A Magnificent Crime (18 page)

I got off the phone with Gladys and sat back in the chair in my hotel suite. Fresh from the shower, I rubbed my wet hair with a towel and thought hard. This was not good.

Gladys had learned a little more about the Interpol agent Faulkner had mentioned. She'd hacked into Interpol e-mail accounts and learned that Hendrickx was indeed in Paris. He was investigating the Gargoyle—whoever or whatever that was—and had a high-grade suspicion that a Louvre theft was an imminent part of the Gargoyle's plans.

Which made about as much sense to me as the hieroglyphic laundry instructions on my clothes.

And what made even less sense was what Gladys said next.

“You should know, Cat, that Jack asked me a similar question last week. He sent me a photograph of Hendrickx on a street in downtown Seattle and asked me to identify him.”

“He what?”

“Maybe you two should compare notes. Hendrickx is obviously a party of interest for both of you.”

I sat there dumbfounded. Jack had spotted Hendrickx? He needed to identify him and went through my hacker to do it? Why?

Gladys was right. In an ideal world, I should talk to Jack about it. Maybe we could help each other out.

But that would mean telling Jack way too much about my situation. And I wasn't ready to do that.

No, I'd have to leave that alone for now. The whole thing left me feeling uneasy, though.

Even if Interpol wasn't investigating me, per se, Hendrickx's radar was up about the Louvre and the Hope, and he was going to start poking around.

I fiddled with the pencil on the desk and gazed out the window. The view of Paris was misted over with sheets of rain pouring down the plate glass.

If only I had someone who could get close to this guy, find out what he knew, find out how much he knew about me, specifically. Someone who could gain his confidence, then maybe slip something into his drink, check his private files, his private notes . . . that kind of thing.

I could do it in disguise, but the risk was insane. If he was already on the lookout for me, it would be a foolish thing to do. But I knew someone who could do it for me.

Brooke Sinclair.

This was absolutely her area of expertise. Getting men to trust her and tell her everything? That was her superpower.

Playing the femme fatale was not my strength. Not like Brooke, anyway. If I tried it, I'd probably say something stupid. I'd probably say something incriminating. No. This was definitely Brooke's domain.

I had to convince her.

 

Later that afternoon, I watched as a bent little Frenchwoman spun batter clockwise on a hot circular plate. She waited patiently for it to cook fully, then brushed the crepe with butter, dusted it with sugar, and folded it like a piece of origami.

She slid the hot crepe into a paper envelope and handed it to me. It matched the one I held in my other hand.

As far as bribery went, I thought it was pretty good.

The rain had stopped, and the sun was out now. The Luxembourg Gardens were blossoming, the colors fresher because of the recent showers, the air crisp and lush with the scents of iris and lily.

I walked farther into the park and spotted her. I had tracked Brooke down, finding her sunning herself in one of the Luxembourg's numerous olive-green metal chairs and trying to attract the attention of local French businessmen on their lunch breaks.

I handed her one of the crepes.

“What's this?”

“I passed a crepe stand on my way over. They smelled irresistible.”

She looked at me suspiciously. But took my offering and bit into the steaming, crispy crepe, nonetheless.

I bit into mine and melted just as much as the butter. Parisian crepes are a miracle of hot, crisp, soft buttery sweetness. I took a seat next to Brooke.

Sunlight glinted off the octagonal pond where small children played with wooden sailboats, pushing them with sticks, watching as the crayon-colored sails floated serenely in front of the grand palace of Luxembourg.

“Brooke, listen. There's this Interpol agent who is, apparently, crawling all over this case. It would be really helpful for me if I knew what he knew. And, ideally, if he could be directed to sniff elsewhere.”

She chewed her crepe slowly and swallowed a mouthful. “Like a false trail. Good idea.”

“So I was thinking,” I said, “who would be great at this? Who would be perfect for a job that involves gaining a man's trust, getting him to let his guard down, getting information out of him?”

Brooke barely paused a beat. “Cat, darling, flattery is not going to help you here.”

“Come on, Brooke. This has nothing to do with the actual Louvre job. Your agency can't object, even if they were to find out. It's not moonlighting. It's not anything, actually. Come on, you'd just be flexing your skills.”

And, let's be honest, she'd probably enjoy it, too.

I received nothing by way of a response.

“You know, it's not without benefit to you,” I pointed out. “If this guy is investigating a potential theft of the Hope, it means he may have a beat on jewel theft in general. Finding out his deal could benefit you at some point down the road.”

“And you can't do this why, exactly?” she asked me.

I tilted my head and gave her a look suggesting that she knew full well the answer to that.

“Good point,” she said.

She paused, thinking, and took another bite of crepe. She chewed thoughtfully. And then looked at me levelly. “All right. I'll do it. You're right. It would be useful to know what an Interpol agent investigating jewel theft is thinking.” A wicked grin escaped her lips. “Might be fun, actually.”

