Kiss Kill Vanish (9 page)

Emilio turns, walks out the door and away from me. I clench my teeth and watch him go.

He's gone. I'm alone again—alone with Marcel, a thousand unanswered questions, and a clawed-open heart.

“You look like hell,” Marcel muses, like this fact is more interesting than unfortunate.

“I have a stomachache.”

“Did I miss something?” He tips his head to the left. “Did Señor Suave say something to upset you before I walked in?”

“You're
the one who upset me,” I spit. Suddenly every emotion is funneled into my disgust for Marcel. “You made me sound like a paid escort.”

He snorts. “I'm sorry, you're not?”

Without warning, my body is moving on its own. I see my two hands on Marcel's chest, feel the fine wool of tuxedo over wasted muscle before I understand what I'm doing. I'm shoving him. As hard as I can, I'm shoving him backward with all the gumption Jane lacks and all the strength Valentina has, and despite being nearly a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter, I rock his center of balance and he careens into the wall. I don't wait to see him slide all the way down, but I do hear his glass shatter against the marble floor and a slurred string of curses before I slam the door shut behind me.

I find my way to the main gallery, ducking and weaving into the horde. I'm frantic. I scan, I spin, I scour, touching every face with my eyes. Emilio has to still be here. But Hugo has drawn a crowd, and they're crushing in around me, leaning and leering. Lucien's probably out here looking for me. I should be careful, but panic is making me stupid; I don't care if Lucien sees me freaking out or if I knock over a whole tray of hors d'oeuvres. I have to find Emilio.

Instead I find parts. Over my shoulder, I see his fluid gait, but then he turns and it's not him at all. Out of the corner of my eye, there it is, his hair curling softly up at his collar, but when I grab his arm, it's a startled stranger staring back. His laugh, his jaw, his hands, I find them all, but not together.

And his eyes aren't anywhere. He's gone.

The blister on my heel has burst and is bleeding, hopefully not all over Nanette's beautiful shoe. And I feel so flushed. My face must have a manic shine to it. I look around for a chair, but apparently the patrons of Les Fontaines aren't meant to sit, because there isn't a single one. Instead, I lean against a pillar, close my eyes, and feel the room sway with wine and money and angry nudes trapped in oil paint.

Emilio was here. He was here and he was beautiful. He said he never got to explain.
So explain.

I'm hot and sweating. Maybe I'm not just in shock, maybe I have a fever, because for one bleary, pulsing moment I allow myself to doubt what I saw from the closet. Emilio didn't kill anyone. I was tricked, or it was terrible joke, or I was hallucinating, but whatever I thought I saw was not real.

Except of course it was real.

Cold fingers squeeze my upper arm, and my blood turns to ice.

“Where have you been?” Lucien demands. “I've been looking everywhere for you.”

I stare up at him. He looks far away. “I don't feel well.”

“You don't look well.” He frowns and puts his palm to my forehead, sending a shiver through me.

“You're freezing,” I say.

“I've been on the balcony.”

“The balcony?”

“Upstairs. It overlooks the gardens and the fountains, which I think will be perfect for the next portrait. Or maybe we'll want to do one indoors first if we survive the cemetery.”

I'm not listening to him. I'm staring over his shoulder into the crowd where Emilio used to be but is not anymore. Without warning, tears fill my eyes, and I'm filled with a shame worse than any costume or pose I've assumed for Lucien. “I'm not feeling well,” I plead.

He sets his lips in a thin, straight line. “I'll take you home.”

“I'll take the Metro.”

“Don't be an idiot. I'll take you home.”

I'm too weak to refuse.

While Lucien gets my coat, I do one more slow turn of the gallery. But not for Emilio. For the paintings. Swirling in my head, the miserable nudes collide with Emilio's impossible appearance and become something beyond coincidence. Something beyond fate.

