Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (40 page)

Maggie frowned and chose to
ignore the criticism. After all, Ben and Haley weren’t likely to visit again
any time soon. Best to just smile and let it go.

“Good point,” Maggie said,
looking around the festival. “Oh, there’s someone selling
calissons
. In for a penny…”

“I think the rest of that
saying is
in for another pound
,”
Grace said.

“Gosh, you are so amusing,
Grace, I can barely stand it,” Maggie said, heading for the candy kiosk. “I’m
buying them for Jemmy and Zouzou.”

*****

Laurent shifted Jem to his
other arm and looked around to see if he could spot Maggie. It was a warm day,
not unusual for summer, but the huge plane trees that bordered the square
provided ample shade for the festival. He spotted her easily and, as usual, a
smile curved around his lips when he did.

It was good that just the
sight of her always gave him pleasure. She never seemed aware of herself, how she
moved, how she looked. He glanced at Grace next to Maggie, and while he
admitted Grace was beautiful, he saw a more relaxed, less practiced way of
moving in Maggie. It was this unselfconscious presentation to the world that
intrigued and delighted Laurent the most.

To stare much longer would
inevitably generate the possibility of catching her eye, and just now that was
not his intention or desire. He turned and slipped behind the awning of a tall
kiosk selling barrels of glistening olives bobbing in oil. He didn’t need to
look down to know that Zouzou was by his thigh. The child was devoted to him
and mindful, even at her young age, of the necessity of not wandering
off—at least not from
Oncle
Laurent.

He sat in a wooden chair
pushed up to a table well hidden from view and settled Jem on his lap. Zouzou
stood next to him: solemn, alert, curious.

“
Bonjour
, Laurent.”

He smiled at the woman who
seated herself in the chair opposite him, then leaned over and kissed her
proffered cheeks in greeting. She was flawless in that way of French women who
know their assets and step into them as comfortably as breathing. He had often
compared her to his Maggie. Adele Bontemps was completely secure in her effect
on men. That was clear from the message in her eyes to the smile on her pink,
full lips.

“Are we hiding today?”

“Not at all. Are we
drinking?”

Adele smiled and held up a
single, slim hand without taking her eyes off Laurent.

A bottle of clear amber
pastis
was set on the table between
them, with a crystal ewer of water and two small glasses. Adele poured a
healthy shot into each glass and added a small amount of water. Instantly the
yellow liquid clouded.

Laurent watched her eyes go
to Zouzou as she lifted the glass to her lips.

“Never mind,” Laurent said to
Adele as he reached for his own glass. “The little ones keep my secrets.”

Eight

 
“
Non
.
I forbid it.”

“Okay, stop that, Laurent.
You know you can’t forbid me.”

“I am doing it.”

“Well, no, you’re not. We
live in the twenty-first century.”

“You said this woman was no
longer a friend of yours. Not for years. Why does this matter to you? Explain
this to me.”

“Okay. Lanie’s mother used me
as the paragon of perfect daughterhood with Lanie growing up. Annie was going
through a bad time and she—”

“But this is something
she
did. Not you.”

“I’m not doing it because of
guilt.”

“That’s not true. That’s all
this is about. Your guilt.”

“She
asked
me, Laurent.”

“Hasn’t she caused enough
problems? First with her own daughter, and now making you feel that her death
has anything to do with you?”

“I feel sorry for her,
Laurent. And yes, I feel guilty because I left the friendship and I didn’t try
to find out why she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I just gave up on her.”

“And you think this giving up
led to her death? You think if you had stayed friends she would not have
divorced? Or been bitter and angry? You think you have that much power,
chérie
?
Vraiment
?”

“I played a part in it. Lanie
needed my friendship—”

“You said she turned away
from you.”

“Yes, so what? She needed
me!”

“You are seeing this
relationship through different glasses now, no? It is like an adult child of
divorcing parents rewriting his memories of his childhood.”

“Maybe it’s seeing the truth
for the first time.”

“I think it is foolish and
self-indulgent to go.”

“But?”

“But I suppose I can see no
real harm in it—as long as you do not climb out on any tree limbs. Eh?
Promise me that? No skulking in caves or slipping into abandoned mines?”

Maggie burst out laughing.
“You’ve been reading Jemmy’s
Hardy Boys
.”

“It is much the same with
you, no? Promise me you will not be stupid. You are somebody’s mother now.
Jemmy needs you in one piece. As do I.”

