The Paris Secret (23 page)

“Surprised to see me?”

“How did you…?” Simon began.

“I’ve been following you two ever since you left the fashion designer’s apartment last night, Girard.” Sylvie then turned to me. “And I can’t believe you never noticed. I could have killed you when you ran across the street to jump in that cab,” she said to me.

She must have been the one driving that florist van that almost ran me down.

“You didn’t think I really wanted you to meet me in a public place, did you? Surely you realize I can’t allow the three of you live. And what a fitting final resting place for a librarian.

Francoise gasped and I looked at Simon. He looked ready to tear her to pieces. Sylvie waved me aside with the gun to get closer to the book. Her hand stroked the cover, smearing years of built-up dust and grime in the process.

“I’ve waited my entire life to see this book. Endured my father’s endless bedtime stories as a child about the magic gold book and the power it possesses, the power of eternal life and wealth beyond belief. And now it’s mine. Do you hear me, Father?” she shouted. Her voice echoed off the walls. “You took everything from me but I have your precious book and I’m going to live forever and be rich.”

“You don’t think what’s in that book is real, do you?” Simon asked. “The book was just an expensive prop used to keep an unwanted, and unloved child in her place and out of sight. The book is a lie, Sylvie!”

“If it’s a lie, why has it been hidden from the world all these years! Someone must have found out what was in it was real! Otherwise, why keep it hidden?”

“You’re crazy!” I said, though I knew now that someone had discovered what was in the book was real.

Sylvie hit me in the temple with the gun. Pain exploded in my head and little balls of light swam in front of my eyes as I struggled to keep my wits about me. Simon clenched his fists and took a step forward until I gave him a warning look.

“Don’t ever call me crazy,” said Sylvie. “All my life I’ve been made to think there was something wrong with me. It’s all of you hypocrites who have the problem with all of your fears and jealousies and inadequacies, such useless emotions. How do think I got Juliet to betray the Society of Moret and steal the crucifix?”

“I’m sure you’re just dying to tell us,” I said, rubbing my temple where a small knot had formed.

“I told her about how my son was taken from me and put up for adoption without my knowledge. I’d found out who adopted him and wanted him back but I needed a lot of money for a good lawyer. His adoptive parents were very wealthy and planning to put up a fight. My father cut me off financially. It was Juliet’s idea to steal the crucifix and put a fake in its place. She was convinced she could find the book and we could sell it, get my son back and run away and live happily ever after like one big happy family. I had Garland trash her hotel room so she’d think the society had found out what she’d done and go into hiding. I played on all her emotions.” She laughed.

“And her guilt and regret over giving you up? When did she figure out you were just using her?” I asked.

“Right after she finally figured out where the book was and I have him to thank for that,” she said, training the gun on Simon. “Juliet had no idea your brother was dead. She didn’t find out until the day you confronted her demanding answers. That’s when she realized I killed him and she hid the crucifix from me.”

Simon looked like he’d been punched. His eyes narrowed.

“That’s right. I killed your brother. Juliet was sloppy. She gave him our real names. He was a liability I couldn’t afford.”

“You soulless monster!” Simon shook off Francoise and lunged for Sylvie.

Sylvie didn’t hesitate. Before I could stop her, she fired the gun and the sound was deafening as it reverberated off the walls like thunder. The bullet struck Simon in his side and sent him crumpling to the floor.

Sylvie kept the gun pointed and pulled her finger to fire again. “No!” screamed Francoise and she threw herself on top of Simon to shield him.

I grabbed the heavy gold book from its pedestal and swung it at her, hitting her in the shoulder and knocking her sideways as the gun fired. The bullet whizzed past Francoise’s head and hit the wall. I dropped the book and tackled Sylvie, knocking her down and grabbing the hand with the gun, pinning her to the floor. She bucked and kicked like a wild horse. Simon groaned and clutched his side. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

“Get up to the library and get help, Francoise! Now! Hurry!” I yelled at the weeping girl who gave Simon an anguished look before taking off like a shot through the passageway.

“I should have killed the two of you when you came to my father’s house. I should have put you in the freezer with Shannon Davies,” she said as she panted and struggled beneath me.

“So you killed her, too, you crazy bitch!”

“Vincent killed her for me when I realized how I could use our resemblance to my advantage. He would have done anything for me. I did all the kinky things his beauty queen wouldn’t do. Sylvie Renard died and I’m going to disappear with the book and start a new life.”

“How could you let him kill Juliet…your own mother?”

“She was never my mother!” Sylvie shrieked, spittle flying. “She spent her whole life studying the life of a secret princess, an abandoned, unwanted child. And what did she do when she had a child of her own? Abandoned me!”

“And what about your son, Sylvie? How will he feel when he finds out his real mother is a murderer?”

