Author: Tiffany Reisz

“Søren?” The redheaded woman with the freckles came closer. “What did she say?”

Laila only listened as her uncle recited her tale in English. He left out the part about the woman calling her tante Elle a “whore.”

“Marie-Laure made them choose,” he said, his voice low but steady. “She told Eleanor and Laila that one of them could leave and deliver a message to me. The other one had to stay behind as...entertainment. Eleanor...”

He paused to clear his throat and Laila began to cry again, sobbing silently against his chest.

“What?” Wes asked. “What happened?”

“Eleanor covered Laila’s mouth so she couldn’t volunteer. So Laila was allowed to leave with her message.”

He fell silent and no one in the room spoke. The confession of her aunt’s sacrifice had made mutes of them all.

“Dammit, Nora...” Wes was the first to speak. She winced at his words, felt her own failure to speak in time, felt more than anything shame over how relieved she was that she’d been allowed to go free.

“She gave me a note to give you.” Laila dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the paper. “She said to tell you that she gave you her death as a gift and now she was taking her gift back. She said God had a message for you, too.”

Kingsley exhaled noisily and with great and very French disgust.

“And what does God have to tell us?” he demanded.

“She said that God says no more sinning. Time for atonement.”

No one said anything as Laila held out the note to her uncle. Without any show of emotion he read the words before handing it to Kingsley. Kingsley took it from his hand and opened the note.

“What does it say?” Wes demanded. Laila was grateful he’d asked. She hadn’t gotten to read it. “Is it a ransom note? I’ll pay whatever they ask.”

“Not a ransom.” Kingsley balled up the note. “And it doesn’t matter what it says because we’re not going to let her play us.”

“It does matter what it says.” Wes stood up and walked over to Kingsley. “I’ll play any game I have to if it means getting Nora back.”

“You’re not the one she wants to play with, Wesley,” Søren said, and Laila looked up at him. “Kingsley and I are the ones she’s angry with, the ones she’s trying to hurt.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Wes faced her uncle with fury in his eyes. She’d never seen anyone look at her uncle like that.

“Whatever I have to.” Her uncle said the words simply and without a trace of fear. For some reason his lack of fear and the quiet determination in his voice scared her more than her own kidnapping had.

“And then what?” Wes asked.

“I get her out,” Kingsley said.

“You get her out?” Wes turned to Kingsley. “You and what army?”

“I don’t need an army.”

“What? Are you the French James Bond or something?”

“Of course not. James Bond is vanilla.”

“I feel so much better now,” Wes said as he scraped his fingers through his hair. “Kinky James Bond is going to rescue Nora. Thanks but maybe it’s time we get the cops involved.”

“Call the police if you want her dead. By all means, call them. They love to blare their sirens so the whole world knows they’re coming. Do you know how easy it is to kill someone like...” Kingsley raised his hand and snapped his fingers loudly in Wesley’s ear, so loudly Wesley flinched. “Like that. The speed of sound is 342 meters per second. The speed of a bullet is four times that. She’ll be dead before they can even knock on the door. I promise you, she’s guarded. Every minute of every hour someone with a gun is within shooting distance of her. One wrong step equals one bullet.”

“We have to do something. We don’t even know where she is,” Wes said.

“I do.” Laila sat up and wiped her face. “I know where she is.”

“Where?” Wes looked down at her and she saw hope in his eyes.

Laila reached up and unclasped her necklace. She flipped open the locket and passed it to her uncle.

“That room.”

“What room?” The redheaded woman leaned over her uncle’s shoulder and stared at the picture. Laila didn’t have to look. She’d worn the silver heirloom locket for most of her life, knew the photographs in it better than she knew her own face. On one side of the locket was a picture of her grandmother holding her mother as a newborn baby. On the other side of the locket was a photograph of her grandmother holding her uncle Søren as a newborn. Her grandmother had kept a box of photographs that she looked at from time to time. They all seemed to be taken in the same room—a library with a fireplace. Gold walls, green curtains. She’d asked her grandmother about it once and her grandmother had said she would rather not talk about her time living in America. All that mattered, her grandmother said with a sad smile, was that she gave birth to her son while in that country. He made up for everything.

“Are you sure?” her uncle asked.

She nodded. “I saw the pictures in Mormor’s box. There was one where she sat by a fireplace holding you. She wasn’t smiling. But it was that room in my locket, the one Tante Elle is in. I know it was.”

“Søren?” Wes’s voice prompted her uncle to look up from the locket.

“Eleanor’s at my half sister’s house. She’s at Elizabeth’s.”

“Your sister’s house?” Wes asked. “Is she involved in this, too?”

Søren shook his head. “No, I told Elizabeth to leave the country and travel, to stay on the move. I’d been afraid something like this would happen. She and her sons left last week. She’s not home. She’s not part of this.”

“We’re sure she’s at your sister’s?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes.” Søren looked at Kingsley, who nodded as if Søren had given him some kind of telepathic message.

“We’ll go, then,” Kingsley said. “I’ll call him right now.”

