Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (4 page)

C
harlotte slid
onto the work table and set down her wine glass. Joelle was long since gone, the store dark except for the dim light emanating from the desk lamp near the darkened computer, the slight glow leaking in from the street outside. Figures loomed in the shadows — the nineteenth century sofa her father had planned to reupholster, the French farm table bound for a buyer in New York’s Hudson Valley, the shelves lined with cleaning and restoration supplies. She wasn’t afraid. The store was her second home, every corner familiar to her, every creaking floorboard, every rattle of the old window panes.

She leaned back on her elbows, her thoughts drifting to Christophe Marchand for the hundredth time since she’d left his home in Saint Germain the day before. It had been over a year since she’d dated someone seriously — if seeing an up-and-coming actor once a week when he wasn’t filming could be called seriously. It had lasted less than six months and had been without declarations of affection on either side.

She hated the men in L.A. They were all either actors or tech geniuses. Neither was very inspiring to her — so far, at least. She thought back over the men she’d dated in the years since completing her masters. Every one of them looked uninspiring in hindsight — particularly after meeting Christophe Marchand.

They lacked soul. That was the problem.

It was something her father had often proclaimed about the less than exciting pieces that made it into the shop. It didn’t happen often — her father had culled his pickers in the field to those that would send only the pieces that were suitable to him. But every now and then, something would slip though the cracks, appearing in a shipment with others from the same part of the world. Then her father would stand back, surveying the piece with consternation, rubbing his chin as if trying to solve a complicated problem.

“What is it, Papa?” she would ask when she was little.

“Cette pièce n'a pas d'âme,” he would proclaim.

This piece has no soul.

She hadn’t understood at first, but she’d grown to feel the sentiment deeply. Some pieces — and some people — had soul.

Others did not.

It had nothing to do with age or provenance. Nothing to do with patina or value. It was something deeper, something that shined through a person’s eyes, that radiated from within.

She’d made a point not to think too hard about her lack of a love life. She was busy, her days filled with work and gallery openings for acquaintances and the few people she called friends, visits with her mother that forced her to brace herself against an onslaught of criticism and too much information about the current man in her mother’s life, too many complaints about how Hollywood was shallow, how it was next to impossible to find good roles if one was over the age of fifty.

Debra Hughes wasn’t wrong, but she also wasn’t very open-minded, holding out for leading roles long after the age when they were plentiful. Right or wrong, Hollywood rewarded the young and beautiful. But as with everything that was displeasing, her mother refused to accept it. She chased beauty treatments that promised to make her look younger, men that promised to make her feel younger, roles that would take her back to a time when she was an ingenue, a sex kitten, a femme fatale.

Charlotte didn’t care about youth. It was soul that attracted her, and she had a flash of Christophe Marchand’s cold-water eyes, the depth lurking in them despite the coolness of his gaze. He was obviously wealthy, although an internet search turned up very little about him other than an old mention that his family still held some kind of title.

She thought of the men in the foyer at the house in Saint Germain. Their size and the weapons lurking under their jackets indicated they were bodyguards of some kind. And yet if Christophe had been well-known, he would have appeared in her online search.

She considered the other possibilities, but there was only one that made sense; Christophe Marchand was involved in something secretive. Something criminal. Drug running? Illegal weapons sales? Terrorism?

No, she refused to believe the last one. He was too refined, too obviously enamored with beauty, as evidenced by the exquisite art and furnishings in his home. People like Christophe Marchand didn’t deal in destruction.

But crime of another sort… She couldn’t rule it out.

She waited for the disgust to roll through her and was surprised when it didn’t. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t muster anything but intrigue when thinking about him. He was like the dusty pieces that appeared in her father’s shop, forgotten until they were uncovered, brought to life again by loving hands.

She shook her head in the empty room. She knew nothing about the man, and if he was a criminal, his appealing exterior didn’t forgive his line of work. She was assigning him qualities she had no reason to believe existed. And it didn’t matter anyway. Christophe Marchand was a more refined version of her father — a man who collected beautiful things just so he could gaze upon them. A man more comfortable in the company of the inanimate than with people who lived and breathed and felt too deeply.

