The Paris Secret (4 page)

I looked around for a place to put in the extra batteries I had packed. The few stone benches in the garden were taken. I went past the statues lining the walkway to the Apollo fountain and noticed an entrance to the garden hedge maze. Hoping there might be someplace to sit in the maze, I ducked inside. It was cooler and quieter there. Nobody else was in sight. I didn’t have to walk far before coming upon an open gate, through which I could see a pond.

In the very center of the pond was a large golden statue of a man struggling to free himself from the pile of black rocks. One golden, muscled arm reached out toward me. He was holding something in his hand that I couldn’t make out. A quick peek at the brochure I picked up inside the palace identified it as the Encelade Fountain depicting the fall of the Titans.

Something sailed over my head and landed with a loud splash in the pond. I jumped and bumped into someone.

“I’m so sorry—” I began before I saw it was the cop from the train. My blood started to boil. He dropped the large pebbles he’d been holding.

“Look, you can follow me around all you want but you’re wasting your time. I didn’t kill Juliet Rice and I don’t know what happened to the damned corkscrew. So you can tell Bernier and Bellange to kiss my ass.”

“Where’s the crucifix, Ms. Sinclair?” he asked, shocking me more by the fact that he was American than the fact that he knew my name.

“You’re American? I thought you were with the French police.”

“I’m not going to ask you again.” There was an edge to his voice that made me uneasy. I hadn’t realized just how isolated the spot we were in was until that moment.

I decided to play it cool and just walk away. But he grabbed the strap of my bag and yanked if off my shoulder, knocking me off balance. He shook the bag upside down, emptying the contents on the ground.

“Hey! What the hell is your problem? Give me my bag back!”

He dropped the bag and stood His brown eyes were cold and hard in the bright sunlight. After shoving up the sleeves of his polo shirt, his hands curled into fists. That’s when the small red mark on his arm jumped out at me. It wasn’t a birthmark. It was a tattoo of coiled snake, a cobra. I suddenly realized there could be another reason why he would smell like he’d spent time at the police station, and it wasn’t a good one.

“Who are you?” Every hair on my body stood up in alarm.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he punched me hard in the stomach. The pain was immediate and intense. I doubled over, clutching my stomach. He grabbed my throat and slammed me up against the side of the lattice walkway. Leaves, vines of ivy and the hard latticework pressed into my back.

“Where’s the crucifix?” Tattoo Man hissed at me, bathing my nostrils with his funky breath.

“Wha…what?” was all I could get out. Between the pain in my stomach and the tight grip of his hand around my throat, I could barely breathe, let alone talk. I struggled to free my hands, which were trapped between our bodies.

“Don’t play games with me! I know Juliet gave it to you. It wasn’t in the hotel room! Where is it?” He shook me by my throat like a rag doll.

“I barely knew her,” I gasped. “She never gave me anything. I swear. Please…don’t hurt me anymore!”

I managed to press myself back just enough to free my right knee and drove it toward his groin. But he anticipated the move and deflected it by turning sideways, then spun me around pressing my face against the latticework as he tugged my arms up painfully behind me.

“You barely knew her, yet you shared a hotel room! You barely knew her, yet you showed such concern for her when you saw her being harassed by that Frenchman on the bridge.”

“Please! We didn’t know each other! We didn’t!” How did he know about what happened on the boat?

“Don’t lie to me!” he screamed in my ear and pulled my arms up higher. It felt like they were about to break.

“I’m not lying. Please! Please, stop!” Tears streamed down my face and snot ran from my nose.

“I followed you yesterday. I know you didn’t have the crucifix then. She must have given it to you after she got back to the hotel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I swear!”

“What I did to Juliet Rice is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if you don’t give me what I want! Where is the crucifix?”

The world started to spin. This was the man who took my bag. This was the man who took my key card and used my corkscrew to kill Juliet. My legs gave out and I slid down his body to the ground. He jerked me back to my feet, turned me around to face him and punched me again, this time in my right side. The explosion of searing pain caused me to fall to the ground and curl into a ball. He grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head back.