“Call who?” Wes asked. “Go where?”

“We have a friend who lives near his sister’s,” Kingsley explained as he pulled a phone out of his trouser pocket. “Only ten miles away. I’ll be able to plan better if I’m closer. I may have to come and go several times. I need a base. His house is perfect.”

“A friend of yours? Can we trust this guy?” Wes stared aggressively at both Kingsley and her uncle. For the first time she wondered who he was, what he was to her aunt that made him so deeply a part of this nightmare.

“We can trust him. He owes me. He owes him, too.” Kingsley nodded at Søren as he scrolled through the numbers on his phone. “And he owes our missing Maîtresse most of all.”

Laila sensed excitement in the air. Not excitement, no. More like anticipation and even a measure of relief. They knew something now, something more than they did before. And even more, they knew something the woman who had her aunt didn’t know they knew. They knew where to find her.

“He doesn’t owe you anything,” her uncle said with obvious exasperation.

“He kicked me out of my own bedroom. He owes me.”

“Who is he? Nora’s life is on the line here. If you won’t even let me call the police—”

“He’s on our side, I promise,” Kingsley said. “Trust me, you’ll like him. He’s nice and dull. Married, a family man. He’s even...honorable.” Kingsley said the last word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“A nice and honorable family man?” Wes repeated, sounding utterly shocked Kingsley would associate with such a person. “Then why are you friends with him?”

“Because he’s kinky as hell, and I used to fuck his first wife.”

“Kingsley, please,” Søren said, scowling.

“This is why no children are allowed in my house.” Kingsley winked at Laila. “You turn everyone vanilla.”

“I’m eighteen now,” Laila protested.

“I was talking about him.” Kingsley pointed at Wes with his phone. Laila smiled at Wes, who rolled his eyes.

Kingsley raised the phone to his ear. Someone on the other end answered as Kingsley grinned like the devil himself.

“Wake up, Daniel. I’m calling in that favor you owe us.”

Part Two

EN PASSANT

11

THE QUEEN

For what felt like an hour, Nora paced the room with the green curtains. They hadn’t handcuffed her, hadn’t gagged or bound her; they’d simply left her to walk unencumbered. She tried the window first and found it locked and barred. She’d need a blowtorch to get out that way. The door seemed too dangerous. Anyone could be standing behind it with a gun waiting to shoot on sight. Still, if no one came back for her in another hour or two, she’d give it a try. Better to die on her feet than huddled in a corner crying.

She kept moving about the room, trying not to give in to panic. Where was she? She felt like she should know. The furniture was elegant but old and dated. She’d guess someone had decorated the house in the 1960s and no one had bothered updating the decor since then. It gave the room an eerie feel, like she’d fallen into another time. Or that time stopped in this room. When she paced she pushed against old stale air that had probably wasted away in this room as long as the furniture had.

What the fuck was happening? She thought she knew everything about Søren’s marriage to Marie-Laure. Thirty years ago, Søren had brought Marie-Laure from Paris to visit Kingsley in lieu of the Je t’aime that she knew Kingsley had longed to hear. Søren told her that he’d never considered the possibility of marrying Marie-Laure until he’d seen how happy Kingsley became in her presence, and once he’d thought of marriage, he realized it could be the perfect solution. But Marie-Laure had ignored Søren’s cautions that he would never love her back and she’d fallen head over heels for him. Head over heels...how it began. How Nora thought it had ended. Marie-Laure catching Søren and Kingsley in an intimate moment... Marie-Laure running through the winter woods in shock and grief. She slipped on ice, perhaps—or maybe it hadn’t been a simple slip—and plunged a hundred feet to her death, her body shattering on a rock below. Now she knew it had been a lie. Marie-Laure had learned long before that moment she walked in on Kingsley and Søren that they were lovers. Did she think she’d done them a favor? She would die and leave Søren a widower, and he and Kingsley would fall into each other’s arms and be happy together forever?

I gave them my death as a gift...and now I’m taking my gift back.

Nora stopped her caged pacing long enough to glance out the window again and peer between the bars. The stars danced high in the night sky. What time was it? How long had she been here? She wore the same clothes she’d had on in the stables with Wesley back in Kentucky. She still had on her black snakeskin cowboy boots she’d worn riding. Still had on...

Nora glanced down at her left hand. On the ring finger sat a diamond that outshone the stars in the sky outside the window.

“Wes...” she whispered, staring at the ring. God, poor Wesley. He must be out of his mind with panic now. What had he done? She prayed he hadn’t called the police. Getting the police involved would only make things worse. This woman might be crazy but she was dangerously crazy. She had to be intelligent to fake her death and make a life for herself for thirty years. If Marie-Laure wanted revenge on Søren it would be easy enough—kill Nora. She knew Søren would rather see his own heart cut out than allow anything to happen to her. If the sirens started screaming, it would be quick work to slit her throat and disappear back into whatever secret hellhole Marie-Laure had been hiding for the past thirty years.