She pulled the ring from her pocket and turned her attention to it instead, sliding off the desk and crossing the room to the computer. She waited while it connected to the WIFI, then clicked on the page she’d brought up when she researched the ring the night before. Her eyes traveled over the translated version of the original article.

I
t was
a short article in a Vienna paper, dated less than two months before, but dread had spread like an oil slick in her stomach when she’d found it. It didn’t mention the ring, but another article listed it as sold to Stefan Baeder at auction nearly ten years ago.

None of it would have mattered if not for the brown dust stuck in the cracks of the ring’s filigree. Dust that looked more and more like blood.

Of course, she had no way of knowing if Stefan Baeder was still in possession of the ring when he’d died. It was possible he’d sold it in the ten years since he’d bought it.

But Baeder had been a collector, not a dealer. And if it was blood, and if the desk had been purchased from Stefan’s estate after his death…

She jumped as something crashed near the front of the store, then stood up, her heart racing as she looked toward the doorway leading to the rest of the shop. Training her ears on the familiar sounds of the store, she waited, trying to stay calm. The building was old, surrounded by others, including two bars and three cafes. It was more than possible the front door had been hit by a passing drunkard on his or her way home.

Something thudded at the front of the store, and this time she was sure: someone was in the shop.

C
harlotte dropped
the ring back in her pocket and looked around the work room, her gaze coming to rest on an andiron. She moved toward it and grabbed it tightly in her hands. It was large and unwieldy, but it was better than nothing. She stepped against the wall next to the doorway.

She swallowed hard, wondering at her chances if she dialed the police. But she couldn’t even remember the number for emergency services in Paris, and her phone would make noise, drawing the intruders to her. Better to wait. Maybe they would take what they wanted and leave. There wasn’t much of value left, and what was left in the gallery was unsold. They could have it as far as Charlotte was concerned.

Except now she heard footsteps just beyond the work room. More than one person. Two? Three? They were definitely coming toward her, the footfalls slow and deliberate, but not quiet. Whoever it was wasn’t at all concerned about being caught.

She clutched the andiron tighter, forcing herself to breathe quietly as the steps grew louder, the intruders traveling through the overflow room toward the work room. And then they were right there, just beyond the threshold. She lifted the andiron in her hands, waited until the first big figure stepped through the door, then lowered the heavy metal object.

She knew immediately that she was in trouble. The man was big. Too big. Her aim would have landed the andiron on his back, not his head where it would count.

If she’d been able to land it at all.

Instead he spun easily toward her, grabbing her wrist in the iron vise of his grip, squeezing until she cried out, dropping the andiron onto the floor with a crash as two more men muscled their way through the door. Everything happened so fast, she didn’t have time to be afraid. There was only the big man, his sheer size and power eliminating any belief she might have had that she could escape.

And then, the cold tip of a knife pointed at her throat as the other men fanned out, their movements slow, almost casual, like this wasn’t at all unusual.

The overhead lights came on and she blinked against the sudden glare as she looked up at the man who still had her in his grasp like she was a small animal in an iron trap.

He was tall and broad shouldered, meaty in a way that suggested he lifted weights. There was something vaguely familiar about the set of his eyes, the high cheekbones under empty brown eyes. She tried not to move, all too aware of the knife digging into the tender flesh of her neck.

“What do you want?” she asked, forcing her voice calm.

“We’ll get to that, ma cherie.” His gaze flickered to the other two men. “Is she alone?”

“Seems that way,” the smaller of the two men said.

“Seems that way isn’t good enough,” the man holding her wrist said. “Check upstairs.”

She had to stifle the flood of anger that consumed her as she watched the man make his way up the narrow staircase leading to her father’s private quarters above the shop. She abhorred the thought of these criminals — whomever they were — stepping through the doorway of the small, neat apartment, with its worn furniture, the old French press still on the counter from her coffee that morning, the two modest bedrooms.

