Fortune's Deadly Descent (21 page)

The sky is high and clear, the temperature climbing steadily. I check into Hotel Saint Victoire without incident. It’s true what they say about money talking—I offer to pay the week up front in cash; the fake name I give, Emily Watson, is taken as good; and a room key is placed in my hand.

I set up shop in a suite that resembles a giant hatbox, the bed itself like a headpiece embellished with satin pillows, its king-size quilt swimming with iridescent peacocks. I clear the mahogany table of the gift basket crammed with fruit and cheese and chocolates but pause at the chilled, complimentary bottle of pastis, famous not only for the 45 percent alcohol content but also for the lovely licorice flavor of anise. I’ve never been much of a drinker, but the feminine, blue-striped bottle and milky, soft-yellow liquid is so appealing that even the
idea
of drinking it soothes me. I crack open the cap, blend the liquid in a glass
with icy water, and knock back a long swallow. I plug in Oliver’s computer, and drink again.

Without warning, the liquor shoots to my head as if I’ve cranked open a high-pressure valve, and,
bang
, there’s Benicio in his hospital bed, unconscious, intubated, his beautiful body savaged. A fit of bawling convulses me, thrashes me.
Let it out
, I tell myself.
Let this be your one good cry
. And so it is. I get down on the floor and wail into a three-hundred-euro pillow for nearly ten minutes. When this is over, it’s like stepping outside after a long, hard rain. I feel cleansed.

“You people have no idea who you’re
fucking with
!” I sing.

I take Moreau’s gun from my purse, along with the bloodstained Ziploc bag holding Benicio’s phone and wallet, and set them next to the computer. I toss my jacket from the suitcase to the bed, and from its pocket pull out the photo of Benny, which I unfold on the desk, where I can see it.

The Internet is a whole lot zippier at Hotel Saint Victoire. Way down in my stash of old e-mails, I locate the message containing instructions about the hidden software in my laptop. I log on to the site and follow the steps, which are simpler than I’d supposed. All I have to do is enter the password, then change my computer’s status to stolen, and the search begins. A blue status bar gauges the progress. It seems stuck on 2 percent, but I’m encouraged that it moves at all. Any second, photos, screenshots, a satellite map pinpointing its exact whereabouts should pop onto the screen. I cup my hands in prayer. Please let it be this easy.

I’m not too concerned about being followed, at least not by the
gendarmes
. Every cop in Saint-Corbenay and Aix must be obsessed with the events in the square. If I were a criminal, I’d figure this is an excellent time to commit a crime.

The buzz of Benicio’s phone in the bag startles me. I unzip it carefully, but can’t avoid the sticky feel of dried blood on plastic.

I accidentally drop the phone on the floor. I glance at the table to see my glass of pastis is already empty. That would explain the slow ooze waltzing beneath my skin.

Oliver’s name flashes on the phone.

I answer, “Are you all right?”

“The question is are
you
all right?”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“What the hell, Mom. What are you
doing
?”

“Seraphina must think I’m insane.”

I eye the computer. Eight percent.

“I explained about Benny,” he says. “I had to. Where are you? Are you still in town?”

“How is Benicio?”

“Tell me where you
are
.”

“Oliver, is he dead? Is that why you’re calling—”

“He’s still
stable
. Mom. Listen to me.”

I place my hand on Benicio’s wallet in the bag and feel something hard beneath it. I flip it over to find his small notebook. Oliver has gone on talking, but my attention’s strayed to Benicio’s notes. The sight of his handwriting, this intimate piece of him, starts me trembling. I skim through notes about work—“Move scene 7 to 9 and take out 3.” “No more raisins.” “Bring on Jake.” Some things are written in Spanish—“
Ella no puede recordar sus líneas
.”

Ten percent.

Then, trying to rejoin the conversation, I ask Oliver how Moreau handled things after I left.

“Strangely. He didn’t say a word about you. He had Petit take us to Seraphina’s and made him stay to guard the house. That was it.”

“Not Petit,
again
.”

“I assume he’s the only one they could spare.”

“Benny. That worries me.”

“Did you just call me Benny?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you drinking? You’re
scaring
me.”

