“Shut up, Sam.” The pain was too fresh, too real. But that wouldn’t stop Sam from trivializing it; no doubt he’d already pitched Albert’s life story as a movie of the week to TNT. “He wasn’t crazy.”
“But you were, to ditch me and take that job.”
“Ditch you?” She sucked in a breath and squeezed the phone tighter. “You did the ditching when you took that woman into your bed. Listen, I’ve staked my entire reputation to get here, and I intend to do this job without distractions from you.”
“Bag the teacher voice, Jay. I get your point.” The long distance crackling stopped momentarily. Had he just hit mute? The static started again with his next word. “I just didn’t think your going after this Plum thing was such a good idea.”
“You thought it was a swell idea a week ago. A honeymoon in France and the possibility of my being out of town for most of a year. How convenient for you.”
“Jay-baby.” He took another long, dramatic pause, and she heard something rustle in the background. “You just had so much hit you at once.” Was that the click of a keyboard?
She almost laughed out loud. He wasn’t going for impact with long, staged pauses. He was reading his e-mail, skimming a script, and probably scanning his PDA for a phone number, all while trying to woo her back. The epitome of West Coast multitasking.
“Yes, I did, Sam. My dear friend died tragically, on the verge of realizing his lifelong dream. And I stepped up to the plate to make sure that dream stays alive. And then my fiancé decided to boink a stupid, has-been actress five days before he said ‘I do’ to me. Yep. That’s a lot.”
He muted her for a few seconds and then came back on the line. “She’s not stupid.”
“Madame la Curator! Vous êtes ici.”
Surprised, Janine looked up to meet the dark gaze of Simone de Vries. “Thank you so much for calling, Sam. Good-bye.” She dropped the phone in the cradle and smiled at the woman in charge of Versailles Security. “Oui, madame. I’m here.”
Simone stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. “Are you finding everything you need?”
“Oui.” After the morning she’d had, she couldn’t bear to start the polite dance of small talk the French insisted on before every real conversation. The hell with protocol. “I’ve just met the new security consultant. You didn’t mention him at the exhibit planning meeting this morning.”
Simone looked suitably regretful. “Pardonnez-moi, madame. I forgot. He will be here during the exhibit month as part of the security staff.”
Luc Tremont hardly considered himself staff. “He told me you were conducting an investigation into some threats.”
Simone frowned and shook her head, her stiff brown hair not moving with the gesture. “You should concern yourself with the art and the guests, and I will worry about the security.”
“Do you agree with his plan to keep the Sèvres vases in a safe room apart from the exhibit?”
Simone raised an eyebrow along with her shoulder. “That is une necessité.”
“I don’t think it is in the best interests of the museum or the exhibit.” Janine purposely kept her English slow and plain. “I plan to speak with the minister of culture to get them reinstated, at least for the gala. The president of France will be here.”
“Non.” Simone squished her face into an unattractive network of lines. “We will not do that, madame.”
We? Who is this we?
“The president will be on the private invitation list to see the vases at the gala,” Simone assured her. “Do not worry.”
“But I am worried, madame. There will be hundreds of other guests on Saturday, not to mention the thousands of people who’ll be expecting to see them while they’re on display at Versailles.”
“Ah, oui. C’est une désappointement.” She looked down her long nose at Janine, a haughty French version of “too bad, so sad.”
“It is more than a disappointment, madame,” she said quietly. “It’s a travesty.”
“Madame la Curator. You are new to our museum, and you are…perhaps unaware of some of the problems that we are facing. There have been a number of serious thefts recently. By chance, have you heard of the pieces missing from the Louvre and the sizeable turmoil that has caused?”
Of course Janine had heard of the Louvre thefts and had read all the reports placing blame squarely on the lax security at that great museum. “Yes, madame. But I have every confidence in your security efforts.”
“Merci.” Simone’s smile was tight at best. “But our experience tells us that when there is a noticeable increase in thefts, it means that the underground markets are rich at the moment. There are wealthy, greedy collectors who are looking to add treasures to their coffers.”
“I understand that. I just believe this step is too drastic and extremely detrimental to the exhibit.”
Simone leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Madame. Ecoutez, s’il vous plait. There is a very dangerous and daring thief moving about France maintenant.”
“I’m sure there are many thieves, now and always. Certainly you can use twenty-four-hour guards, alarms, and other protective measures.”
Simone slowly shook her head, a warning in her dark eyes. “Nothing would stop the Scorpion, madame.”
“The Scorpion?” Janine tried not to laugh. “He’s been dead for years.”
Simone’s eyes narrowed. “There is a rumor that he lives.”
Janine couldn’t resist a mocking smile. “There’s also a rumor that Elvis is alive and well and performing in Switzerland.”
“You will not be making jokes if the vases disappear, madame.” Simone was dead serious. Did she really believe it? “I’m expected in Henri’s office tout de suite.” She turned to leave, pausing as she placed her hand on the doorknob. “I strongly urge you to cooperate with Monsieur Tremont. He is very well regarded.” Then she left.
Janine stared at the closed door. “Thanks, sweetie. So nice to have a girlfriend at work.”
