It was one of the first carvings she’d ever done of Mathilde, sculpting a moment in time, her daughter held in her own arms. She had titled it L’amour d’une Mère, or A Mother’s Love, but the title plaque beneath it read, A Babe in Arms, by Anicette Rousselle, which made no sense at all. She had read about Rousselle in Cahiers d’Art, had heard that her wood carvings were commanding obscene prices, but this wasn’t a Rousselle. This was hers. As she moved closer and reached out a hand to touch it, she felt drawn to it like a magnet, her fingers itching to make contact with the wood that she had brought to life twenty years earlier, when Mathilde was still alive.
“Ne touchez pas!” a man behind her snapped, and then, switching from French to sharply accented English, he added, “Those carvings are not to be touched! That is an extremely expensive piece of art. The artist died during the war!”
She knew who it was before she set eyes on him, and already, the pieces had fallen into place in her mind, rearranging themselves from a confusing jumble of questions into a sickening portrait of certainty. “Did she?” she asked as she turned around, deriving some satisfaction from the way his eyes widened like those of a rat in the kitchen when the lights are suddenly turned on. “Or did you steal these pieces from her like the opportunistic little bastard you are, Monsieur Bouet?”
Though she hadn’t seen him in eighteen years, during which his hair had gone silver and he’d doubled his previous number of chins, Olivier’s art dealer was unmistakable. He was dressed as immaculately and expensively as he’d always been, and a sudden spear of white-hot rage shot through her as she realized that at least a portion of his ample income these past years was likely due to the sale of her own work, which he’d been passing off under a different artist’s name.
“Madame LeClair,” he said after what seemed like an eternity. His voice was barely audible.
“Monsieur Bouet,” she replied, looking him straight in the eye as her voice shook with rage. “What have you done?”
He glanced around nervously. She followed his eyes to each of the other three wood sculptures, too—all of them hers, all of them pieces she had created when her hands couldn’t stop wringing her sweet baby girl from the wood, all of them priced astronomically. Finally, his gaze landed back on her. His face was red now, and a bead of sweat was trickling slowly down his forehead, just left of center, headed for one bushy eyebrow. “Madame LeClair, I can explain.”
But he didn’t say anything else, and an eerie sort of calm settled over her. “Is Anicette Rousselle real, Constant?” she asked, her voice even. “Or was she simply a figment of your imagination through which you could sell my work?”
“You can’t… you must… please understand… but I—” He sputtered, then went silent.
“I deserve an answer, you monstrous little man.”
“The latter,” he mumbled, then, seeming to gather himself, he added in a low voice, “I—I made Anicette Rousselle up. You must understand, though; I could not have sold work under the LeClair name at the time because of your husband’s political activities. There was no harm intended; it was purely pragmatic.”
“Pragmatic,” she repeated, fury swirling in her like a storm. “Oh, well, that explains everything.”
“Madame LeClair, you must let me—”
She had no interest in his excuses. “And the German looting of my apartment? That was a lie, too?”
“No! No, that really happened! I swear it. It occurred all over Paris, and of course your husband was on their list.” He looked down. “They did take some of your sculptures along with his work.”
She narrowed her gaze. “And they just pleasantly handed them back to you after the war since they were such grand fellows?”
His face went redder. “I do not know what happened to those pieces, Madame LeClair. The ones here… They are the ones the Germans left behind, you see. Your husband was dead. I was certain you had not survived, and…” He trailed off, spreading his hands wide to indicate how helpless he’d been over the course of events that he himself had set into motion.
She stared at him in disbelief, nausea rising within her. “So all of these years that I’ve believed your friend Monsieur Vasseur was doing me a favor by selling my work so I could barely scrape by… you’ve been selling my pieces for thousands?”
“It isn’t how it looks,” he said, seemingly finding his voice. “At first, I thought you really were dead. What harm was I doing, then? By the time Monsieur Vasseur alerted me to the fact that you had come back, I had already created the persona of Anicette Rousselle, had begun to build her profile as one of France’s greatest artists, lost tragically to the war. I’d already sold several of her—er, your—pieces. And well, you see, it had taken on a life of its own.”
