NorthernPassion (3 page)

Next of Kin

Desiree attempted to put the morning’s events out of her
head as they took in a local museum. With such tragic news, it was going to be
difficult to continue their vacation. The crash had thrust them back into the
real world and they hadn’t even been in the car or so much as seen the accident
scene. After they left the inn, she tried not to give it another thought and
was almost convinced maybe Sam was right, until they returned. Just as they
left their car, a taxi pulled up in front of the inn and a woman ran in ahead
of them. The cabbie exited his cab and dragged a small suitcase from his trunk.
He set it on the veranda and drove off, leaving it to sit in the dust cloud his
car made as he sped away.

“Well, he was in a hurry,” Sam commented.

“I don’t know who was in a bigger hurry, the woman or the
cabbie. Grab her bag, Sam. Let’s take it inside for her.”

Sam was way ahead of Desiree. He’d already extended the
handle of the bag and was dragging it behind him. The eerie quiet filling the
lobby before was gone, replaced with the bustle of reporters flashing cameras
and everyone was talking at the same time. “There goes the neighborhood,” Sam
said.

“Jokes, again? This doesn’t look good.”

“Let’s just find the woman and give her this bag.” Whatever was
going on, he wanted no part of it and he certainly didn’t want their faces to
be on the news because they got caught in the middle of someone else’s tragedy.
They were supposed to be flying under the radar on this trip and publicity for
someone in their line of work was never a good thing.

Desiree pointed the woman out. She was at the center of a
group of reporters and hotel employees and she was yelling at the top of her
lungs in English, as if speaking louder would help those around her understand
her words better. The front desk clerk stood next to her, trying to keep the
reporters back. There was a look of distress on his face.

“Tell me what happened,” she yelled. “Are you sure they’re
all dead?” Tears streamed down her face. “Where are they? Where are they?” Her
anguish flooded the room and tugged at Desiree’s heartstrings.

Desiree and Sam glanced at each other. This was going to be
ugly. Instinctively, Sam pushed through the crowd toward the woman. He stepped
between her and the reporters and put his arm around her, guiding her away from
the mob. He nodded at the desk clerk who moved up to serve as a barrier to keep
the reporters at bay. Sam and Desiree guided the hysterical woman into the
restaurant. “We have your bag,” he said as he pulled the rolling bag behind
him. “It will be quieter here.”

They walked her through the restaurant and into the kitchen.
“Did you know them? The people in the crash?” Desiree asked, finally.

Sam grabbed a glass, filled it with water and offered it to
the woman. She finally stopped crying enough to answer. “My brother was part of
the bridal party.” Her words broke through her sobs in staccato bursts. “I
don’t know what to do without him. I don’t know where they took him.” She
reached for the glass Sam handed her, revealing an elaborate tattoo on the
inside of her arm. “I’m not even sure it was him. My French isn’t too good and
no one is really giving me any answers.”

Desiree rubbed the woman’s back, between the shoulder
blades. “I’m sure they will tell you something soon.” She made eye contact with
Sam over the woman’s head. “You got here so fast—”

“I was in Paris, sightseeing. I was going to come to the
wedding too.” The woman could hardly contain herself any longer. As soon as
she’d said the word wedding, she started to cry all over again. She could
barely get any other words out. “He loved France so much. He lived here a lot
of the year.”

Desiree and Sam looked at each other. “Do you have a room?
Is there anyone you can call?” The woman sobbed harder. Desiree felt helpless.
She felt for this woman, but there was nothing she could do but what she was
doing right now and that wasn’t saying much.

Sam stood. “I’ll go check for her. You stay here and keep
the reporters away.”

Desiree nodded and went back to comforting the distraught
woman as Sam made his way back to the lobby to find a room for her.

The evidence Toulouse had not seen this much excitement in
years packed the lobby of the tiny hotel. Every reporter for miles around was
there, demanding answers and screaming at the poor hotel clerk and it seemed as
though at least one member of every family in town had descended on the place
to be try to be close to the goings on. Even the most reclusive people had
suddenly become newshounds. Sam had to practically push his way through the
throng of people to get anywhere near the desk.

The poor hotel clerk looked as if he was ready to cry. He
scurried around behind the desk, answering phones and trying his best to ignore
the questions the reporters and townspeople shouted to him all at once. Sam
opened the small half-door separating the desk from the lobby and stepped
behind it. “Why do they think you have all the answers?” He was sure this was
quite a departure for the clerk. They’d chosen this place because of its quiet
reputation and location in a sleepy little hamlet.

