell phone picture of Francoise.

“You know, you might be on to something. If we had a scanner, we could scan the parchment, save the image, and open it in Photoshop. Then we can adjust the contrast, which might make the writing more legible.”

“Luc has a scanner at his place,” said Simon. “And I have Photoshop on this laptop.”

Once back at Luc’s place, we hooked up the scanner to Simon’s laptop and we were in business. It only took a few minutes to scan the parchment and save it as a JPEG. After we opened it in Photoshop we experimented and reversed the background color making it black and the words a lighter color, which made the names on the chart finally come into full focus.

“Sister Cecile was a twin,” I pointed out. As I read over the rest of the chart, a familiar name jumped out at me, Anne-Elise.

Cecile Lambert and her sister Marguerite were the youngest of five children born to Didier and Anne-Elise Lambert in 1715. Could this be the same Anne-Elise from my dream? The young maid who was Louise-Marie’s only friend at Fontainebleau Castle? Is that why she entrusted the crucifix and
Aurum Liber
to Sister Cecile, her old friend’s daughter? Could this be possible?

“What is it?” asked Simon.

“Nothing,” I lied and continued reading.

Cecile Lambert died in 1734. While her twin sister was in a convent preparing to marry God, Marguerite married a man named Alphonse DeRose. The rest of the chart was made up of the marriages and offspring of Marguerite’s four children. It ended with Albertine Dumaire, who was ninety-six when she died in 1970. It was all very interesting but not at all helpful. We were at another dead end.

“Now what? We can read the damned thing and still can’t figure out what we’re supposed to see.” Simon pushed back from the computer.

“We’re just tired. Why don’t I make us some coffee?” I offered.

“No amount of coffee is going to change the fact that this is all my fault. You were right. I never should have involved Francoise. Sylvie must have seen her with us on the Sorbonne’s campus and followed her home.”

“That’s impossible, Simon. Sylvie was too busy killing Vincent Garland and making it look like a suicide to have seen Francoise with us.”

“Then she saw me on TV with Claire and followed us back to her place. It doesn’t matter how she made the connection. Francoise’s life is in danger because of me.” His voice was raw with emotion.

“Simon.” I grabbed his hand and he pulled away from me.

“I’m going to take a shower.” He walked out of the living room and the bathroom door slammed.

I went to sit on the couch and stared at the Moret Crucifix, which was sitting on the coffee table, propped against a wine glass. What were we missing? My head was aching and I lay back against the cushions and closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of the shower in the bathroom and resisted the urge to join Simon. He needed to be alone and I needed to figure out how to find the book, since, after all, it had been my idea. It was already 5:30 in the morning. Time was running out, yet exhaustion weighed my eyelids down and soon I was dreaming.