“Tell me!” he screamed.

My vision began to blur. My attacker let out a grunt. The last thing I heard before passing out was the sound of fists on flesh.

When I came to, I was lying on my back. The most intense pair of green eyes I’d ever seen stared down at me. I’d seen those eyes before.

“Are you okay? Can you stand?” asked the man with the green eyes.

His English was tinged with a French accent. Sunglasses poked out of the front pocket of his faded jean jacket. His white shirt was ripped and his pants were smudged with dirt. This looked like the guy I’d bumped into when I’d arrived earlier. But those eyes made me realize that hadn’t been the first time I’d seen him. This was also the man who’d seen Juliet arguing with on the Pont de la Concorde. What was he doing here? I struggled to my feet and felt a wave of nausea wash over me.

“Easy.” He reached out to steady me. I pushed his hand away and took long, deep breaths to keep from throwing up.

“We need to get out of here before he comes to.” He gestured toward my unconscious attacker lying inside the latticed walkway who had started to groan.

“Come on! Let’s go!” he commanded impatiently, grabbing my hand. I pulled away.

“No! We need to call the police! What’s the number?” I fumbled around on the ground for my cell as I tossed as much of my stuff as I could back into my bag.

Tattoo Man groaned again, louder this time.

“Are you crazy? He’s coming to! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“It’ll only take a minute!” I tried to turn my cell phone on. But my hands were shaking so badly I could barely push the buttons.

“We don’t have time. Come on!” He grabbed my hand again.

He took off running, pulling me behind him. I tried my best to keep up but the pain in my side slowed me down. A bullet whizzed past my head and another hit the fencepost near me. Tattoo Man was firing a gun as he staggered behind us.

“He’s got a gun!” I screamed at my rescuer.

“No shit! Shut up and keep running!”

We emerged from the maze to see an old, beat-up maintenance truck parked about ten feet away. A workman stood on a scaffold cleaning a nearby statue.

“Get in!” Green Eyes shouted, shoving me into the truck on the driver’s side. I scooted over and he jumped behind the wheel. There was no key in the ignition and he slapped the steering wheel in frustration. “
Merde!
”

The man on the scaffold, yelling at us in French, began to climb down. Tattoo Man lumbered out of the maze and ran smack into the scaffold, sending it and the statue cleaner crashing down. While the two cursing men tried to extricate themselves from each other and the wreck of the scaffold, Green Eyes frantically looked for the keys in the glove box and under the floor mat.

“Don’t just sit there! Help me!” he yelled, jolting me into action. I checked the ashtray and under the seat, then reached over and pulled down the driver’s sun visor. A set of keys fell into his lap. He started the truck just as the back window exploded. I screamed. Tattoo Man was back on his feet and about to fire again.

“Get down!” Green Eyes shouted, pushing my head down as another bullet whizzed through the truck and shattered the front windshield.

He threw the truck into reverse. Thud! I sat up and turned to Tattoo Man on the ground. His gun had been knocked out of his hand. We sped off at top speed and minutes later were on the highway.

“You okay?” he asked, squeezing my shoulder. I wasn’t but I nodded yes anyway.

“You were on the bridge with Dr. Rice yesterday, weren’t you?”

He looked at me and gave me a disarming half smile, but didn’t answer. I had the feeling he used that smile to his advantage quite often. And I bet it worked most of the time.

“Aren’t you even going to tell me who you are and what the hell is going on?”

“Aren’t you even going to thank me for saving your life?” He smiled at me in an infuriatingly smug way.

“You first.” I glared at him. He laughed.

“All in due time, Maya. But first things first.” How the hell did he know my name?

“What do you mean? Where are we going?” I demanded while carefully picking shattered glass out of my hair and shaking it out of my clothing.

“Back to Paris. You’re not the only one needing answers,” he replied cryptically.