Lucien drives me home in a car I've never seen before. It's sleek and small, tapered like a bullet, no backseat. He's mercifully quiet. My panic recedes as we get farther and farther from Les Fontaines, but I don't feel better. I feel empty. The lights streak by, and I realize that I've lived in Montreal for three months without seeing the streets like this. I've been tunneling beneath them, a Metro rat, or trudging through them staring at my feet. But with it all whirring by me so fast now, I feel light. This night has been heaven and hell, but now it's over and for a few minutes I lose myself in pure velocity.

Lucien finds my apartment, but I don't realize we're here until he stops at the curb. I don't even remember telling him the address. Maybe it's the car's soothing purr or the warm seat, but for the first time all night I'm not dying to get away from him.

“Go to bed,” he says. “Call me when you've slept it off.” He reaches out and strokes my cheek with the back of his finger.

I don't shiver. It's creepy, but affectionate too, and tonight Lucien is more pitiable than detestable. I don't have to look at him now to remember his face when Marcel humiliated him in front of me, which is why I don't pull away when he leans over to kiss my cheek. I don't breathe. His lips are cold and wet, pressed to my skin for a second too long.

He doesn't say good night. He pulls back and I get out, weak and dizzy on my heels, disoriented by the blast of icy air. He drives off while I'm still teetering toward the doorway, scrounging for my key in the dark. My fingers haven't yet found the right one when I see a bent figure, half a block up, leaning against the building. It's far enough to be hidden, close enough to be watching. He came.

As he walks toward me, my body tightens. Of course he came—did I think he wouldn't? It was all so fast and chaotic, though, I almost didn't want to hope. Or maybe I knew I shouldn't hope.

“Do you live alone?” Emilio asks when he's close enough for me to see the angry pink of his cold-pricked cheeks. He stops at an awkward distance, hands in his pockets.

“No. You look freezing. How long have you been out here?”

“A while. I thought you might have gone to his place.”

“Of course not.” My fingers are cold and shaking. I drop my key ring, then scramble to find it in the dark.

He's silent while he watches me, waiting for me to stand before speaking again. “But you don't live alone.”

“I have roommates.”

He sighs. Whether it's from exhaustion or frustration, I can't tell. “I can't come up then,” he says.

I cross my arms over my chest for warmth. I don't know why he won't come closer. “Where are you staying?”

“The Ritz-Carlton, but I can't take you there.”

“Is my father with you?” I hold my breath. The first snowflakes of the evening slide between us. There's no flutter to them. Just sink.

He shakes his head. “I'm alone. Or I thought I was alone. Now I don't know. Do you know anywhere private we can go to talk?”

I glance around, already knowing there isn't. It's midnight and everything is closed.

Or just closing.

“There's a place a few blocks from here,” I say, slipping my keys back into my purse. I don't know what I'm saying. This won't work. I can just picture Jacques's face when I show up with a man instead of a mandolin. “We have to get there before the owner leaves, though.”

“When is that?”

“Now.”

We walk quickly. I try calling Jacques on the way, but there's no answer. He wasn't planning on me coming tonight, but I think he locks up at the same time every evening. I hope he does.

Emilio's long strides are hard to match, but I manage, bleeding blister and all. He's charged with that same current as earlier, and it's sucking me in. It's urgency laced with something more. Terror? And what was it he said?
You have to let me explain.
Yes, that. I'm racing through the dark and the cold, fueled by an impossible hope that Emilio only needs to explain, that whatever he says to me will alter reality; what I saw was not what I saw.

But Soupe au Chocolat is dark, boarded up, silent. Closed. I bang on the door anyway, but of course there's no answer. Emilio stands with his hands in his pockets, staring at the snow collecting on his shoes. It's coming down harder now—thick, wet clumps like thousands of falling stars. I knock harder, anger and desperation driving my fist into the door.

“Valentina,” Emilio says finally.

I don't stop banging. “Maybe he's in the back room.”

“Nobody's here.”

“But he's always here at midnight.”

“It's quarter past.” He reaches out and grabs my forearm. “You're going to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

I swallow and take a step back.

“Is it alarmed?” Emilio asks.

“What?”