“If I let go, you’ll be quiet, yes?” the man asked her.

She debated the alternatives, then nodded, careful of the knife. He was obviously in charge.

He lowered the knife and released her wrist. He stepped more fully into the room, wandering along one side of the big work table, running his hands along its worn surface as the third man — tall and thin, with gaunt cheekbones and a gleeful look in his eye — leaned against the shelving unit across the room.

“You’re American,” the man with the knife said. She didn’t answer, and he continued. “I didn’t know Duval had an American daughter.”

Her last name in the man’s mouth sent a bolt of fear through her. Was this more than a random theft? Did these men know her father?

She didn’t say anything. She might not be able to make them leave, might not be able to leave herself, but she didn’t have to volunteer information.

He stopped at the computer, then pressed the space bar. The screen came to life, the article about Baeder’s death right where she’d left it.

“Interesting reading material,” he said.

She didn’t answer, and a moment later, the smaller man came clattering down the stairs. “All clear.”

The boss nodded, then turned his eyes on Charlotte. “So? Is this going to be easy or difficult?”

She swallowed. “I… I don’t know what you want.”

“I think you do.”

She searched her mind for the possibilities. “We keep a safe in that cabinet there,” she said, indicating an old armoire. “There isn’t much money, but you’re welcome to it. To anything else you’d like.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “How generous of you.” She heard the sarcasm in his voice but didn’t know how to respond. He saved her the trouble by continuing. “We’re not here for your money.”

“Then I have no idea what you want.”

He crossed the room, stopping when he was right in front of her and leaning down until he was only inches from her face. She had to fight not to recoil from the sour scent of beer and cigarettes on his breath.

“We want the ring.”

It took effort not to show her surprise. Not to reach into her pocket and close her fist around the gold filigree.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to. We specialize in furniture, although we do sell art as well, and some decorative items.”

He was quick, his hand closing around her wrist before she had time to realize he was even reaching for her. She winced, his grip closing around the area she already knew would be bruised in the morning.

“Don’t fuck with me,” he shouted.

She swallowed. “I’m… I’m not. You can search the shop if you’d like.”

He held her gaze, as if he were trying to gauge the truth. Then he straightened, letting his eyes sweep the room. She tried to see what he saw — nearly every surface covered with cleaning and restoration supplies, the shelves lined with small items waiting their turn under her father’s capable hands. Beyond them the overflow room was filled with bureaus and writing desks, chairs and dining tables, slag glass lamps and objets d’art. Searching it all would take hours, even if they were careless.

He returned his gaze to her, his smile cold. “I’m a trusting man,” he said. “And you seem to be an intelligent woman. If you say you don’t know where it is, I must trust you.”

She held her breath, not daring to believe it would be this easy. He continued.

“I’ll give you some time to look. Surely you’ve simply misplaced it. I’m sure it will turn up by tomorrow evening.”

She wanted to protest. To tell him she would never hand over the ring in spite of the fact that she had no good reason not to give it to him. Maybe it was the brown dust, a secret trapped in the gold that seemed to whisper to her. Maybe it was the fact that Stefan Baeder had been murdered just before her father acquired the desk that had been sold to Christophe Marchand.

Still, she wasn’t enthused about the possibility of facing the consequences for not handing over the ring.

“I’ll look for it.” The ring seemed to burn in her pocket. “I’ll do what I can to find it.”

The man reached up, pressed his hand to her cheek. His touch was surprisingly gentle, a stark contradiction to the chill in his eyes.

“You do that, ma cherie. I wouldn’t like to hurt you.”

Even as he said it, she knew it was a lie. She had a feeling he would very much like to hurt her.

She nodded anyway. And then he was retreating, his men following him to the door, the taller of the two bumping roughly against her, piercing her with his eyes as he made his way out of the work room.

She listened as their footsteps receded through the store, the front door slamming shut a few moments later. Then she sunk against the wall, her heart thudding like a frightened bird inside her chest.