After we ditched the truck on the campus of Paris X University in Nanterre, we took the RER train into Paris. Then the metro took us to the Blanche station. As we climbed the stairs out of the station, the sight of a red windmill greeted me. The Moulin Rouge—we were in the red light district. By this time much of the pain in my side had subsided to a dull roar as I trailed along after Mr. Green Eyes. But I was tired and, despite the fact that this stranger had saved my life, apprehensive.

“Stay close to me and watch your bag. There are lots of pickpockets here,” he said, as he maneuvered around a group of tourists taking pictures of the window display of a sex shop.

“Hold on!” I stopped to catch my breath. He turned and gave me an impatient look.

“I’ve been following you around for over an hour and I’m not taking one more step until you tell me who you are.” I crossed my arms and waited.

He sighed then suddenly reached out and gently ran his fingers through my hair. His warm fingertips grazed my scalp and made my skin tingle. Our eyes met and I blushed.

“Hold still,” he commanded softly as I fidgeted. When he pulled his hand away, he was holding a piece of windshield glass that I’d missed.

“I’m…still waiting,” I said, suddenly flustered.

“
D’accord,
” he finally said and pulled a worn black leather wallet out of his back pocket, took out a white business card and handed it to me. It read, Simon Girard, Agence France-Presse.

“You’re a reporter?”

“I prefer
journaliste.
” He shoved the wallet back into his pocket.

“Is that how you know my name? Were you following me hoping to get a story on Juliet Rice’s murder?”

“Contrary to what most people believe about members of the press, I am not a vulture. However, I do have contacts everywhere, even at the police station, though I admit that like yourself, I’m not one of their favorite people,” he said, shrugging.

“That still doesn’t explain what you want with me.”

“One of my contacts informed me that you were connected to the murder of a woman I’ve been very much needing to talk to.”

“Then it was Dr. Rice you were trying to interview for a story? Is that why you were arguing with her on the bridge yesterday?”

“My business with Dr. Rice was of a much more personal nature than a mere story.”

“Were you lovers?”

“Of course not,” he said with a look of distaste.

“Friends?”

“I’d never met her before yesterday,” he replied flatly.

“Okay, I’m confused. You weren’t friends or lovers and you weren’t interviewing her. So what was all that about on the bridge yesterday? She slapped the shit out of you.”

He ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. It took him a moment before answering.

“I think Juliet Rice was responsible for my brother’s murder.”

That certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t know what to say. He turned and walked away. I had to sprint to keep up with him. Over my shoulder, the white dome of Sacré Couer loomed in the distance. I followed him down a side street off the rue Blanche called rue de Douai, past restaurants and tiny shops, ending up minutes later in front of a nondescript building with shiny green double doors. There were beautiful ornate floral patterns carved into the center panels.

“This was my brother Luc’s place. I’ve been staying here since I moved back to Paris from Hong Kong six months ago. You should be safe here,” he said.

He pushed one side of the door open and I could see a dark foyer with black-and-white tiles on the floor and a winding staircase. He stepped aside for me to enter. I didn’t budge. I bit my lower lip while mentally weighing the pros and cons of going inside this building with a complete stranger. He read my expression and laughed.

“You’ve followed me all the way home and
now
you’re having second thoughts?”

“Don’t act like I’m a stray a cat when you practically kidnapped me! We should have gone straight to the police. But, no, you had to be all covert and dump the truck in Paris when we could have just left it at the train station in Versailles.”

“
Pardonez moi, madame,
if I’m not used to having people shooting at me. Forgive me for wanting to get far away and as fast as possible.”

“Why won’t you go to the police? They need to know what happened.”

“Have the police believed a word you’ve told them so far? Because I’m guessing if they did, you wouldn’t be a murder suspect, right?”

“You’re my witness,” I insisted. “You can tell them what happened.”

“Forget it. I’m not going anywhere near the police until I have the answers I need regarding my brother’s death and maybe not even then considering they’ve not done a damned thing to help me so far.”

