Murder in Nice (32 page)

At first she slid along the
wall using it for support, but within a few steps she realized she
was steady—and that she needed to hurry. With her good hand on the
wall, she moved into the darkness until it opened up and let her
see the next few steps in front of her. She saw she was in a
passageway, not a room. Narrow and curving,
and leading somewhere
. She inched
through the hall, stopping twice to rest but too afraid to sit down
again for fear she’d never get back up.

Either I go forward and get
out
, she thought dully, haltingly putting
one foot in front of the other,
or I stay
here and die
. After what seemed like hours,
the sound of water became more distinct. Maggie moved more quickly,
walking into the darkness pushing her fear ahead of her into the
black void.

When the passageway suddenly opened up to a
large underground room, Maggie stumbled into it without realizing
at first that light was pouring in from the high windows above. She
blinked against the new brightness and tried to listen for the
sounds of water again to get her bearings. Her legs quivered and
threatened to give way as she listened. She tucked her head to
concentrate.

She heard absolutely nothing.

But she smelled the aroma of coffee
percolating. Another vision?

Is this the end? Is this what happens when
you die? You smell the inside of a Starbucks?

Without knowing she was about to, Maggie
opened her mouth and screamed. Her howl was inhuman to her own ears
and left her exhausted and trembling.

Jemmy
.

“
Is somebody down there?” a
voice called from the nearest high window. “Can I help
you?”

*****

Maggie huddled by the campfire and gripped
the cell phone tightly, hoping it might stop her trembling. It was
three in the morning.

Milo, an Australian medical student
backpacking around Europe before starting his residency in Sydney,
sat watching her. His hair was long and uncombed, his eyes
searching hers as if he wasn’t completely sure she was real. He had
hung his hammock and built his campfire near the creek at the base
of the abbey—the same creek that fed the indoor wellspring of the
abbey, and which Maggie had been listening to and following for
nearly half the night.

In the end, there was no door in or out of
the dungeon, no obvious way out. Milo climbed down to her from a
ground-level window, stepping onto the massive stone tombs that
crowded the large room like a macabre, irregular staircase. Maggie
had no memory of the climb back up with Milo behind her pushing,
and in the end, half carrying her to his campfire.

But she knew that if it hadn’t been for the
young man’s sudden desire for a middle of the night caffeine hit
she would still be down in the frozen halls of the ancient dungeon.
Only she would probably no longer be walking.

“
I guess I’m trying to get
used to working weird hours,” Milo said, handing Maggie a sandwich.
“Or maybe the abbey is haunted, you know? Because I just couldn’t
fall asleep.”

“
Thank God for that,”
Maggie said, reaching for the sandwich. She took a quick bite and
then turned to the phone as the line connected. “Laurent? It’s
me.”

“
Where the hell are you?”
Laurent barked in English. “I’ve been driving around half the night
looking for you. Why are you not answering your phone?”

At the sound of his voice, familiar and
close, Maggie’s throat closed up and she worked to speak past the
lump burning in her throat. “Laurent, I’m sorry,” she said,
sounding choked even to her ears. “I was locked in a dungeon and I
just now got out.”

“
If you are being sarcastic
with me, so help me God—”

“
I’m telling the truth.
Please come get me but don’t kill yourself in the process. I’m okay
but I need you and I love you, Laurent. I love you
desperately.”

“
Bon
. Where exactly?”

Maggie gave him directions and handed the
phone back to Milo. “Thanks,” she said, sagging onto a blanket next
to the fire. She huddled in Milo’s rain jacket. He was equipped for
a summer backpacking expedition and had not packed anything for
warmth.

“
Did you break your
arm?”

“
My wrist, I think, yeah,”
Maggie said, putting the sandwich down. “Oh, my gosh, thank you.”
She reached for the mug of black coffee he handed her, but her hand
shook so much it sloshed down the front of her sweater.

“
I cannot believe you spent
the night in there. With no blankets or food or water? That’s
totally hardcore.”

Maggie managed a few sips before setting the
cup down. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“
Over there,” Milo said,
pointing away from his campfire.

Maggie stood, her hand screaming in pain
when she moved it, but her stomach settled down.

“
Is that your husband?”
Milo called.

Maggie looked up to see Laurent’s Renault
speeding up the winding road, heading toward the abbey. Warmth
radiated throughout her body at the sight of him.

“
Please tell me you got
here so fast because you were in the area,” she said under her
breath. She walked to the grassy knoll overlooking the road and
waved her good hand. He roared up, slammed into park and bounded
out of the car.

She didn’t even have to speak. His eyes took
it all in and without a word he ran to her and pulled her into his
arms. The smell of him was so familiar and safe. She burst into
tears.

I kept
him
.
The black
night is over and I didn’t pay a price for my
sins
.

“
I feel like Scrooge on
Christmas morning,” she whispered into his chest. Her legs gave way
and he lifted her easily in his arms and walked back to the
car.

The ER at Arles looked much the same as it
had the day before. Only this time, Maggie sat in the waiting room
with Laurent. The room was full from weekend mishaps and a broken
wrist was triaged as not urgent. Laurent procured a couple of
ibuprofen for her and a bottle of water. On the ride over, she told
him that Olivier left her in the abbey for reasons she could only
guess at.

“
I didn’t have anyone’s
phone number,” he said in frustration. “I didn’t think to get one
when I dropped you off. And you weren’t answering your
phone.”

“
It’s still in my purse in
the car with them.”