The look in the clerk’s eyes was not much different than one
on a deer paralyzed by the headlights of an oncoming truck. He shook his head. “They’re
just trying to get information about the tour company and driver. We are the
closest place to be while the police investigate. I know just what they do and
nothing more.”

Sam nodded. “Let me help. The young woman needs a room. She
says her brother was in the accident, but she isn’t sure.”

Tears welled up in the clerk’s eyes again. “
Oui c’est
terrible
!”

“Did you say you knew someone in the crash?” A reporter
practically shoved his microphone up Sam’s nose, screaming in Sam’s ear in
heavily accented English.

He pushed it away. “Watch that. These people need some
peace. This is a bad time.”

“Do you know who it was? What about the one man who’s
missing?”

Sam looked into the clerk’s wide eyes, narrowing his own.
There was someone who was not accounted for. Sam hadn’t meant to get involved,
but he was suddenly intrigued. What if the woman’s brother wasn’t dead and
hadn’t gotten in the car? “Missing? You mean there’s hope?”

The reporter was relentless. “Do you know for sure everyone who
went on the tour showed up? What do you say to the possibility of survivors?”

Sam’s mind whirled. He’d seen terrible things in his job,
but a part of him was hoping for a miracle in this case. Loss of life was
certainly a tragedy, but it would be wonderful if one person had lived and even
more wonderful if that one person was related to the sobbing woman in the other
room. Maybe, just maybe, Desiree’s feeling about this was right. He left the
reporter standing there with his microphone held out in front of him.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Inside the gates,
Rue Dianne
looked like a street in any
other suburban neighborhood. The street was lined with midsized houses, all in
a color palette so similar you had to look closely to see the difference, with
two-car garages and a SUV in every other driveway. The scale was smaller than
it might have been in a similar neighborhood in the United States and
everything was made of stone in true French styling. If it wasn’t midmorning on
a weekday, any number of kids might be playing in the front yards or running
from house to house with their helicopter moms hovering nearby just like in the
United States. Rather than people walking down the street clutching Starbucks
cups, Desiree spied people riding by on their bikes or with a baguette tucked
securely under their arms. The street looked just as she would have pictured
it, almost straight from a movie set.

Desiree stood outside the house she and Sam were moving
into, watching the fake movers carry their fake possessions inside, mostly
through the garage, while her fake husband was at his fake job. She shivered,
trying not to grimace as the furniture moved past her. It was the first time
she was seeing most, if not all, of it. The morning was crisp and her perfectly
matched sweats barely kept her warm. They weren’t her style really. If she’d
had her preference, her workout gear would have been understated and all black
instead of this color somewhere just shy of purple her boss insisted she wear.
Desiree was required to be fashionably suburban-esque for this job, down to her
underwear. It felt as if whomever had done the research had overdone things
just a bit. She pulled her baseball cap farther down on her head to help stave
off the small, slow-moving wind that felt like a thin needle being pushed
through her body.

She stared down at the phone in her hand, rechecking it more
to look busy in an awkward situation than out of necessity. In between clicks,
she checked out the neighborhood, noting the slight differences between the
houses and the comings and goings of the people. When you looked hard, the
houses weren’t really as similar as they first appeared and the cars people
drove were different. A few hours ago, when she’d first arrived, everything
looked the same to her. That was certainly helpful. By the end of the week, she
would know who lived where, with whom and drove what. If they had a routine,
Desiree would know that too. Knowing was her job.

The movers carried a large, hideous sofa in through the
front door. Desiree cringed. Reed had some sense of humor. He’d chosen the
house, the neighborhood and all the furnishings for the place. The ugly sofa
was probably his idea of a joke. It was studded brown leather and everything
Desiree and Sam were not. It looked more like it belonged in a Texas ranch
house than in a French home in the suburbs, midway between the city and the
countryside they’d come to love. Although Reed hadn’t wanted them to look into
this case, he’d finally relented, provided they’d do it his way. Apparently,
ugly furniture was part of the package.

“There won’t be any going rogue on this one,” he’d said. “I’ll
let you take a closer look but you have to do it my way.” He’d made sure by
implanting locators into most of their clothes this time. Desiree had pouted,
but she’d eventually given in. The locators were overkill but Reed liked to
feel he was in control of things, even from countries away. Besides, the look
on the woman’s face in-between her sobs had been too much to ignore, even for
Sam. It was tragic she’d lost her brother the way she had, right before an
event that, in any other instance, would have been a beautiful thing. No sooner
than they had helped her get ensconced in a room at the inn than she had
disappeared too. No one had seen her again before they’d left the place. Top
that off with the unidentifiable bodies and the missing person and they
couldn’t resist finding out more. Neither Desiree nor Sam were able to resist a
good mystery and this was certainly one.

