Woman King (43 page)

Following the directions that had been
emailed to me, I approached the front door of the museum and
flashed a badge that had been sent by courier to the apartment.
Ingenious in its design, it appeared to be a kind of temporary
badge issued to visiting scholars and professionals. The guard
briefly looked at the badge and waved me in. I used my skills to
locate Gabriel, pressing hard for him to send word about where they
were gathered.

“Come to the bookstore,” was his crisp reply
inside my head, and I walked down a set of stairs to the second
level, where a large gift shop occupied most of the space.

Gabriel appeared through the crowd, his ID
clipped to his shirt pocket. He could have been any diligent
docent, a retired teacher or accountant giving his time to the
public. He smiled and beckoned silently to me to follow him. He
walked toward the rear of the shop and opened a door that was
almost hidden in the corner between two sets of bookshelves. Once
we passed through the door, a familiar-looking scene revealed
itself, very similar to the Council offices in San Francisco.
Another array of desks and touchscreens occupied the space, only
this time the faces of people staring into them appeared graver and
more serious than they had been back home.

We continued to a small conference room.
Gabriel waved me in and followed, shutting the door before he
turned to face me.

“
Ça va?
” he asked, as we stood
regarding one another.

“
Comme si, comme ça
,” I said. “I mean,
I’m as good as I can be. You?”

“The same,” he said, “I have not slept well
since we arrived.”

I experienced a tinge of guilt as I thought
of my rooftop meal, the late night at the jazz club, and my
encounter with the brothers. It was all I could do to stay awake as
dawn approached. But I realized for Gabriel, his mind still stuck
on the loss of Aidan, peace would not return for some time.

“What have you learned?” I asked, pushing the
image of my abruptly halted threesome from my mind.

“Nothing, everything,” he said, distracted.
The door to the room opened, and Madeline walked in.

“
Bon après-midi
,” I said, grasping her
hand. I was impatient, and regarded her for only a moment, before
pressing Gabriel with the question at hand.

“When can we confront Nikola?”

“We must be careful, Olivia,” Gabriel said.
“Nikola is a member of the Council and next in line as deputy.”

“Careful? He killed Aidan, he almost killed
us.”

“Perhaps, but we have no proof,” Madeline
said. “At least not enough yet to ask Zoran to dismiss him as
deputy.”

“And what if Zoran is in on this too?”

“Olivia,” Gabriel said, “Aidan’s phone shows
a half-dozen texts and calls exchanged with Nikola earlier in the
day before the bombing. The day before, there are another
six-to-ten calls recorded on his phone. There is no communication
between Aidan and Zoran. No emails, no phone calls and no texts. If
Aidan suspected Zoran was involved, he would have contacted
him.

“Well at least we know more than we did
before we left for Paris,” I said. “What else?”

“Aidan’s laptop had a series of files with
Interpol notices containing information about Serbian mafia figures
who are wanted across the globe,” Peter said. “The man you saw
visiting Nikola is listed on one of the bulletins.”

“Nikola had to have known his friend was a
wanted man,” I said. “Perhaps that’s why they tried to blind me
that day during the robbery, so I couldn’t see what they looked
like.”

Gabriel began to pace the room, his hands
buried deep inside his chinos. “These are only theories,” he said.
“But it’s not evidence that he killed Aidan. There is nothing to
tie him to the bombings...
rien!
”

“We need to find something,” I said. “It’s
out there, we just need to look. Gabriel, you must ask William to
help the Council. You must ask him to investigate this for us.”

Gabriel’s unspoken reply was clear inside my
head.
He will have to leave you. You will not see him again for
some time. Is that what you want?

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I said
aloud. “What matters is finding out who killed Aidan. You must ask
him tonight. Come meet us for drinks so we can discuss what needs
to happen next.”

For the next hour, Gabriel and Madeline
shared a more detailed timeline of Aidan’s last days,
reconstructing what he had researched, and whom he had contacted.
His search had taken him to Interpol’s most-wanted lists, Scotland
Yard and the FBI. He had contacted Nikola, too, and it was obvious
they’d been having a conversation, although what they had said was
not a part of our records.