Laurent had called the police during the
ride into town.

“
Why would Olivier lock you
in there? Was his intention to kill you?”

“
Laurent, I honestly think
it was.”

“
For what
purpose?”

“
I have no idea. Unless he
thought I had evidence against him for Lanie’s murder.”

“
Do you?”

“
No.”

“
I hate to see you in
pain,
chérie
. I
can’t tell you what I thought when I went upstairs to bed and saw
your texts and realized you’d tried to contact me all day. But by
then you were unreachable.”

“
Laurent, I am so sorry for
all of this. For leaving you and Jem alone, for abandoning you when
my brother showed up. For…everything.”

“
Does ‘everything’ include
the lies?”

Maggie sucked in a quick
inhalation of breath, jerking her wrist in the process, which made
her wince. “I guess I hoped they weren’t really
lies
so much as—”

“
So your purse
really
was
lost as
you told me? Not stolen?”

Maggie sighed. “Okay. But it’s because I
didn’t want you to worry.”

“
That is another lie. You
didn’t want me to
interfere
.”

Maggie grimaced and looked away.

“
What are you afraid of? Do
you ever do
anything
I tell you to do?” Laurent’s dark eyes bore into
hers.

“
I try to.”

“
Yes, unless it is
something you want very, very much. Then you just lie to me and do
it anyway.”

“
It’s because I don’t like
to fight with you.”

“
Fighting would be better
than lying to me.”

“
But how about the time you
told me you couldn’t promise you wouldn’t ever lie to
me?”

“
That is
different.”

“
How, exactly?”

“
My lies would always be
for your own good. To protect you. Your lies are for
convenience.”

“
I’m thinking a lie is a
lie.”

He gave her a baleful look.

“
Look, Laurent, I feel like
I have good reasons—same as you—for hedging the truth now and
then,” she said. “But things have been so good between us, I just
don’t want to ruin it by fighting with you.”

“
But you must! You must
stomp your feet and throw a dish at me. Don’t worry. You will not
hit me.”

“
And then you’ll just cave
in? You’ll say, ‘Okay, fine, go ahead’?”

“
Pas du
tout
. I will fight hard for you not to do
something stupid or that may get you hurt. It will be a
fight
formidable
.
But I don’t own you. I will not lock you in the garden
shed.”

“
Fine,” she said, “I’ll
tell you what. I’ll risk fighting with you if you’ll risk my
knowing what you’re up to in spite of how little you trust
me.”

He looked at her with
surprise. “I do trust you,
chérie
.”

“
Well, in that case, we
have a deal. No more lies. And let the chips fall.”

He narrowed his eyes as he
regarded her for a moment. “
Bon
,” he said finally. “And after we
fight, and have scared the pigeons from the rafters with our
shouts, I will take you to bed and we will soothe away all the
terrible words with our love.”

She grinned. “Works for me.”

*****

It was late morning by the time they left
the hospital with Maggie’s arm in a sling. The police called
Laurent back to say Olivier had been taken into custody and was
being escorted back to Nice, where he would remain until the
trial.

“
I guess trying to kill
someone is a pretty serious bail violation,” Maggie
said.

“
He told the others that I
came and picked you up early,” Laurent said.

“
I was such an idiot,
Laurent. I trusted him. I thought he was a good guy. Do they know
why he attacked me?”

“
Does it
matter?”

“
Yes, it matters. What did
they say?”

“
It’s nothing,
chérie
. Just the ramblings
from a distraught man.”

“
Ramblings like
what?”

“
The detective I spoke to
seemed to think Olivier blamed you, well, everyone, but mostly you
for—”

“
Me? Blamed
me
? For what?”

“
Evidently your friend
Lanie said some things to him about you.”

Maggie stared at Laurent and then slowly
redirected her gaze to the road ahead.

“
Maggie. Please do not
upset yourself. These people aren’t rational.”

“
I know,” she said quietly.
“It’s just…Lanie hated me. I never knew that.”

“
You still don’t know
that,” Laurent said firmly.

They drove in silence for several minutes.
At one point, Laurent reached over and gave her knee a squeeze.
“How are you feeling?”

“
It doesn’t hurt as
much.”

“
Good. We need to talk
about some things.”

Maggie twisted in her seat to look at him
and yelped as the motion pulled against her sling. “I thought we
got all that sorted out. The lying and stuff.”

“
This is something
different.”

“
Oh, God, don’t tell me you
want a divorce. Today’s not a good day for me to hear
that.”

“
I will never understand
your humor.”

“
Just tell me,
please.”

“
We are about to go into a
dry spell,” he said. Maggie knew Laurent was proud of his grasp of
American idiom so she nodded as if she understood him and waited
for the other shoe to fall on her head.

“
We are going to be poor
for a little bit,” he said and then shrugged. “Perhaps
longer.”

“
I knew there was something
going on! It’s the vineyard, isn’t? I thought we had a bumper crop
this year.”

“
We do. This is a very good
year for us,” Laurent said, never taking his eyes off the road.
“But the co-op I use to crush and bottle my grapes has sold out to
an American corporation.”

“
What? Everyone in it? They
all sold? Jean-Luc, too?”

“
No, not
Jean-Luc.”

“
Well, didn’t this company
offer to buy your interests too?”

Laurent smiled wryly. “The terms were not
favorable.”

Maggie frowned and bit her lip. “Okay, so we
have grapes but no way to get them turned into wine?”