“I promise. Two days. I’ll
ask some questions—all of which will no doubt confirm that Olivier is the
murderer—then reassure Annie and come home to my little family.”

Laurent grunted but pulled
her into his arms for a long kiss.

*****

Grace turned off the car but
didn’t immediately get out. She listened to the sounds of the engine click and
shudder as it settled into silence. She was pretty sure she was the only one
who ever stopped at this dirt turnaround, half of a mile before the sign for
the village of St-Buvard was visible. She didn’t remember when she’d gotten in
the habit of stopping here. When she used to smoke, that’s for sure, she
thought wryly as she noted the impulse to dig through her purse for a
cigarette. She’d quit two years ago.

Annoying, she thought with a
smile. It was always so much more pleasant with a cigarette.

Grace loved
St-Buvard
. That was almost the worst
thing about leaving France a year ago, leaving this little world behind.
Perched on the side of a hill with the remains of a Roman aqueduct at its base,
St-Buvard
was tinier than most little
French villages. With one
charcuterie
,
one
bureau de
tabac
, and one café,
St-Buvard
was indeed
petit
. That was precisely
why Grace and Windsor had settled there over eight years ago in a small,
renovated
château
ten kilometers
outside the village.

Had it really been so long
ago? So much had changed. So much was gone.

She glanced at the cell phone
sitting in its recharger dock in the console. She reached out and tapped it
with a finger and then decided against calling.

What would I say?
Hi there. I’m sitting out in front of the
village remembering how it used to be. Is your girlfriend there? Can you talk?

Grace curled her outstretched
fingers into a fist and placed it in her lap. She glanced at her watch. Maggie
was probably en route about now, but there was a section of country from Aix to
St-Tropez where cell reception was nonexistent. Perhaps Maggie was nearly to
the coast? She picked up her phone.

I
am the last person to need advice on affairs of the heart
.
And
God knows, Maggie is the last person I’d be mad enough to look to for answers
in that category.

Wasn’t it just amazing dumb
luck that Maggie had found Laurent? And then kept him?

Grace dropped the phone back
in its dock.
Now that’s a thought. What
if it really is a skill you’re just born with?

Because while it was
absolutely true Maggie had the fashion sense of a demented Minnie Pearl, and
equally true she tended to blunder her way though her marriage like a bull on
steroids, it was also true that her friend had a man who was deeply in love
with her.

Grace turned the car on. She
had plenty of time—thank you, Haley. She had a good three hours before
she was to meet Gabriel at
Le Deux
Garçons
in Aix. Her stomach clenched briefly when she thought of him.

Stop
that
, she admonished
herself.
You’re just nervous.

She would arrive in town with
plenty of time to park and see if there were any new boutiques on the
Cours Mirabeau
. It was positively
startling to her that it had been so long since she’d been to Aix.

She drove down the narrow
tree-lined road away from St-Buvard, feeling the cool breeze of her car’s air
conditioning gently rearrange her long curls as they framed her face. Bless
Haley for watching Zouzou today, she thought again with a smile, and felt her
mood lift.

Her eyes strayed to her
purse. Perhaps she would stop at a
tabac
in Aix. Surely one cigarette wouldn’t hurt.

*****

 
Maggie tapped the pedometer but the
numbers didn’t budge. There was no way she hadn’t walked more steps than it was
reading.

Stupid
thing. Probably measuring in kilometers or something useless like that.
She sighed and clipped the pedometer
back onto the waistband of her white linen shorts. Grace had begged her not to
wear the shorts—said they’d make her look big-bottomed and she’d never be
able to keep them from wrinkling desperately—but they were cool and
comfortable.

She really wished she’d
listened to Grace.

Laurent had driven her to the
Aix train station early that morning, where she caught the train to Fréjus on
the coast. Her brief conversation on the phone with Bob Randall assured her
she’d have “loads of fun” and would finish the tour in a little more than two
days.

That was just about the limit
of Laurent’s patience. To be honest, Maggie wasn’t sure what she would do on
the tour or even what questions to ask. She had no overriding reason to believe
Olivier was innocent. Really, she was just collecting information, talking to
the people who had known Lanie, and then checking it off her list so she could
call Annie back and tell her she’d done her best.

What did it mean that Olivier
was not the father of Lanie’s unborn child? Could it have been as easy as the
fact that Lanie had an affair? Well, she certainly had never reported a rape,
so it was a pretty safe bet if it wasn’t Olivier’s that Lanie had stepped out
on him.