I glared at him. Obviously, just because he’d saved me, didn’t mean he’d help me. He had his own agenda.

“Maybe I should just go back to my hotel.”

“Oh, of course, I understand perfectly why you would want go back to the same hotel where that psycho killed a woman in your room. Smart move. If you go back now, he might even be waiting for you. Why don’t I just call you cab?” he said, with more annoyance than real anger in his voice.

“Shut up,” I hissed as I pushed past him.

Once inside, after my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I could see there was a tiny elevator underneath the stair. Simon ignored the elevator, probably just to spite me, and sprinted up the steps. We climbed seven winding flights before he stopped on the eighth floor and unlocked an apartment three doors from the black marbled landing.

Just off the small entryway, where Simon tossed his jean jacket over a hook on the wall, was a narrow hallway painted a vivid blue. It was lined with colorful paintings of street and market scenes. Each one was signed “Luc G.” The hallway opened up into a surprisingly large and airy living room with a row of tall, narrow casement windows that looked out on the street below.

There was a small kitchenette barely large enough for one person to cook in with a small dorm-sized fridge and an ancient-looking gas stove as well as a compact stacked washer and dryer. The living room was minimally decorated with only a large couch, a black leather chaise. A brand new computer rested on a glass desk.

“Your brother was an artist?” I sat on the couch and watched as Simon pulled a bottle of bourbon from the kitchen cabinet, grabbed two square cut glasses from the dish rack and joined me on the couch.

“
Oui,
” he replied. But it sounded like
way.

“He was talented.” I accepted the glass of bourbon. I took a sip and gratefully felt the tingling burn all the way to my stomach.

“He didn’t think so,” Simon said, after taking a big gulp of his drink. “He painted portraits of tourists on the Place du Tertre. If someone wanted a portrait in the style of Picasso, he could do it. If someone wanted a portrait in the style of Renoir, he could do that, too. But he had no personal style of his own. He called himself a gifted mimic.”

“He must have done well being a mimic. That’s a new Mac and those flat screens aren’t cheap.”

Simon sighed, drained his glass, leaned back against the overstuffed cushions on the couch and looked up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry.” I reached out to touch his arm. “Were you really close?”

“Only in the last few years. We didn’t grow up together.” He pulled a picture from his wallet and handed it to me. It showed a man who bore little resemblance to Simon. His brother had dark red hair, which had started to gray at the temples, a goatee and he wore glasses. The only thing the two brothers did have in common was their gorgeous green eyes.

“Luc was my father’s son from his first marriage,” Simon said as if he were reading my mind. “He was eleven years older than me. My father left Luc’s mother for mine. She’d been his secretary. How’s that for a cliché? Luc’s mother took the divorce very hard and never let him come to see us, which tore my father apart. I didn’t even meet my half brother until I was sixteen and that was at my father’s funeral. He made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me. He was angry and jealous. His mother led him to believe that our father didn’t love him anymore, that he only loved me. It’s only been in the last five years, since his mother died, that he’s shown any interest in getting to know me. When she was alive, I think he thought having a relationship with me would be disrespectful to her.”

“How did he die?” I ventured, still nursing my first bourbon while Simon poured himself another.

“Luc disappeared about two weeks ago. No one knew were he was. I called all his friends. Even contacted his ex-wife, Natasha, in Quebec. Nothing. The police were no help. They told me he was an adult and it was his right to disappear if he wanted to. Even suggested that maybe he’d left to get away from me. A week later, they pulled his body out of the Seine. There was a suspicious contusion on the back of his head that could have occurred either before or after death. But the official coroner’s report is suicide.”

“You don’t think he killed himself?”

“My brother was the happiest I’d ever seen him. He and Natasha were getting back together. He was even moving to Quebec to be with her. The last time we talked he was making plans and had already bought a one-way ticket to Canada. There’s no way he’d kill himself. No way!”