“My son is dead! Hit by a car two years ago like a dog in the road! That English couple they thought was so much better for him than me weren’t even watching him!”

We continued to struggle and rolled across the floor, knocking over the marble pedestal. Sylvie rolled on top of me and pressed the barrel of the gun to my forehead.

“You’re going to die just like my father and the rest of those old fools. They all knew about my real mother and they all lied to me! They all knew about my son and they all lied to me!”

“Careful, Sylvie. Your emotions are showing. All this anger isn’t useful.”

Enraged, Sylvie balled up her fist to punch me and I moved my head causing her to punch the floor. She screamed in pain and I managed to knock the gun out of her hand. It skittered across the marble floor and we both scrambled after it. Sylvie reached it first. She spun around and fired. But the shot went wide and missed me by a mile, taking out a candelabrum instead.

I kicked her injured thigh, knocking her off balance. Simon wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell whether he was breathing. He was as pale as a ghost. Blood pooled underneath him. I ran toward him. I could hear voices coming down the passageway. Sylvie aimed at me. I slipped in Simon’s blood and fell. I frantically grabbed for the nearest thing to me, which turned out to be the
Aurum Liber.
Sylvie fired and I held the book up like a shield.

The bullet must have struck one of the jewels on the cover because it ricocheted, hitting the marble ceiling, then the floor, then bouncing upward and striking Sylvie Renard right between the eyes. Her mouth formed an
O
of surprise as she sank to her knees. A single trickle of blood ran down the side of her nose and she fell on her face just as Francoise, the librarian from the circulation desk and a security guard came running out of the passageway. I crawled through the blood over to Simon and cradled him. He was still breathing but just barely.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Simon Girard. Not after everything we’ve been through! Stay with me. Please hold on. Don’t let go,” I whispered as hot tears streamed down my face.

Simon’s eyelids fluttered open and he squeezed my hand. “I won’t let go if you don’t.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

“I won’t,” I assured him as I squeezed his hand in return.

“Promise?”

The look in his eyes told me he meant more than letting go of his hand. I kissed his cold forehead. “I promise.”

He gave me a weak smile and then passed out.

Five days later

“These sutures are driving me mad! And where the hell is that doctor? I’m ready to go,” Simon exclaimed irritably.

“Oh, quit your bitching. Better sutures than that bullet. And you could be a little more grateful, you know. The man did save your life.” I was sitting in the chair next to his bed reading a magazine.

It was my last visit. Simon was being discharged from the hospital and I was flying home that afternoon. I’d promised to help him get settled in at his new apartment, which was his brother Luc’s old place. Max had gotten past his anger at Simon and agreed to serve as his nurse, and had even bought a nurse’s uniform and cap for the occasion. It had helped matters considerably that the gun charge against Simon had been dropped when he’d insisted he’d found the gun on the ground at the Medici Fountain and that it must have belonged to Sylvie Renard. With Sylvie dead, there was no way of proving otherwise. Everyone was more than happy to forget the whole thing.

“I’ve got enough gratefulness to spare. It’s patience I’m in short supply of. I don’t know how anyone gets any rest in a hospital when they come in every hour on the hour poking and prodding you. The food is a joke. The only thing I’ve enjoyed were those sponge baths of yours.” He gave me a devilish grin.

I swatted him with my magazine. The door swung open and I expected to see Simon’s doctor come in but it was Francoise.

“So, is it true? Are you really getting sprung from this joint today?” Francoise plopped down on the edge of the bed.

Claire Samuelson had a brief flash of maternal instinct and tried to keep her daughter away from Simon, blaming him for her kidnapping—though she didn’t mind milking the experience for all it was worth in the media. However, one invitation to dinner by a Russian billionaire who saw her crying on TV, and she was jetting off to Moscow. Francoise was left all alone again, free to do whatever she wanted.

“
Oui,
” replied Simon. “And I’m tempted to just leave. You didn’t see Dr. Babineaux lurking around out there, did you? Knowing that horny old bastard, he’s got some poor nurse cornered in a supply closet.”

Francoise laughed and then looked over at me and gave me a smile. Ever since that day in the basement of the Bibliothèque St. Genevieve, she’d been grudgingly nice to me. But that was probably because she knew I was going home. What she didn’t know was that I’d be coming back…and soon. It seems Paris isn’t done with me yet. I didn’t know what the future held for Simon and me but I knew it wouldn’t be boring and I wanted us to get to know each other without the threat of death and prison hanging over our heads.

Not interested in hearing all about the latest teen drama from Francoise’s school, I got up to give them some time alone.

“You don’t have to leave, Maya,” said the girl. I was shocked. Usually when I said I was leaving, she practically held the door open for me.