She lifted the phone to call the minister of culture’s office.
The Scorpion? These people obviously believed in ghosts.
When he turned onto the rue de Rennes in Saint-Germain, Luc realized that he’d been thinking in English for the entire hour it had taken to navigate the insane traffic from Versailles to Paris. He parked his car and pocketed the key, muttering his favorite French curse. He couldn’t allow himself the luxury of thinking in English. Not yet.
But if all went as planned, then he’d finally be able to indulge in that luxury, and many others he’d feared he’d never enjoy again. He’d risk anything for that. He was about to risk everything for that.
Slipping through the late lunch crowds on the boulevard Saint-Germain, he replayed the conversation with the pretty American curator. She might look like the girl next-door, but his thoughts weren’t exactly neighborly. In any language.
Too bad he had such a monumental task in front of him. Too bad she was American. Too bad he’d be gone before she even adjusted to the time change.
All around him, tourists and locals soaked up the spring afternoon at the cafés that lined the main avenue of the Left Bank. Luc sidestepped a group of sightseers on their way into the Musée Delacroix and tossed some money in the box of a street musician. Tuning out the distant whine of a siren and the hum of humanity around him, he concentrated on finding a man waiting at the Café Clairmont.
The irony of the name wasn’t lost on Luc. As he crossed the crowded rue Bonapart he spotted his contact, wearing blue-lensed sunglasses and a Red Sox baseball cap pulled low. Luc didn’t miss the subtle significance of the hat choice, either. It wasn’t part of their prearranged code; it was just a reminder of who had the power in this twisted relationship. Reading USA Today, Tristan Stewart looked as much like a bumbling foreigner as an FBI agent could.
As Luc walked by the café, Tristan dropped a few Euros on the table and stood, his newspaper fluttering in front of Luc.
“Ah, pa
rdonnez-moi,” Tristan said, butchering even that simple phrase.
Luc picked up the paper and handed it to him. “Voici, monsieur.”
“Merci.”
“De rien.”
Tristan adjusted his baseball cap. “Parlez vous en Anglais?” He fell into step with Luc on the street.
Luc maintained the funereal expression of a put-upon Parisian. “Un peu.”
“Would you happen to know how I get to the Eiffel Tower?”
The Eiffel Tower meant they had specific new information. Had he asked for directions to Notre Dame, Luc would have continued his stroll alone. “Oui. I’m going that way.”
They walked silently for a few minutes, toward the river.
“We’re on,” Tristan announced quietly.
Luc made no outward reaction. “Bien.”
A stunning redhead sauntered by, and the platinum sheen of Janine Coulter’s hair flashed in Luc’s mind. But like any good Frenchman, he stared at the redhead, and she responded with the icy nonlook that acknowledged his compliment.
“I’ve pleaded your case,” Tristan finally said.
Luc’s gut squeezed as he waited for the next sentence. This was it. Life or death. Yes or no. “And?”
“He agreed.”
Luc resisted the urge to shout in relief. “Of course he did.”
Tristan burned him with a warning look. “You gotta pull this off, man. Exactly like you said you can. And I don’t know how the hell you plan to do that, because you’re walking right into a trap.”
“Trust me.”
“Right.” Tristan tried to cover up the word with a cough. “Our sources confirmed that it’s going to happen on Saturday night, just as we expected. At the gala.”
Bon Dieu, he had work to do today.
Tristan slowed his step and looked sideways at Luc. “If anything goes wrong, anything, all bets are off.”
“Nothing will go wrong.” Not for him, at least. But Luc felt a tug of sympathy for the lovely curator; her party was going to be a disaster.
They were nearly at the river, the blue black waters of the Seine churned by the strong spring wind. “I will give you who you want, and then you will give me what I want,” Luc said. “But I need the time and space to get the job done my way.”
Tristan nodded. “As long as I don’t wind up looking like an idiot for agreeing to this.”
Luc started to smile. Here comes a Tristan Truism: Go out on a limb, and you fall.
“Don’t fuck this up, man.”
Luc laughed softly. “Not the platitude I was expecting, Tris.”
“There’s a lot at stake, and I’m not just talking about your personal needs.”
This went so far beyond personal needs. But he didn’t correct Tristan. “I know what’s at stake.”
“I’m betting everything that you can do this.”
Then they were both betting everything. Luc could just hear the wheels in Tristan’s head. Fool me once…
They reached the edge of the Invalides section of the city and paused at a stone wall along the river. “Weren’t you looking for the Tour d’Eiffel, monsieur?” Luc pointed toward the spire in the sky. “There it is.”
As Tristan looked, Luc leaned close enough for his whisper to be heard. “We both know the Scorpion can’t stay hidden much longer.”
Chapter
Three
J anine lost all track of time as she drafted her speech for the gala in French. A hungry rumble from her stomach finally convinced her to quit.
No one had stopped into her office to say good night. Just like no one had invited her for the standard three-hour Euro-lunch. And forget about dinner.
She looked at her watch. It was damn near eight o’clock and she still hadn’t seen her Plums.