Most of the stuff was inside the house now, so Desiree got
off the car she’d been leaning on. Any neighbor who was nosy enough would have
seen her by now, just as intended. If they were going to be invited into the
inner circle of this community, people now knew they were here, moving in two
doors down from the Jenilham family. Based on what Sam had uncovered back at
headquarters, they were right in the center of the mystery around the tragic
accident near Toulouse, but it wasn’t clear how yet. Both Desiree and Sam were
convinced the tragedy had been less accidental than it appeared but mystery
shrouded the details.

The movers had taped down cardboard over the stone floor of
the entryway and Desiree ripped at it now. She wouldn’t be able to close the
front door fully without removing it. They’d used strong tape and Desiree had
to pull hard, breaking a light sweat. She became so engrossed in what she was
doing, she almost jumped out of her skin when someone cleared their throat
behind her.

“Oh my God!” She braced herself against the open front door.
Off balance, she’d almost fallen over when the stranger startled her. She
really was going to have to be more alert.

“I’m so sorry!”

Desiree looked into the eyes of a very thin blonde woman.
She wore no makeup and was also dressed for a workout. Desiree pursed her lips
and tried to quell the anger bubbling inside her. She hated when people snuck
up on her, not because they had, but because she had let them. It meant her
guard was down and she’d learned that was never a good state to be in.

“Don’t worry about it.” Sam had taught her if she just
waited, people would make the reason for their presence known.

“I’m looking for the homeowner.” She looked past Desiree
into the room behind her.

Desiree bristled. Even if her accent hadn’t given her away,
Desiree would have known by her rudeness she was an American. “That would be
me.” She wanted to give the woman benefit of the doubt. What about her made her
look un-homeowner like?

“Oh. Really?” She paused. “You look so—”

“Young?”

The woman laughed nervously. “Yes, that’s it. You look about
sixteen. I was expecting someone much older. Your husband—?”

“Working.” In the space of less than a minute, she’d been interrogated.
Whether intentional or not, Desiree already felt as if her visitor was prying.

The one-word explanation seemed to satisfy her. She nodded
with a half-smile now replacing the surprise of a few seconds earlier. “Aren’t
they all? My husband works all the time too. Do you work?”

Desiree took a deep breath, then laughed nervously. “Wow.
People around here sure ask for a lot of information before they even share their
names.” Would she be water-boarded next? She forced a broad smile onto her
face. “No,” she said. “I don’t.” Her cover for this job was no cover. “I own a
business, but I haven’t really gotten going in France yet. I’m working on it.”
The Desiree who lived on this street was a housewife with no kids and no
extended family and was just starting out. “I’m sorry, what’s your name? I
didn’t catch it.”

Another nervous laugh fell from the woman’s lips. “Silly me!
I was so excited to have a new neighbor, I forgot my manners. My name is
Kimberly Brown. I live a few doors down. We’ll get to be great friends. We are
all real close around here. In fact, we adults get together every other Friday.
“

Kimberly talked so quickly, her words were making Desiree
tired. “Oh? That doesn’t seem very French.” She put on her brightest smile and
let the woman continue.

“Oh honey, it’s not. Like almost everyone else in this
complex, we’re ex-pats. Americans who do everything they can to not have to
leave France. We love it here. You’ll see.” She paused a bit, glancing around
the inside of the house. “You and your…Did you say you were married?”

Desiree nodded. There it was again. The interrogation. She
was going to have to keep an eye on this Kimberly woman. She was nosy and
subtlety wasn’t one of her strong traits.

Kimberly’s eyes lit up. “Good! I’m glad! You should join us.”

Join them where? Normally it was hard to be invited into a
circle, but this was almost like a hole she’d fallen into accidentally. On her
last assignment, it had taken months of groundwork for people to trust her and
Sam. Kimberly was certainly an eager beaver. “Wow. I appreciate the offer, but
we wouldn’t want to intrude.” It was important to make the appropriate
objections. No need for both of them to appear so eager.

“Nonsense. We’d love to have you. It’s been a long time
since we had any new people join us. You will love it. We eat, drink and make
merry. All together. It breaks up the suburban monotony.”