He puts his hand flat on the door. “Do they have an alarm system?”

“No. Just a single lock.”

“Amazing,” he murmurs, fishing around in his pocket. “Not even a deadbolt. People are so trusting.”

There's something wrong with me. I'm watching him take a tiny metal tool from a tiny silver case and wriggle it into the space between the door and the frame when I should be stopping him. I will never again be allowed inside this café if Jacques finds out, but all I can think about is that before tonight I never thought I'd see Emilio again, and now he's here, he came for me again, and he has beautiful hands. They're slender and strong. Musician's hands. He curses under his breath, slides the tool out of the door, flips it shut, and pulls a shorter hook out of the silver case. I'm mesmerized. Watching him manipulate the lock reminds me of having his hands cupped over mine, his nimble fingers pressing my inflexible ones into the mandolin strings.

The lock slides. There's an audible
clunk
and Emilio smiles—his first real smile of the night. But then he looks at me and he's serious again. “After you.” He pushes it open.

I limp into the café and fumble for the light switch while I'm kicking off my bloody heels. It's blissfully warm. I hear him come in behind me and almost expect . . . what do I expect? For him to grab my waist and pull me against him? For him to kiss my neck and run his fingers down the notches of my spine?

I flip the light switch and turn around. Emilio blinks, taking in the glossy tables, the thirty variations on brown, the rich smell. “Chocolate,” he mutters.

“It's torture.” I take off Nanette's coat, then gesture for him to give me his. Once upon a time I would have helped him out of it.

He takes it off and hands it to me. “So you know the owner?”

“He lets me come here some nights.”

I walk to my corner, but he doesn't follow. He stands rigid by the window and peers between slats in the blinds. “Why? What do you do here?”

I'm caught, blushing before I've even admitted it. I'm not a real musician like he is. He'll think I'm silly coming here and pretending I am, but no plausible excuse comes to my mind. “I practice.”

“Practice what?”

I shrug. “Your mandolin.”

“Nice to know where it went.”

“I assumed you knew I took it.”

“Well, you both disappeared at the same time. It was a safe bet.”

I can't tell if he's actually mad. “Sorry.”

“But not really,” he says.

“No. Not really.”

“I missed it.”

I missed you.
If only he'd said that. I push a chair to the radiator and sit.

We stare at each other from opposite sides of the café. This isn't what I thought it would be. This is strained. Awkward. I can't tell if we're mad at each other, or afraid of each other, or just afraid of the questions ballooning between us.

He pulls his bow tie loose and undoes the top two buttons on his shirt. “I hate this thing,” he mutters.

He peeks out the blind again, but this time in the other direction.

“Who are you looking for?” I ask.

He drops the blind. “Why are you in Montreal?”

“Me? Why are
you
in Montreal?”

“Why won't you answer my question?”

“Answer mine first,” I demand.

“Which one?”

I swallow. There are too many. Order should matter, one should trigger all the others, but in this moment I can't see a beginning or any sort of chronology to the confusion. There's just one question pulsing beneath all the others like a heart.

“How could you kill that man?”

His skin loses color with each step toward me. It's storm gray by the time he's close enough to grab me, but he doesn't grab me. He pulls a chair angrily off the table and throws it down beside mine.

The Emilio of my memories would never hurt me. He's gentle, and he whispers things that make me melt. He doesn't make me cower. I don't know who this man is or what he's capable of, but I'm cowering.

“
How?
”
he repeats bitterly. His face is close to mine, his lips twisted as he spits the words at me. “Ask me who, what, even why—ask me anything else about that night.”

“Why, then?” It comes out as a whisper, but I ask it. I have to know.

“Because I have to do what your father tells me to do.”

“Have to?”

His glare hardens.

I don't look away.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he says. “Your father isn't what you think he is.”

“You don't know what I think he is!” I say, feeling turned around.
I
don't know what I think Papi is anymore, but I hate his condescension. I feel raw and cut down. I feel like a child. “You know
what I saw. You put me in that closet. You knew I was there and—”