Great. She thought quick. Time to flash the business card she’d appropriated from Madame Vasseur’s designer bag.
“I’m her administrative assistant at …” She glanced down. “… Hachoin Associates. Do we need to have this conversation on the street?”
His expression remained the same. “But that’s Madame Vasseur’s card, not yours.”
Apprehension filled her. What if she couldn’t get past him?
“Of course,” she said with more bravado than she felt. She needed to get inside, hear the information from the cell-phone message, learn the real description of the rapist and find Zazie. “Madame Vasseur gave me this to authenticate my presence. We’ve had a crisis at the office.”
He stared at her. “Try her cell phone.”
“As if I haven’t?” Aimée pursed her lips. “But if you want to incur her wrath when she loses a ten-million-franc lawsuit because you wouldn’t let me inside …”
The low side-door in the gate buzzed open. She walked into the rectangles of light spilling from tall windows over the dark garden and winding driveway. Faint strains of a piano drifted from a balcony.
He opened a door leading into a white-tiled foyer. Hit a button on the elevator panel.
“The Lavignes’ reception is on their second floor.”
If that wasn’t an indicator of wealth, Aimée didn’t know what was. But they all put their shoes on one foot at a time, as her grand-père would have said.
She didn’t even have time to reapply her Chanel-red lipstick in the mirrored interior before the elevator door whooshed open.
“May I help you?” a voice welcomed her from a grand, marble-tiled reception area. Marble columns, marble everywhere. A grand salon was off to the left.
“Aimée Leduc to see Madame Vasseur.”
The greeter, a woman in her late forties and wearing pearls, took one look at Aimée’s secondhand Birkin bag. Or maybe it was her shoes.
“I’m afraid your name’s not on the guest list,” she said with a frozen, coral-lipsticked smile.
Aimée almost ground her teeth, but she returned the smile instead. “Then write it in.”
“You misunderstand. This benefit’s private. Invitation only.”
“And there’s an emergency. Madame and I made a rendezvous.” Aimée peered over the woman’s bouffant-haired head to the adjoining salon. She scanned the well-dressed crowd of thirty or so, hoping to catch Madame Vasseur’s eye and take her aside.
No such luck.
Aimée stepped around the woman into the cloying scent of blue delphiniums overflowing from the vases in the fresco’d hallway. It was all neo-Renaissance detail, from the gilded boisieries to the gleaming inlaid walnut floor. “Please tell her I’m here.”
The woman blinked. “I’m sorry, Madame, but—”
“The sooner you find her, the sooner I leave.” Aimée leaned closer. “Vous comprenez?”
Flustered, the bouffant-haired woman backed away, summoning someone—a security guard? But a petite blonde waved back and mouthed, “Un moment!”
Scanning the designer attire for Madame Vasseur, Aimée noticed intellos scattered among ancien régime types exuding the whiff of old money. Typical of those born into privilege who supported les arts et la culture with noblesse oblige. Faces from society columns. Not an arriviste millionaire in the bunch. It wasn’t that they had a lot of money in the bank—they owned the bank.
Not her crowd, but she hadn’t come to socialize. Impatient, she nudged through the group, earning irritated looks. No one moved a centimeter. Didn’t anyone respect a pregnant woman?
“Excusez-moi,” she said, fanning herself with her hand. “Air, please, I need air.”
People parted, several eyebrows raised, until she reached the edge of the crowd. On the dais, Madame Vasseur, in a sleek white-linen pantsuit, downed a glass of champagne. Aimée noticed the sag to her shoulders, a weariness that disappeared when she pumped the hand of an old man next to her and turned to smile at the well-heeled attendees.
“Madame!” Aimée waved. “Over here.”
Her smile froze as she saw Aimée. A moment later she joined her by the tall window, her back to the crowd. “What right do you have to come here and gate-crash?” she said under her breath.
“You called me, remember? I need to hear Mélanie’s message.”
“Can’t this wait?”
“Didn’t Mélanie give you details, some important information for identifying the rapist?”
She stiffened. “There’s too much going on right now.”
“Right. Zazie’s missing, and if you don’t—”
Her words were drowned out by a white-haired man standing on the dais. He boomed into the microphone, “Mesdames et Messieurs, allow me to introduce Madame Vasseur, our Conservatoire de Musique committee chair.”
She raised her hand and smiled at the white-haired man beckoning her. “That’s Monsieur Lavigne. I’ve been working on this program all year,” she said, smiling between clenched teeth. “You will wait and show some politesse until I’ve finished my speech. If you make a scene, I’ll call security and have you thrown out.”
“… Madame Vasseur has several wonderful announcements,” the old man was saying.
Thundering applause greeted him. Disappointed, Aimée drifted to the back. In the meantime she’d try René again. Check if Beto had left a message.
“Madame Leduc?” said the petite blonde, attractive apart from her overbite and large teeth. She wore a little black dress Aimée figured cost more than Leduc Detective paid in rent.
“Oui?”
Loud shhhhes from those around her.
“Please, over here.”
Aimée followed the blonde into an adjoining salon. More nymphs and cherubs frolicking on the ceiling. A couple, arms entwined, broke apart at their entry, guilty looks on their faces, then beat a quick exit. Several attendees passed through, stopping at a white-linen-draped banquet table for fizzing flutes of amber champagne.
“My father-in-law goes on a bit,” the blonde whispered. “But I’m sorry, Madame Vasseur’s busy giving the highlight presentation.”