Unfortunately, the baby not
being Olivier’s now gave him a motive.
Poor
Olivier
, Maggie thought, shaking her head as she watched the flat expanse
of French countryside fly by her window.
Way
to have that one turn around and bite you on the butt
. She hoped his
attorney would at least argue that if Olivier had known the baby
wasn’t
his would he logically have
begged for a DNA test? Clearly, he assumed the baby was his.

But if you took Olivier out
of the picture for just a moment the news meant that the father of Lanie’s
baby—whoever that was—might have a class-A motive for killing her. Especially
if, say, a knocked-up tour guide on your popular television travel show
displayed a propensity to reveal her sources?

Talk
about public broadcasting
,
Maggie thought grimly.

The parting at the train
station with Laurent had not been exactly icy, but neither had it been very
mushy either. Maggie knew he wasn’t thrilled with her leaving—especially
not with a house full of guests—but she also picked up on a certain
amount of relief to have her gone for a bit. In many ways, that scared her more
than anything else.

What
in the hell is going on, Laurent?
She prayed that Grace would have better luck in the next two days.

When her train arrived in Fréjus,
Maggie saw Desiree standing on the platform waiting for her.

Guess
she got the short straw.

It was just barely midday and
Maggie found herself wondering where lunch fit into the itinerary. She cursed
Laurent for keeping her too well fed. She was always hungry now, and the time
when she could walk away from a
tarte de
pomme
or even a simple
cassoulet
was long ago. At this rate she would never lose the baby weight.

“
Bonjour
, Desiree,” she said brightly as she descended from the
train onto the platform.

The woman nodded curtly at
her and forced a return greeting out between clenched teeth. It was probably
her association with Lanie, but it was very clear Desiree didn’t like her. In
fact, hadn’t liked her from the get-go.

“We are to meet the others at
lunch,” Desiree said, turning away as Maggie ran to keep up. Desiree was
wearing four-inch heels on her sandals, but her long legs were athletic and she
had to stop more than once to wait for Maggie to catch up to her. That was all
the more embarrassing because Maggie knew Desiree was older than she was.

It didn’t matter. She
consoled herself that she was logging in the steps on the pedometer, which
might allow her to indulge in a little dessert at lunch. With a sinking heart,
she saw as they left the train station, that Desiree was not leading Maggie to
a parked car. Clearly the woman had walked to the station.

The
more steps I rack up,
Maggie told herself reasonably,
the more
I can relax at lunch.
She thought that she would look at her two days away
from Laurent and his kitchen as an opportunity to fast—or at least cut
down to three meals a day—but she felt her resolve waiver the closer she
got to the restaurant section of Fréjus.

The aroma of cooking seafood,
saffron and garlic seemed to fill the air as she and Desiree turned down one
narrow cobblestone street. Directly ahead, Maggie saw the road dead-end into a
large outdoor restaurant. The umbrellas over the tables were a deep green and
gave the impression of a lush garden among all the stone and brickwork. Dee-Dee
stood up from one of the large tables and waved to them.

Everyone was there. Jim and
Janet Anderson looked up from their wine and dishes of olives and smiled
blandly at her and then went back to their conversation. Bob Randall stood up
from the table and spread his arms out to Maggie although he had not even
looked in her direction when they met in Nice.

“Madame Dernier,” he boomed
out. “Come sit next to me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you agreed
to serve as our guinea pig for this tour!”

Maggie noticed that Desiree
simply sat down and lit up a cigarette. Her job was done.

“We have a huge order of
fried calamari coming,” Dee-Dee said, pouring Maggie a glass of rosé wine.

So
much for the diet,
Maggie thought with resignation as she reached for the wineglass.

Lunch was prolonged and
wonderful. After the first hour, Maggie stopped keeping mental notes to share
with Laurent and just sat back and enjoyed the
foie gras au torchon
, the heavenly
moules Provençale
steamed in white wine, olives and garlic and, oh,
the amazing rack of lamb with the juniper demi-glace. Maybe she would tell
Laurent about that one. She tucked her pedometer into her purse. It felt like
it was pinching her waist every time she turned in her seat.

Just from a cursory
examination of the small tour group, she could see that Jim and Janet were a
closed society unto themselves, caring only for each other’s conversation or
company. Dee-Dee had said they were wealthy, so it was possible they used that
as a reason not to socialize too closely with the others.

On the other hand, the others
were all deeply crazy in one form or another.