I’m sorry, Finn, I thought every time I heard the Lagonda’s gears grind. I hadn’t driven much in the last year, it was now full dark, and I could hardly reach the pedals—the car was groaning at me as I steered her through the narrow French roads. I swear if there is so much as a scratch on your baby when this is done, I will make it up to you. The brakes gave a resentful squeal, and I winced.
I didn’t drive particularly well, but I drove fast. I was outside Grasse in no time, and then the fun started. “Just past the mimosa fields” wasn’t exactly a pinpoint instruction in a city surrounded by acres of flowers. A half-moon climbed as I hunted, aware that Eve was ahead of me and time was ticking by. I thought of her facing me in the hotel, telling me to get out of her way. She’d looked like a worn-out knight lowering his visor for one last charge, haggard, gaunt, composed, serene.
My brother had had that expression the last time I saw him alive, I realized. The expression that said “I am ready to die.”
Not Eve, I thought. Please not Eve! If I failed her, lost her, I was never going to forgive myself.
The Rue des Papillons sported several private paths leading to country villas for the rich. The first I tried led to a house with a prominent for sale sign, the second to a family home where about six children were trooping inside for supper, clearly not René’s domicile. Now I leaned forward, and against the dark sky saw the dim peak of another house. Heart hammering, I pulled as much to the side as I could and scrambled out. There was a mailbox, and just enough moonlight to read the curling script: GAUTIER.
This was the house. I saw no cab, no sign of Eve. Let me not be too late, I prayed, and began running toward the house. The scent of mimosa hung faint and sweet in the air, smelling as I imagined a baby’s hair would smell. My hand went to the tiny bump of my stomach as I ran, and I had a moment’s stark terror not for Eve’s safety but for my own, because it wasn’t just me who could be hurt tonight.
No one will be hurt tonight. I would make sure of that. Somehow.
I rounded the corner of the house, heading toward the back door.
CHAPTER 42
EVE
Most country kitchens would be unlocked, at least in a time of peace. René Bordelon’s was not. Eve had anticipated that; she set down her satchel and plucked two hairpins from the knot of her hair. It had been a very long time since her lock-picking lessons in Folkestone, but it wasn’t difficult: all you needed was one pin to brace and the other to gently work at the tumblers.
Even so, manipulating the pins with her destroyed fingers took long, agonizing minutes. If it hadn’t been a very old, very simple lock, Eve might not have managed it. When the click came, she took another moment on the threshold to steady herself, letting her breathing slow. She had only one chance at this, and she would not shoot straight with a galloping heart and an unsteady hand. At last Eve trusted herself to step inside, taking her Luger out and leaving the satchel on the threshold.
A large country kitchen, empty. Nothing but trestle tables and hanging pots lit by moonlight. Eve padded through the shadows, turning the handle of the door at the other end of the kitchen. A tiny creak, and she froze for another agonizing moment, listening.
Nothing.
She eased out into a corridor lined with oil paintings, candle sconces. A strip of rich carpet made her steps noiseless, René’s lavish taste helping her on the way to kill him. A faint thread of music drifted on the air. Eve cocked her head, listening a moment, then ghosted down a branching hall to the right. The music grew louder, something lush and involved. Débussy, she thought, and smiled.
CHAPTER 43
CHARLIE
No,” I whispered, “no—”
The villa’s kitchen door gaped open. Eve’s satchel lay on the step. I rifled through it. No Luger. I was too late.
But I heard no shots, no voices. The house was silent as an unexploded grenade.
I wanted to rush in screaming her name, but I was in René Bordelon’s territory now, and I would not rouse that viper if he was still unaware of what had come for him. If. Perhaps he was beyond defending. Had Eve already killed him? My blood screamed in my veins, telling me to run, to protect myself and the Rosebud, not to walk any farther into this nest of danger. But my friend was here, and I kept moving.
A dark kitchen. A door ajar. A long hall, rich and quiet. My heart thundered. The faint sound of music. Were those footsteps? The dimness seemed to pulsate. I followed the music, and as I turned a corner I saw them, framed in the broad door arch like a painting.
Eve in silhouette, a dark shape against the brilliant light flooding from the study. It looked exactly the same as the one in Lille she’d described to me: green silk-hung walls, a gramophone spinning its music, a Tiffany lamp throwing peacock colors. René stood in his immaculate shirtsleeves before an open traveling case, oblivious, turned away from the door. Eve was raising the Luger. Too late for me to dare intervene. I froze, pulse pounding.
Neither Eve nor I made a sound, but the lifelong instincts of a snake must have hissed a subliminal warning, because René jerked around. His sudden motion seemed to startle Eve. She squeezed her trigger before the Luger’s barrel had fully leveled. The shot ricocheted off the marble mantel, and my ears rang. René was scrabbling in his traveling case. There was no surprise on his face, no fear—only a poisonous leap of hatred as he raised something toward Eve, as Eve’s arm straightened again. It happened as slowly as if trapped in amber: two Lugers leveling, two triggers pulling, two shots firing.
One body falling.
Eve’s.
After that endless moment, everything happened at once. Eve’s Luger clattered to the floor, and her gaunt body sagged against the carpet. I lunged down the corridor, but not fast enough. René had already stepped forward and kicked Eve’s pistol away, into the corner of the study. I’d meant to rush at him before he could shoot again, but he was backing away out of my reach, his own pistol leveled at me.
“Down on your knees,” he said.
So fast. It had all happened so fast. Eve made a faint sound at my feet, her crippled hands clamped over her left shoulder, and I knelt beside her. I felt the hot slide of blood as I gripped her fingers. “Eve, no, no—” Her eyes were open, colorless, blinking slowly.
“Well,” she said in a high, flat voice. “Goddammit.”
The record on the gramophone came to a hissing end. I could hear the rasping chorus of our breathing, mine in hitching gasps, Eve’s in shallow halts, René Bordelon’s fast and deep as he stared at us through a study that reeked of gunsmoke. A ribbon of dark blood coursed slowly down his pristine collar. Half his ear dangled from a shred of flesh, and a silent howl tore through me.
Close. Eve was so close. The thought flashed through my mind as I stared into the infinite black hole of the Luger aimed right between my eyes.
“Move that way, girl.” The barrel gestured. “Away from the old bitch.”