Murder in Nice (21 page)

Her suitcase and her cell phone lay on the
sidewalk at her feet.

But her handbag—with the jump drive—was
gone.

Thirteen

Maggie sat
on a bench facing the
Promenade des
Anglais
. She held her cell phone in both
hands and kept her suitcase wedged between her feet, although
rationally she knew there was little chance anyone would try to
steal either of them. As she stared out at the relentless blue sea,
dotted with bobbing yachts and powerboats, she tried to ignore the
chill that crept up her bare arms.

Someone had followed her. Someone had been
watching her.

She took in a long breath to steady her
nerves. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her purse with the jump
drive was stolen, could it? Had she simply been mugged?

She wanted to believe that. She wanted to
believe it was just bad luck that fate had chosen this day of all
days to add her to the list of the clueless tourists getting ripped
off on the Côte d’Azur.

But she didn’t believe that.

That jump drive pointed the finger at
Desiree as Lanie’s killer. Pure and simple. Before Maggie met Ooli,
there wasn’t even circumstantial evidence to point in anyone’s
direction. The frustration pinged off her when she thought how
close she’d come to being able to tell Annie of her progress.

A trio of young girls walked by on the
boardwalk. They must be French, she thought. They were all
beautiful, their clothes simple, elegant, and brief. One of the
girls walked brazenly topless next to her friends, her hips swaying
in a low-slung sarong, her young breasts tan and taut.

When Maggie’s phone vibrated in her hands,
she was so startled out of her reverie that she nearly dropped it.
She looked at the screen to see she’d gotten a text. It was from
Dee-Dee.

<
You’ll never guess. Olivier is back!>

Maggie stared at the text, uncomprehending.
Olivier had rejoined the tour? She quickly tapped in a
response.

<
How did that happen?>

She stared at her screen, willing Dee-Dee to
answer her.

they were screwing?>

Dear God, what is wrong
with that woman?
Maggie thought in
annoyance.

yet?>
Maggie typed.

back.>

Maggie felt a tingling in her fingers as her
excitement began to ratchet up.

I care
.
Especially if Desiree’s little
excursion included following me to Nice.

The sound of a horn made Maggie look up.
Laurent pulled to the curb in front of her and the car behind him
wasn’t impressed. Maggie hopped up and pulled open the back seat
door and pushed her small suitcase in the back before joining him
in the front. “It’s two hours from St-Buvard,” she said, leaning
over and giving him a quick kiss before he turned the car into
traffic.

“
Oui
?”

“
Well, I only called you
ninety minutes ago.”

“
I got held up.”

“
You sure you don’t have a
stockpile of speeding tickets somewhere I don’t know
about?”

Laurent gave her a glance and accelerated
into traffic down the main avenue toward the A8.

“
I brought one of your
other handbags,” he said. “It’s in back.”

“
Oh, thanks, Laurent,” she
said, looking in the back for it.

“
How did you lose your
purse?” he asked.

“
I left it under my chair
when I stopped for coffee.” She pulled a small handbag from the
back onto her lap. It occurred to her she only had her cell phone
to put in it.

“
You weren’t required to
pay for your coffee before you left?”

“
I paid when they served
me. So, what’s happening at home? How’s the baby?”

“
Fine.”

“
And Ben and
Haley?”

“
They may be leaving
soon.”

“
Did something
happen?”

“
Country life is not to
your brother’s liking.”

Maggie studied Laurent’s profile, implacable
as usual. If she wanted to know why Ben and Haley were leaving
early she’d probably be better served by asking them.

“
How’s Grace?”

Laurent looked at her. “You are not in
constant touch with Grace as usual?”

“
We…I’ve been so busy. I’ve
missed some of her calls.”

He nodded and focused back on the road.

“
It’s a beautiful day,”
Maggie said. “I wonder when the last time was that you took a
little holiday from your work at the vineyard?”

Laurent grinned. “You are
getting much better at this,
chérie
. I’m proud of you.”

Maggie laughed. “I just thought it wouldn’t
take that much more time if we went home by way of Marseille.”

“
It is not on the
way.”

“
No, but it
could
be, without a whole
lot of extra time.”

“
You want me to drive you
to Marseille.”

“
It’s a beautiful day and
you haven’t been to the beach in forever.”

“
Marseille is not what I
would call a beach.”

“
I need to talk to a couple
people on the tour,” Maggie said, dropping the animation from her
voice. “I just need one hour more. Something’s come up.”

“
Quoi
?”

“
Well, Olivier was released
on bail—Annie paid for it, it seems—and…and I heard something
really suspicious about Desiree that I’d like to check on. It
wouldn’t take long at all, Laurent. Please?”

“
Bon
,” he said, shrugging.

Maggie’s mouth fell open. “Really? You don’t
mind?”

He smiled. “I am with you,”
he said, “and the day is indeed beautiful. Your brother’s wife is
babysitting
les enfants.
We will finish your little mystery together and
then go home. Together.”

A surge of happiness fluttered in Maggie’s
chest as she faced the road and ran through the questions she would
ask Olivier…and then Desiree. She would need to call Annie, too,
and inquire why in God’s mysterious world she had paid Olivier’s
bail.

“
And it gives us time to
talk,” Laurent said.

Maggie looked at him and frowned.
“Talk?”

“
Oui
. You can tell me how you got the cut on your
forehead.”