“Oh, no, it’s okay. I’ve got some phone calls to make. I’ll be right back,” I said and started to go. As I walked past Simon, he grabbed my hand and gave me a questioning look. “I’ll be right back. I promise,” I assured him. He gave me a dazzling smile and brought my fingers to his lips.

“You’d better,” he said softly. “I’m not letting you go too far.” I gave him a quick peck on the lips and caught a glimpse of Francoise rolling her eyes.

There was a small garden next to the hospital and I sat on one of the benches to people-watch. Minutes later, a Bichon Frise ran up to me and started barking. I bent down to pet Agnes’s wriggling back and her new owner sat next to me on the bench.

“You’ve not been returning my calls, Madame Sinclair. You’re not avoiding me, are you?” asked Sebastian Marcel.

He looked a little thinner than when I’d last seen him. But his eyes were alert behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He’d been released from jail last week and I’d yet to see him. I was too overwhelmed.

“I haven’t meant to. I’ve just had a lot going on,” I replied and it wasn’t a lie.

Between keeping vigil at the hospital, dodging reporters and answering endless questions from the police, I’d had little time to really process what had happened in the library. And I still wasn’t sure I truly believed what had happened.

“And Monsieur Girard? Will he be alright?”

“He’s being released today.”

“I’ll be eternally grateful to the two of you for saving the
Aurum Liber
from Sylvie’s clutches.”

“Where is the book now?”

The old man shrugged. “It seems to have vanished from the police evidence room,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. I was getting mad.

“You know, you could have just told us where the damned thing was instead of putting us through all that drama. We could have all been killed. Simon almost was!”

“Madame Sinclair, I’m sorry. I don’t understand…”

I pulled the picture I’d found at the library and smuggled out during the chaos that ensued after the arrival of the police, and tossed it on his lap.

“Cut the act. Either that man is a relative of yours, or that’s
you
in 1847. I need the truth,
monsieur.
I deserve the truth. And I want it now.”

His shoulders slumped and he gave me a look of resignation. He picked up the picture and smiled. “Ah, I remember taking this picture like it was yesterday. I was so proud to be working with Labrouste, even though I was just a lowly assistant.”

“How is this possible? How can you be close to two hundred years old?”

“I’m afraid you know the answer to that already.”

“The
Aurum Liber?
”

He nodded. “I was such a sickly child, Madame Sinclair. My asthma was so bad I couldn’t work in my family’s
boulangerie.
My
maman
died in childbirth and I was never close to my father. He all but forgot about me when he remarried and had children with his new wife. The Boulangerie Dumaire was his life and that of my uncles, stepmother and eventually my half siblings. I was always different from them. I loved to read and draw. I wasn’t interested in being a baker. One day, when I was home sick and everyone else was at work, my
grandmere
showed me the crucifix and the
Aurum Liber.
It had been in our family for decades, though not everyone in the family knew. She told me she was sharing the family secret with me because I was special. She told me all about the Black Nun of Moret and how she entrusted the book and crucifix to my great-great-great
tante,
Sister Cecile. She told me when she died, the book would be mine and I must swear to keep it secret and hidden away.”

“But you used it instead?”

“
Oui.
I was still just a boy when my
grandmere
died, barely sixteen. I did not know any better. I was bored and lonely and saw no harm in experimenting with the formulas in the book. It took me a few years to gather everything to make the philosopher’s stone.”

“But it worked,” I pointed out.

“
Oui,
” he said with a mirthless laugh. “But only as long as I took the elixir.”

“You must have lived an amazing life,
monsieur.
You must have seen and done so much.”

“I have indeed. But it came with a price. I was very lonely for most of my life watching everyone I loved grow old and die. I couldn’t stay in one place for very long. I didn’t have the vision or the ambition to become a great architect. After I commissioned the stained-glass work on the crucifix to mark its hiding place, and did my duty and hid the book away as I promised my
grandmere,
I was called to the priesthood. I lived in South America for many years, many of them quite happy. I didn’t return to Paris until after World War II when the only one left in my family was my niece, Albertine. She was born after I left Paris and didn’t know me. I got to know her in my work at her church, Saint Severin.”

“And you gave her the crucifix?”

He nodded. “She was elderly and had never married or had children. I couldn’t burden her with knowledge of the book. But I did give her the crucifix before I left Saint Severin. But not before doing something vain and silly.”

“What?”

“It was around this time that I left the priesthood. I was feeling quite invincible and I’m afraid my ego got the best of me. I had the initials of my new identity, Sebastian Marcel, added to the stained glass scene in the crucifix’s handle before I gave it to Albertine.”

“So that’s why the
S
and the
M
aren’t on the book or in the Moret Tapestry. I wondered why.”