“No, it’s OK,” I say. “One pastis. It’s medicinal.”

I hear Oliver’s frustration on the other end.

Eleven percent. Perhaps this is taking so long because I’m in Europe and it’s a different satellite system. Then I worry it’s not actually working at all.

I say, “Do you feel safe at Seraphina’s? If not, you could get a police escort to the airport and return to the States.”

“Stop trying to get rid of me.”

“Oh, for god’s sake—”

“Listen to me, Mom. I’m twenty-four, I’m safe, and I’m just as determined as you to find Benny. OK?”

“Of course you are. I’m sorry.”

“Petit actually seems to be taking his job seriously now. He’s tense. Talking on his phone a lot outside the door. I assume with Moreau.”

“Anything new on the ransom?”

“No. I tried getting in touch with Isak, but he won’t call me back.”

Fifteen percent. I flip through more pages in Benicio’s notebook and then stop when I recognize recipe names. Yellow Tuesday Chiffon, Galette Des Rois, Potatoes a L’alsacienne, with two
question marks. Benny’s name is peppered throughout the page. A jagged lump grows in my throat.

“If you speak with either Isak or Moreau, please tell me immediately,” I say.

“Of course.”

On the final page in Benicio’s notebook, I find a list of five names. All crossed off except the last one, Johan Donders, a name that sounds familiar but I can’t quite place. Donders is a common Swiss name. Next to his name is written the word
deceased
. From that, an arrow points to the name Helena Donders. It’s been circled repeatedly. Helena?

Fifteen percent, holding steady.

“I need to go, Oliver. I’ll call you back.”

I hang up and run a quick Internet search and immediately understand why Johan Donders sounds familiar. He’s the last person who tried to sue me for the Hagen shares. He must be the one Isak said had died. Is Helena his wife? His sister? Is her maiden name Watson? I search images with both their names, and a photograph of the courthouse in Zurich appears. Helena and Johan Donders had asked the court to show leniency for their son, Pieter, who was convicted of the kidnapping and attempted murder of his girlfriend, Kristina Rossi, who has since recanted her testimony. Pieter was sentenced to three years in Gefängnis Zurich. I slap my hand over my mouth. The same prison as Jonathon. There’s no way
that’s
a coincidence. This was three years ago. He’d have just been released.

I check Benicio’s list again, reconfirming that Johan is marked deceased. Isak said everyone on the list had been vetted and nothing was found. But why look any further at a dead man or his family?

The search has leaped to 60 percent.

I back into the bed, sit, and try to focus, but the golden light spilling down around me from the curlicued crystal chandelier makes me sort of ill. I can’t bear the thought of being drenched in opulence while Benny could be starving in some dank basement, or worse. A warm, soured taste of licorice billows up into my mouth.

I call Oliver back. “I need you to pull together every bit of investigative journalism you’ve ever been taught and find out what you can about Johan and Helena Donders. They were a couple that tried to sue me. He’s the guy Isak mentioned who’d died. I need this quickly, Oliver. I can’t stress it enough. And do
not
leave the house. I hate to say this, but I think you’re in more danger than I am.”

“What am I looking for? I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start with their son, Pieter Donders. He served three years in prison with your father for the kidnapping and attempted murder of his girlfriend, a woman named Kristina Rossi, who, for some reason, recanted her testimony. And I’m pretty sure he was just recently released.”

“Whoa.”

“If something should happen to me, look into the witness from the train. Helena Watson. I believe her real name, or married name, may be Helena Donders. The police report says she’s British, but she may have two passports.”

Seventy percent.

I flip on the cable news. The first thing I see is footage of Benicio being rolled into the ambulance. I close my eyes, but when I open them, I see my own face, my author photo, professional, serious, so completely out of context with what’s happening. There I am smiling in the corner while the ambulance drives away.

“Screenwriter and actor Benicio Martinez was shot multiple times in the head and chest while riding in the back of a taxi in the small town of Saint-Corbenay, France, this evening,” the journalist reports. “The whereabouts of his partner, best-selling author Celia Hagen, are unknown.”