*****

Haley decided the French countryside was at
least as pretty as the North Georgia mountains. That was a
surprise. Or was it just here on Maggie and Laurent’s farm where
the sky and the land seemed to meld in such a comforting hue of
harmony? She stretched out her legs and repositioned little Jem on
her lap. He was sleepy now after a morning of rambunctious crawling
all over his father’s vegetable garden. Haley believed strongly
that a little dirt didn’t hurt anyone.

He nestled in her arms and
she felt the tremor of his happy sigh as he succumbed to sleep.
Over his head, she watched three bees dodge and weave an aerial
pattern over the tops of Maggie’s zinnias. The air was scented with
lemons and rosemary.
No wonder the French
like their food,
she thought with a wry
smile on her lips. Their whole world surrounds them with
it.

She was surprised at how much she was
enjoying France. She’d deliberately never traveled outside the
U.S., and if it hadn’t been for Ben’s insistence early last spring
that they visit Maggie this summer she wouldn’t be here now. The
thought of Maggie made her frown.

It didn’t bother her that Maggie—and now
Laurent too—had left the premises for whatever errand was so much
more important than a house full of overseas guests. Although,
granted, Haley would likely milk it for what it was worth when she
described the visit to Ben’s mother.

Imagine, Elspeth. Her only brother comes to
visit for the first time ever and Maggie just up and leaves?

On the other hand, there was no sense in
upsetting Elspeth. The woman would no doubt find a way to explain
away Maggie’s poor behavior—as she always did—and Haley didn’t want
to look like a complainer in her mother-in-law’s eyes.

So far the biggest surprise
of the trip had been Grace. Haley could not remember anyone as warm
and instantly accepting as her new friend. Grace trusted Haley with
the care of her precious child.
And
her secrets. Haley smiled at the memory of her
coffee with Grace in Arles after the flea market.

Grace admitting that she was afraid to fall
in love again after Windsor didn’t seem to Haley to be much of a
secret. Why not tell the world? Who cares? But maybe Grace came
from a world where people do care about such things. Maybe she had
learned to protect herself—and her heart—by recognizing that some
things are better kept to oneself.

Haley looked down at the
baby and ran her fingers through his fine hair.
How on Earth could Maggie leave this little angel? He’s so
tiny, so dependent, so vulnerable.

It wasn’t fair. Haley would give her soul to
have a little one such as this—would never even run to the grocery
store without him, let alone gallivant up and down the French coast
for three days. She snuggled Jemmy tighter in her arms and felt the
sun’s rays warm the top of her head.

My time will come,
she reminded herself as she reached out to the
patio table to make sure the baby monitor was still on. Zouzou was
a good little napper, but that didn’t mean Haley wanted her waking
up by herself in her room, regardless of what Grace said. Haley
would give her ten more minutes and then go up to her.

One of these days, I’ll have a house full of
children of my own and wonder what I ever did with myself when I
was childless.

Even the word, said
silently in her head, caused a faint chill to run down her
arms.
Childless
.
She glanced involuntarily at the bedroom window where she and Ben
slept. The chill deepened and she had to stop herself from rubbing
her arms. It wasn’t cold, she admonished herself. It was a
beautiful sunny day deep in the south of France.

But Haley’s eyes didn’t leave the bedroom
window, and while she was able to prevent herself from disturbing
the baby by rubbing the goose bumps on her arms, she wasn’t quite
able to stop the feeling of acrimony when she thought of her
husband.

*****

Laurent and Maggie stopped
for a late lunch of mussels and
pommes
frites
with a very good bottle of Rosé and
then drove the coastal road south to Marseille. Maggie had assuaged
Laurent’s concern about her cut (“I tripped over my suitcase and
fell into an outdoor postcard carousel”) and congratulated herself
for not misrepresenting the truth too badly. She rationalized that
she knew she couldn’t avoid his worrying about her safety, but the
least she could do was not make it any harder on him.

She sent a group text to Randall and Dee-Dee
explaining that she and Laurent would be briefly rejoining the
tour. Randal responded by sending directions to a restaurant in
Marseille.

Once in the town center, Laurent turned onto
the Boulevard la Canebière. The street was teeming with tourists,
who reflected a strong Arab presence. Maggie knew Marseille had a
huge Moroccan population and they seemed out in force today. She
looked at the navigation tool on her smartphone.

“
Turn left on the Rue
Longue des Capucins,” she said. “The restaurant should be on our
right.”

Laurent slowed for the turn. His phone rang
in the console, but when she went to reach for it he snapped it
up.

“
Whoa, Tiger,” Maggie said.
“Your girlfriend should know better than to call you in the
daytime.”

“
I always enjoy your
humor,” Laurent said, looking at the screen of his
phone.

“
Everything
okay?”

He tucked the phone away in
the pocket of the driver’s side door, his face unreadable.
“
Bien sûr
,” he
said. “Just something about the vineyard.”

“
Isn’t it always? Oh, there
it is on the right. That’s Randall standing out on the
sidewalk.”

Laurent pulled up to the curb and stopped.
Maggie turned to him in surprise.

“
You’re not going to park?”
she said.

Randall came over to the car and Maggie
rolled down the window, still waiting to hear Laurent’s answer.

“
Glad you could make it,”
Randall said, his face flushed and his eyes darting from Maggie to
Laurent.

He probably thinks I
brought my husband here to beat the crap out of
him
, Maggie thought with
satisfaction.
Let him stew a
bit.

“
Bonjour
,” Laurent said to him through the window before turning to
Maggie. “I must get back to St-Buvard.”

“
But we just got
here!”

“
Enjoy your day. When
you’re finished, take the train to Arles. I will pick you up at the
station this evening.”