I remembered my run-in with the cagey Serb—it
was possible they spoke of nothing related to Aidan’s inquiry. It
was also possible they had been quite direct with one another. Only
Nikola knew, and for the moment we had no intention of asking him.
Our briefing completed, I excused myself from the offices and made
my way down to the galleries that display Monet’s water lillies. I
walked into the first oval gallery, its lights low and pale to
encourage serene reflection. I lowered myself onto a bench in the
middle of the room, stretched out my legs and leaned back to regard
the paintings.

“It’s amazing that these were created during
World War I, don’t you think?” Madeline asked, as she sat down next
to me. “To be in the middle of war and create something of such
lasting beauty.”

“He brought them here to this museum to ease
the suffering of the French,” I said. “To give them something to
help them heal after the war.”

“Exactly,” she said. “As a diplomat, I have
always been struck by his gesture. As a witch, I have marveled that
a human could create such a treasure with no help from magic. He
felt a higher calling, when no obligation existed.”

We were not, I decided, having a discussion
about the paintings.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because you are capable of great things, but
revenge should not be first on the list,” she said. “I sense that
you are struggling with your role in all of this. You must push
yourself to see the bigger picture.”

“I see a friend who has been murdered and no
way to hold his killer accountable,” I said quietly.

“Exactly,” she said, a sad smile on her face
as she walked away. “Try, if you can, to see more of the
landscape.”

Enveloped in the violet light of the
paintings, I lingered, forcing myself to see the landscape as
Madeleine suggested. I sat on the bench ruminating. Aidan’s death
was a blow to the Council, robbing the organization of one of its
best. This was no mere chink in the armor. He had been Gabriel’s
top lieutenant, murdered in front of his eyes, and it had been a
close call for Gabriel himself. Who would risk such a thing? What
could motivate someone to be so audacious?

I began to understand what Madeline had
meant: My anger had narrowed my view of the situation. My
obligation should be to protect the Council, not avenge my friends.
A vibration coming from inside my purse rousted me out of my
thoughts. I quickly made my way upstairs and back into the hidden
offices where I could return the call without the scrutiny of the
museum’s security.

“Hello, Mom,” I said. “Or should I say,
Bonjour, maman
?”

“Either’s fine,
ma chère
,” she said.
“Where are you?”

“With Gabriel, at our offices,” I said. “I
was hoping you would join us all at a bar near the Canal Saint
Martin at seven tonight. I have so much I want to tell you, a lot
has happened in the last few days. Can you come?”

I could feel her concern through the
phone.

“Mom, everything is OK,” I said. “I promise.
Come enjoy a nice evening with me.”

“Of course I’ll come,” she said.

“Great,” I said. “I don’t remember the name,
except it’s got the word bar in it and a bright blue awning. The
address is sixty-eight Quai de la Loire.”

We hung up and then I texted William to check
in. He responded and said he would meet me at the apartment. I
collected my things and looked around for Gabriel. One of the staff
said he’d already left for the day, so I texted him the address of
the bar. As I walked back to the metro, I began readying myself for
an evening I knew would be full of proverbial bombshells.

****

William, Josef and I arrived at the bar and
grabbed two tables outside facing the canal. The night air was
crisp but clear and so, with a good hat and coat, it was bearable
to sit outside. William and Josef volunteered to go up to the bar
and place an order. That left me sitting next to Gabriel. I leaned
in closer to him to better hear our conversation over the din of
traffic on the street. I hadn’t mentioned my mother was meeting us
until we arrived at the bar. His face, upon hearing the news, took
on an odd expression.

“You mustn’t worry,” I said, watching the
traffic pass by. “My mother is a bit of an eccentric, but harmless.
I promise.”