Although things looked calm on the surface, Desiree knew
things were anything but calm around
Rue Dianne
. If it were too boring,
she and Sam wouldn’t be here. They wouldn’t have had to interrupt their
wonderful getaway in the French countryside to move into a house and try to act
like everyone else.

Kimberly’s eyes shone with happiness. “So you will come? You
should come.”

Desiree nodded. Somehow, it didn’t feel she had much choice.

“So great! I’ll make sure you get a formal invitation. I’m
off for a run. Great meeting you.”

“You too.” She let the woman out and then got back to
cleaning up the cardboard blocking the door. Desiree had a feeling the door
would be well used, whether it was propped open or not.

Sam couldn’t resist teasing Desiree just a little bit. He
parked his car in the driveway just outside the garage and closed the door
heavily as he balanced his empty briefcase in one hand and his suit jacket in
the other. He threw the jacket over his shoulder and paused by the car for
effect. The neighborhood was very
Leave it to Beaver
. In his head, he
played the role of a successful businessman with a wife, a big job and a
mortgage. He looked up and caught the eye of a neighbor. She looked away
quickly, pretending she had been watering the grass the whole time. Sam smiled
and called out to her. “Hey neighbor.”

She waved back but didn’t speak. Step one, done. Everyone
now knew they had arrived. Sam felt her eyes follow him as he walked to the
front door. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was blatantly staring at his
ass.

Desiree was pouting in the kitchen. Her gaze cut through Sam
so hard he felt as if she’d plunged a knife into his gut. “What is up with you?”

She glared at him. “How can you even ask me that? You get to
go somewhere, stay gone eight to ten hours a day while I’m stuck here in this
Stepford
Wives
chateau acting as if I’m good at doing nothing. I need some
excitement too.”

Sam held up his hands as if they could be a barrier against
her words. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re starting to really sound like a wife. And
not a good one.” He drew her to him and wrapped her in his arms. “The setup is
key. You know this.” He kissed her on her forehead. “But I’ll make sure you get
all the excitement you need.” It was impossible to miss the growl in his voice.
Sam’s brain went from zero to panties in no time flat.

It was true, she did know, but knowing didn’t mean she liked
it. “But that doesn’t stop me from feeling as if I’m not doing anything. And
don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep, Mr. Comfort.”

“Waiting is a big part of the process. We have to wait to be
invited in.” Sam ran his hands up and down her back. It felt good to be so
close to her. “I have stuff anyway. New information.”

“What? Don’t try to hold out on me. Tell me.”

Sam picked up his briefcase and put it on the dining room
table. “Well, you were right. There is more to this.” He flipped his briefcase
open. “The man we met in the hallway?”

“The one we gave the directions to?”

“That’s the one. If you remember, the woman we met said the
man was her brother.”

Desiree thought back. She remembered the day all too
clearly. “She was so upset. Understandably so.”

“You think?” Sam said. “Take a look at this.” He pulled some
papers from his briefcase, selected one and handed it to Desiree.

She took it and examined it closely. It was a program from a
funeral. The dead man’s face stared out at her. She flipped through it,
noticing all the normal parts of such a thing. “Okay? Help me out, what am I
supposed to see?”

Sam took it from her and flipped it over so the back page
was facing her. He pointed at the man’s biography. “Read this.”

Desiree looked at Sam, her eyes full of questions. She read,
“Derek was a wonderful man. A husband—”

“He was a widower, actually. Skip to the bottom,” Sam
interrupted. “The survivor section.”

She moved her eyes down to where he indicated. “He is
survived by his two brothers.” A lightbulb of recognition went on in Desiree’s
head. “He had no sisters!”

“At least none who are still living.” A broad smile spread
across Sam’s face.

“What do you think this means? Who was the woman we met
then?”

Sam stepped in and wrapped his arms around Desiree from
behind. “It means,” he paused and kissed Desiree, “we need to figure out who
she was and why she would lie about being related to the man. But not before
you make sweet love to me.”

Desiree’s brain was working, but she couldn’t ignore the
softness of Sam’s lips as he pressed them against her neck. She wanted to get
started on the job, but her body wanted other things. “You know I can’t
concentrate when you do that.” She sighed deeply as his kisses released tingles
that flew through her body like an electric shock. Desiree braced herself on
the table, pushing her hips backward to meet Sam’s pelvis.

He was as eager as she was. His erection bored into her
backside, telling the full tale. He pulled her tighter to him, releasing hot
breath onto her neck. “You like when I do this?” His question was rhetorical.
Desiree closed her eyes, nodding anyway, moving her hips backward more. They
swayed together to gentle music only they could hear in the silent room.