“Monsieur Vasseur was in on this, too?”
“No. He did not know a thing.” He hung his head. “I understood from him that he was selling your work in Paris, and I was glad. I knew you were making enough money to live. It… It eased the guilt a little.”
“And it never occurred to you perhaps to reach out and let me know that I had become a highly regarded artist? And that you owed me a great deal of money for work you stole from me while I was running for my life?” Her shock was turning to rage.
“Madame LeClair, I will make all of this right.” He was sweating more profusely now. “I promise you that.”
“How? How, Monsieur Bouet? You will give me back the past fifteen years of my life? You will tell the world what you’ve done? You will retrieve all the beloved pieces that you took from me?”
He cleared his throat and wiped away a bead of sweat that had dripped into his right eye. Now he was blinking wildly. “I will find a way, Madame LeClair. I give you my word, I will find a way. Please, don’t call the police.”
It hadn’t occurred to her to do so, but perhaps it should have. He had stolen her art, her reputation, her money. But worst of all, he had stolen all she had left of her daughter. There wasn’t an adequate penalty on earth for that. No, the things he had taken she could never get back, but in the rubble, something surged within her, a shot of pride at the realization that she wasn’t a washed-up woodworker or a talentless hack as Olivier had once told her.
For years she’d had the career she’d always dreamed of, even if she hadn’t known it.
Suddenly, she couldn’t be here anymore. She felt weary, her world turned upside down once again—and she still needed to do what she’d come for, which was to find out the truth about her daughter, and to help Juliette and Lucie if she could. The bookstore would be opening soon; she couldn’t stop now.
“You will tell the world the truth, Monsieur Bouet,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from shaking. She just needed time to collect herself, to breathe, to figure out her next move. “And you will return all the work you’ve stolen—mine and my husband’s—or I will press charges. For now, though, I cannot stand to look at you. You are a man with no talent and no morals, and soon, the world will know.”
And with that, she turned and walked out of the room, back into the main gallery. The blond woman was staring at her with an open mouth, and Elise supposed that she’d overheard the whole conversation. She was just about to storm past her when she realized she was forgetting something. She walked back into the smaller room, brushed past the trembling Constant Bouet, and picked up L’amour d’une Mère. Then, with her daughter tucked under her arm, she walked out of the gallery without looking back. It was only when she was on the street outside, shaking with rage, that she recognized the tears coursing down her cheeks, falling like rain onto her daughter’s smoothly carved face.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Juliette felt her before she saw her, the ghost from the past darkening her door. She had just arrived at the bookstore and was going about her morning routine—dusting the shelves, straightening the books that customers had touched the day before, telling Paul about her evening, when the bell above the door chimed.
Juliette checked her watch and cursed, even as the hairs on both arms stood on end, alerting her of darkness and danger coming her way. She had become attuned to such things in the past several years, and she knew it was Paul sending her signs. Once, he had saved her from absentmindedly stepping into traffic, and she had narrowly missed being hit by a speeding Oldsmobile coupe. Another time, he had talked her back from the edge as she’d stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, staring at the water below, wondering if there was any reason at all not to jump. So she could feel it now, the breath of Paul’s warning against her skin. What seemed more pressing, though, was the fact that she’d apparently left the front door unlocked. The sign outside stated clearly that La Librairie des Rêves did not open until 11 a.m., and according to her wristwatch, it was only 10:50.
“We aren’t open yet!” she called out, trying to keep the anger from her voice. “Come back at eleven!”
But instead of a mumbled apology and retreating footsteps, Juliette heard only silence. Even Paul—who had been reminiscing a moment earlier about the night he’d first kissed her, in a crowded French café—had gone quiet, waiting for the intruder to speak.
“Do you hear me?” Juliette called out again. “We don’t open for another ten minutes.”