Gabriel smiled, but said little. He seemed a
bit nervous. I could feel his tension, but could not detect the
cause of his distress. It didn’t concern me. It seemed natural that
he would be anxious, given the last few days. As I leaned in once
more to speak to Gabriel, the sound of my mother’s voice caught my
attention.

“Olivia, Olivia,” she said, pleading for my
attention as she crossed the street to join us.

I stood up as she reached our table. “Mom,
hello,” I said. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with dread; icy cold and
creeping slowly up my spine. I shrugged off the sensation, hoping
to understand everyone’s feelings better as the evening progressed.
Since Gabriel was directly next to me, I decided to begin
introductions with him.

“Mom, let me introduce…”

“I don’t need an introduction,” my mother
said, cutting me off. “I know who your boyfriend is and you must
stop immediately.”

I couldn’t fathom how she knew about William
and I glanced at the bar where he stood placing our drink
order.

“Mom, why would you say such a thing? I
asked. “You’ve only just arrived and…”

“For God’s sake, Olivia, the man is your
father.”

“My father, what on earth are you talking
about?” I was baffled.

Now it was her turn to be silent. Her gaze
was fixed on Gabriel, and to my surprise, he was staring back at
her.

“Hello, India,” he said, sorrowfully.

“You two know each other?” I asked, feeling
their collective dread freezing the blood in my veins. It was
obvious they had not planned on seeing one another again in their
lifetimes. William and Josef arrived, drinks in hand, but paused as
they read our body language. I held out my hand and drew William to
my side.

“Mom,
this
is my boyfriend,” I
said.

India Rose narrowed her gaze, and I held my
breath waiting for her to discover he was a vampire.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“All of the travel you two have been doing,
the last-minute trip to Paris…I assumed that he was preparing to
make you his lover,” she said, waving her hands frantically in the
air toward Gabriel. “When I finally realized who he was, I had to
come to warn you to stay away.”

“You know Gabriel?” I asked again, realizing
that neither of them had answered that question.

“Olivia,” Gabriel said, remorse in his
eyes.

In those few seconds, my mother’s ranting
became crystal clear.

“Wait,” I said. “She means
you
? You
are my father.”

“I was going to tell you,” he said. “Please,
I came to Paris with the intention—”

“But my mother beat you to it,” I said,
cutting him off as the blood rushed into my ears.

Then I spun around to confront my mother.

“Mom, you knew where my father was all of
these years, but you never told me?”

I was staring at my mother and Gabriel,
trying to see them clearly—these two people I thought I knew
suddenly transformed by their lies. I turned back to Gabriel.

“Why now? I have been working with you … for
how many months?”

A long, cold silence unraveled before us.

“I never told Gabriel I was pregnant,” my
mother blurted out, breaking the silence. “I didn’t want him to
take you away from me.”

“Take me away?”

“Olivia,” Gabriel said, “I am from a powerful
family of witches. My relatives would have wanted to raise you in
France.”

“But I…I’m not a witch,” I said, shocked by
the facial expressions of the four people before me. I was in the
minority opinion in this argument. I looked over at William, whose
face wore the grim mask of someone who had inadvertently gotten
trapped in the middle of a major betrayal.

“You knew?” I asked, quietly.

“I suspected,” he said.

“Mom?”

“I didn’t want him to take you away,” she
said, “His family wouldn’t let him marry a human. So I never told
him that I was pregnant.”

“Are you telling me that you knew he was a
witch?” I asked. “You must have known I would have some of his
traits. Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” she
answered. “I wanted to keep you with me, with your grandmother. I
knew one day I would have to tell you, but then you refused to use
your powers, and I thought maybe it wouldn’t matter. Then your
grandmother died and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Grandmother,” I repeated. “She’s the one who
caused all of this. She is the one who summoned Elsa.”

“Who is Elsa?” my mother asked, confused.

“I’m not really sure,” I said under my
breath.

“Elsa didn’t realize who you were at first,”
Gabriel said. “I was the one who figured it out. She wanted to tell
you. She wanted me to tell you.”