“I did it as a way of marking something that I’d come to believe was mine and mine alone. The crucifix was the only constant in my life, the only link to my past. I told myself after Albertine died I’d retrieve it but I never did. I enrolled in the Sorbonne where I met Bernard, Evalyn, Oliver and Anna, the best friends I could have ever hoped to have. I finally felt appreciated for the person I was.”

“You were in love with Dr. Hewitt, weren’t you?” I couldn’t shake the image of the adoration on his face in that picture in his apartment.

“Very much so. I had hoped that one day she might fall for me, too. But,” he said, sighing heavily, “she only had eyes for Bernard. Still, I was happy and honored to have been her friend.”

“And Bernard was in love with Louise-Marie, a woman who died more than two hundred years ago. A woman he’d never have.”

“
Obsessed
would be the better word. He and Evalyn were briefly engaged. But Evalyn couldn’t compete with a dead woman. She ended the engagement but loved Bernard for rest of her life and always wore his engagement ring on a chain around her neck.”

“
Her
engagement ring? You mean the silver posy ring?” The September sun was warm but I was suddenly cold. Goosebumps had broken out on my arms.

“
Oui.
Bernard had it designed himself. It was an exact replica of a seventeenth-century posy ring Evalyn had admired in a museum while on holiday. What is it?” he asked, concerned when he saw my face.

Now that the dam had been breached I could hold it in no longer. Everything came pouring out. I told him about what Dr. Hewitt had told me about the ring and what happened when I’d put it on. I told him about the dreams where I was the Black Nun of Moret and the things in the dreams that had been real. When I stopped I expected him to be shocked. Instead, he squeezed my hand and smiled.

“As I’ve already told you, Madame Sinclair, Evalyn had a wonderful sense of humor.”

“I don’t think it was very funny,” I said softly, pulling my hand away.

“Forgive me, my dear. I don’t mean to make light of all you’ve experienced. I sit here beside you living proof that the impossible is indeed possible. I cannot explain what happened to you. But I will say that the power of suggestion is a very powerful thing indeed. Perhaps Evalyn’s story about the posy ring tapped into the connection you were already feeling to Louise-Marie, making you more susceptible for her spirit to guide you.”

“Maybe.” I still didn’t know what I believed. I was just happy the ring was off my finger. Somewhere between the library and the hospital, while my hands were slick with Simon’s blood, the ring had slipped off my finger. I had no idea where I’d lost it.

“You know, it was after I met Evalyn that I stopped taking the elixir. I was tired of moving around. Paris is my home. I want to die here and I finally realized everyone was moving on but me. I was trapped in time.”

“But you never really wanted the Society of Moret to find the book, did you?”

“Sadly, no one paid much attention to Bernard’s research and I wasn’t worried about the book being found until he found the crucifix. Then I did everything in my power to prevent the discovery of the
Aurum Liber.
Each time it was my year to study the crucifix, I would come up with the most outlandish theories to try and steer them in the wrong direction. I even warned them that direct sunlight would fade the colors of the stained glass,” he said, chuckling.

“Would it have been so wrong to let them find the book?”

He sighed. “I made a promise to my
grandmere
to guard the book. And I’ve kept my promise. My friends told themselves they were seeking the book purely for academic purposes. But I knew if they found it they would do as I did and try the formulas. No one should live forever, Madame Sinclair. What value does life have if there is no death?”

“Well what about Agnes?” I asked, looking down at the little dog sitting at her new master’s feet. Monsieur Marcel smiled sadly.

“I’m afraid love makes us do foolish things. And when you’re in love with a woman who is distraught because her beloved dog is dying of old age, you’ll do anything to make her happy, to see her smile again, even if it risks exposing a secret you’ve been hiding all your life.”

“But she looks so…healthy. Are you still giving her the elixir?” I reached down to pet Agnes and she licked my fingers.

“I gave her exactly one dose…twenty-five years ago. But animal physiology is different from that of humans. I have no way of knowing how long she’ll live.”

“Did Dr. Hewitt know what you’d done?”

“I suspect she may have. But anytime she brought the subject up, I always told her it was the power of her love that was keeping Agnes alive for so long. After a while, it no longer mattered to her.”

“But why steal the Moret Tapestry?”

“I always felt it belonged with the book. And even after it was gone, Bernard was still undeterred in his quest. He was brilliant and determined. He always used to say that history is not lily-white but multicolored. He wanted Louise-Marie’s story to be told as well it should. I couldn’t believe it when he managed to track down the crucifix. I’d lost track of Albertine in the thirty years after I’d given her the crucifix. I figured once she passed away it would simply disappear thus breaking the link between it and the book.”

“Well, I hope it’s in a safe place now. And you can put this with it.” I pulled the Moret Crucifix from my bag and handed it to him.