I can’t stop grinding my teeth. What if Benny sees this? Or someone in the hotel figures out that this woman parading around in the ridiculous golden jacket is
me
? Damn it. Someone from the train is certain to put this together. Someone is going to come forward and say, “My god, that’s the woman who couldn’t find her child on the train, and now someone has tried to kill her partner.”

Son of a bitch. If the story about Benny gets picked up all over the news, we will
never
see him again.

I let myself have another small serving of pastis, feeling my lips quiver on the rim of the glass. The report ends and there’s no mention of me stealing Moreau’s gun. Not that I really thought there would be.

Eighty percent.

I shut the TV off.

By the time I look back, the blue line has reached the end. A small box appears, filled with the words
Device located. Check e-mail
.

An orange tip on a satellite map points to a spot at the edge of Saint-Corbenay. My chest erupts with joy, relief, and then a quickening of anger. I was right. God
damn
it. He’s right beneath our noses. The street where the address is located is depicted as a winding white line, the area behind it a large block of green—I’m guessing a park, vineyard, or forest. A blue river winds through the green.

Instructions for activating an alarm on the missing computer are included in the e-mail. If I want, all I have to do is push a button and follow the sound. Easy enough. I close the laptop and pull the same e-mail up on Benicio’s phone. The map opens on the small screen in all its portable glory, and I feel a rush of hope, adrenaline, fear—I am on my way, you son of a bitch.

I slip on my golden shoes and jacket, and shove Moreau’s gun in my purse. I slap on my sunglasses, stick Benicio’s phone in my pocket, and when I pass reception, give my best “au revoir” to the man behind the counter, he replies in kind. The doorman holds the door, bids me “adieu,” and that’s that.

Five blocks down I retrieve the Rover from the parking garage and follow the map toward my computer in Saint-Corbenay.
Twenty minutes later I’m
there
, cruising a cobbled street where all the houses are made of smooth, pale stucco, the shutters faded blues, reds, and greens, rooftops bubbled in clay tiles. My first thought is that it looks like such a
happy
street, a place where neighbors share wine in their gardens and play boccie ball on the raked sand pit across the street. I experience a little sizzle of hope—maybe the kidnappers are nothing more than a group of misguided people who’ve made a bad error of judgment. This was the vibe I got from the man on the train, wasn’t it? But then I picture Benicio in the hospital again, the terrible insult to his body.
Misguided?

Don’t go stupid
now,
Celia
.

I hang back, park down the block from the actual address, and toss my golden jacket and shoes in back. I put on sneakers, wedge the pistol into my waistband, and cover it with my blousy shirt.

It’s hot already, no sign of clouds. The town square isn’t far, if I’m remembering correctly. The street doesn’t appear to have been disturbed by the shooting or its aftermath; in truth, it doesn’t seem like much of anything has disturbed it for centuries.

I start on foot toward the house, seeing now that the green square on the map is actually a large open field behind the homes. The house at the end of the street, the one where the map says my computer should be, looks like any other. Blanched stucco, faded lime shutters, lace curtains, potted red geraniums in the window box. The door is glossy black with a tarnished brass knocker at its center. I check the phone. I’m practically on top of the orange dot.

Now what?

As much as I try visualizing how this is going to play out, I get no clear picture. All I see is the B movie version where I burst in, flail the gun around, grab Benny by the collar, and run out. This
isn’t the way things go in the real world, I know that. And yet all I have is me. And a gun. What else am I going to do?

I can’t just knock. Can I?

The alarm. I can drive them out or distract them enough for me to come in and take them by surprise. It’s as good a plan as any, the only one I have. I pull out the phone, find the e-mail, hold my finger above the button, squeeze my eyes shut, and press.

Within seconds, I hear a steady, high-pitched wail. I back against a hedge, just enough so that if anyone opens the front door they won’t see me before I see them. I stare at the doorknob, waiting for it to move. The gun is at my thigh with the safety off.

I only hope Benny’s been told this was all a game. That his parents are coming soon, that everything’s fine. I imagine him running toward me, his face growing larger and larger until he’s close enough to throw his arms around my neck. But seeing that, once again, I see Benicio. It’s all I can do not to burst inside the house, gun blazing.