“I don’t understand. How does Juliet Rice come into all of this?”

“My brother didn’t earn enough money painting portraits to earn a living. He used his artistic skills to supplement his income in ways that weren’t legal, mostly through forgeries of art and antiquities. Luc could duplicate anything you put in front of him—paintings, sculptures, pottery, you name it. He could even take a bed sheet, some tea and a paintbrush and make a replica of the Shroud of Turin that could fool the experts. He was that good and he’d never been caught. You can probably imagine how in demand his skills were. And he was going to give it all up for Natasha. It was the only way she’d take him back. He told me he had one last job to do for some American woman before he left and she was paying him a lot.”

“And you think it was Juliet Rice?”

“I know it was her. I found her card in his things after he disappeared as well as a check from her for twenty thousand euros. I tracked her to the Ritz-Carlton to ask if she’d seen him but she’d already checked out. I finally tracked her to the Bienvenue yesterday and saw her hop in a cab so I followed her.”

“What did she say when you confronted her?”

“Told me I had the wrong person and she didn’t know my brother. I could tell she was lying because every time I tried to show her his picture to jog her memory, she refused to look at it. There was definitely something off about that woman.”

“In what way?” I didn’t disagree but wanted to hear what he thought.

“I did some checking on Dr. Rice. She’d recently quit her professorship at Stanford after teaching there for twenty years and had just been granted tenure. She sold her house and came here three weeks ago but kept moving around. I managed to track her to three different hotels in the last week each time she’d be gone before I got there. She’d stay at each place for a couple of days and then leave. She was running from someone, probably that wacko who attacked you.”

“Wait a minute!” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering. “He said Juliet had something that belonged to him. He kept asking me about a crucifix. He thought she gave it to me.”

Simon got up abruptly and walked over to the cabinets under the bookshelves and pulled out a large sketchpad.

“That would explain this,” he said excitedly, sitting down next to me and flipping the pad open. I couldn’t help but notice the warmth of his thigh pressed against mine and kept my head down so he wouldn’t see my flushed face.

There were a dozen sketches in all. Each one a more detailed variation of the same image of a crucifix. It showed two figure eights, with the smaller one positioned crosswise, and the larger one placed lengthwise. An inlaid scene on the handle depicted a nun kneeling in front of a serene winged angel. With one hand, the angel presented the nun with a book whose cover contained a horizontal figure eight. The letter
S
was written in one of eight’s sections, the letter
M
in the other. With the other hand, the angel held up a sword. The nun’s head bowed reverently; the folds of her habit obscured her face. She clasped her hands as if in prayer.

Both characters were bathed in rays from a brightly shining sun in the upper right hand corner of the picture. Dimensions, four inches wide by six inches long, were listed in the margins. I’d seen that letter and figure eight combination before. And it had been recently. I just couldn’t remember where.

“And you think your brother was killed because of this?”

“
Oui.
Luc must have been hired to make a replica of this crucifix for Juliet Rice. I think the minute Luc turned it over either she or someone connected to her killed him because he knew too much. Juliet must have stolen the real crucifix and left the fake in its place. The guy she stole it from killed her and now he thinks you have it. This has to be what this is all about.”

“But I don’t get it! What makes this thing worth two people’s lives?”

“I don’t know. But since Luc died I’ve been doing research on that symbol on the book the angel is holding.” He got up and grabbed a file folder lying next to the laptop and opened it. “That figure eight on its side is the symbol for infinity. I didn’t know what the
S
and the
M
meant until I found this.”

He handed me a sheet of paper that looked like it had been printed from an online book. The title,
Secret Societies of France,
was in the upper left corner. The page number at the bottom was 315. The page was a list of strange symbols and Greek letters, as well as the names of the societies they represented. Simon had highlighted in yellow the infinity symbol with the
S
and
M
about halfway down the page. Underneath, it read, “Society of Moret.”

“Society of Moret? What is it, some kind of secret society like the Freemasons or something?”