“Let’s see, I can hide in here and have a pity party….” She closed her laptop with a clunk. Sliding the top drawer of her desk open, she lifted the newspaper clipping she’d placed there that morning. It was a silly gesture, but she wanted Albert with her somehow. “Or I can find your Plums and feel better,” she said to Albert’s smiling black-and-white photo.
Except for the soft echo of her heels on the wood floors, the deserted building was dead silent as she left the business offices and headed toward the center of the great palace. In these gilded halls she could almost smell the perfume of courtesans, the heavy fragrance of flowers and musk that they’d used to cover their humanity.
Goosebumps jumped to attention along her bare arms, reminding her that she’d forgotten her jacket. She paused at a vestibule outside the endless array of baths, libraries, galleries, and meeting rooms of the king’s chambers.
Which one of those splendid rooms housed her vases?
And where the hell were the guards? Was security in this place so lax that someone who hid in the palace until the tourists and staff left could roam about freely? Could anyone touch priceless art and furniture, climb up and take a nap in the king’s bed if he felt like it?
She crossed the loggia and tried to open one of several doors. It was locked. But the next swung wide without so much as a click.
“Yes,” she whispered with self-satisfaction.
The glow of early-evening light slipped through the only window. But she knew she’d entered the Cabinet of the Dogs. The kings had kept their favorite chiens in here, enclosed in gold-and-white kennels. No one with a drop of French blood in him would place the vases in the Antichambres des Chiens.
Across the parquet, another door stood open, inviting her to step into the world-famous Clock Cabinet, an enormous study where all of the kings had carefully timed their every movement of every day.
She paused at the pedestal with a bronze statue of Louis on horseback in the center of the room, and studied the gigantic Passement clock along one wall. They weren’t in this room. She just knew it.
Across from her, a glass-topped table stood by the entrance to one more room…the private bedroom.
That’s where she’d put the vases. Where Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson practiced her most effective influence over the king.
As she stepped toward the bedroom, she heard something.
A soft, breathy…whistle. A melody.
Her heart stopped, and then kicked into double time. Who on earth was whistling in Louis’s bedroom? She listened intently, closing her eyes to focus on the sound.
Was that Mozart? Possibly. Certainly the kind of tune Jeanne-Antoinette might have hummed while preparing for a late-night tryst with her king.
Should she march in and face…what? A ghost? A guard?
As much as she wanted to see the Plums, she didn’t particularly relish an encounter with a surly French night guard. Not even one who whistled classical music.
Still, she had every right to be there. Clearing her throat, she called out, “Is anyone there?”
The whistling stopped immediately.
Taking a step into the room, she peered into the shadows, her gaze moving over the tables and heavily embroidered canopy over the bed. The room was empty.
But who’d been whistling?
An unearthly sensation of being watched sent a shiver up her back. Without stopping to analyze it, she turned back to the doorway, darting back into the Clock Cabinet on the balls of her feet to avoid broadcasting an audio trail. She retraced her steps through the anterooms and out the door she’d first entered, snapping it closed behind her.
Her heart thumped so hard she couldn’t hear anything, and she cursed herself for being a ninny. There were no ghosts in this palace.
A hair tickled her face, and she jerked backward with a gasp. Damn, she was being ridiculous. She’d imagined that noise. Could it have been the wind? Not blowing Mozart through a crack in the window. But were the vases in there?
Another sickening thought curled through her. Not a ghost. Not a guard.
A thief.
She’d never forgive herself if they were stolen and she’d been this close to preventing it. What was she thinking, r
unning away? She twisted the handle. This time, it jerked against her palm. Wasn’t this door unlocked a minute ago?
She crouched down to peer into the mechanism, squinting one eye and shimmying the brass lever.
The stray hair blew across her cheek again, and goosebumps rose along with her fear. Something, someone was right behind her, breathing against her neck, warming her skin!
“That lock can’t be picked.”
Janine shot to her feet, her head banging into something hard. She heard the smack of teeth hitting teeth on the impact. Whipping around, she stumbled back against the door and saw Luc Tremont.
He rubbed his chin, a wry glimmer in his eyes. “Ouch.”
She flattened herself against the door, the ornate carving digging into her back. Her chest rose and fell with each desperate attempt to get air back into her lungs. Blood sang in her head as she looked up at him. “What are you doing here?”
He tilted his head to the side and lowered his lids enough to peer out from underneath his lashes. “I might ask the same thing, Janine.”
“I wanted to see the vases.”
“You should have asked me this morning.”
“I want to be sure they’re still there.”
A crease formed between the dark slashes of his eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
She stared into his eyes, so black that she could hardly see the pupils, and said the first thing that popped into her head. “The Scorpion.”
Did he blink? “Excusez?” he asked casually.
“I—Simone told me—I heard that…” She shook her head, coherence slowly returning to her numb brain. “Never mind. I went to see…to find the vases, but I heard something and got scared.”
“What did you hear?”
“Mozart.” It was the best she could do with scrambled brain cells.
He frowned and took a step closer, eliminating all but a few inches between them. “I meant what did you hear about the Scorpion?”
If she took a breath, her breasts would actually touch his chest. He was so substantial, in a pale blue cotton shirt opened at his throat. At the edge of his collar, she could see the hint of a pulse throb.