“Thanks, Brooke. I really owe you one.”

She popped the final bite of crepe into her mouth. “Me helping you has nothing to do with this crepe, by the way.”

I grinned. I still had to figure out how to get Hendrickx off the trail. And the small matter of planning to rob the Louvre, of course. One step at a time, though.

I walked back to my hotel, lost in thoughts and plans. As I walked, the sky grew dark and muddy. One thing about Paris springtime weather, you could never count on anything for long. A chilled breeze kicked up.

Then cold fingers prickled the back of my neck. But this wasn't because of the change in weather—I was being followed again.

I rolled my eyes. It must be Brooke again. Testing my skills, seeing if I'd brushed up since her little sport on the Champs-Élysées.

Surely she would grow bored of this, though, if I ignored her. I kept walking.

And then my phone rang. I fished it out of my purse and looked at the display. Templeton.

“Feeling okay, love?” he asked when I answered the call.

“Templeton, why don't you come right out and ask me? You want to know if I'm still afraid of dying. If I'm still having panic attacks.”

There was a pause. “I'm attempting to be sensitive.”

“And I appreciate that. Still, the answer is yes.”

“Yes, you're okay? Or yes, you're still afraid?”

“Well, I had a panic attack the other day, when I was on a rooftop, if that helps you.”

Silence. “Well, in that case I've got a little good news.”

“That, I could use.”

“Your professor Atworthy will be in Paris this weekend,” Templeton said. I had told Templeton about Atworthy's past. I had told him he'd helped me in deciding to come to Paris to confront my fears. “It might be good to talk to him again, get some advice on dealing with this fear. It's obviously a forte of his.”

“How do you know he's going to be here?”

“Tsk, tsk. What little faith, Flower. I know
everything,
” he said.

I laughed.

“He's coming to the City of Lights for his niece's wedding,” Templeton said. “You could see him then somehow.”

“Templeton, I've got so many things I have to do to prep for this job—”

“Stop. Catherine, this is not a suggestion. You are going. His assistant said he is going to be in Paris for only twenty-four hours, and his schedule is packed. But surely you two can find a little time. Call him and set it up.”

He was right. There was no way I would be able to get through what I needed to without a little more help.

I hung up and walked several more blocks, getting closer to the Four Seasons. I turned down an alley, a shortcut to the hotel.

But as soon as I made the turn, I realized I'd chosen the wrong alley. This one was a dead end. It was shadow filled, littered with garbage bins, and cut off from the surrounding streets.

Then I heard footsteps behind me.

I exhaled through my nose.
Not in the mood, Brooke.
I turned to face her and send her on her way.

But when I turned, there was no Brooke. Instead, blocking the entrance to the alley stood Sean Reilly. The other thief who had been casing the Hope.

All my blood drained through my legs to my toes.

He stood there staring at me, observing me with a clinical detachment. I became acutely aware of how alone I was.

“So, Cat Montgomery,” he said with a clipped voice. “It looks like we've got a problem. You and I seem to want the same thing.”

It took every ounce of intestinal fortitude not to step back. I had to stand my ground. “I don't know what you mean,” I said, willing my voice to stay strong. Everything Templeton had told me about Reilly was surfacing in my brain, crumbling my nerve.
Rotten, unscrupulous, not afraid to use violence . . .

“Don't treat me like I'm stupid,
Cat.
” There was something creepy about the way he used my name in such a familiar way. I felt violated somehow. “I know what you're doing here in Paris. And I know you know who
I
am. I know you accessed my file.”

My brain was churning. Who did he work for? How did he know about me?

He took a few slow steps toward me. An immediate adrenaline blast helped me locate escape options—through a door near the back, which might be unlocked, or maybe up the wall somehow—and sent a surge of blood to the muscles of my legs. Ready to run. Or fight.

“You cannot get the Hope,” he said. “And you can only interfere with the plans of people who can. So leave it alone.” His lips were tight as he spoke. “I'm trying to be nice about it. But you will soon find out . . .
I'm not all that nice.
”

 

When I returned to my hotel a while later, Ethan was waiting for me in the lobby. He was seated in an armchair, looking at his phone.

“Good timing,” he said cheerfully as I walked in. Then he really looked at me. “What's wrong?” he asked, serious now. He stood and moved toward me.

“I just had an encounter with Sean Reilly.”

Ethan knew exactly who I was talking about. He raked me with his eyes. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I'm fine. I'm not hurt,” I said. “He didn't touch me. He just warned me to stay away from the Hope and then walked away.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Well, that's good . . . that you're not hurt, anyway.”

I looked up at him. “What am I going to do about Reilly?”

“Are you going to back off?” he asked, gazing into my eyes.

“You know I can't.”

Ethan shrugged. “Then don't worry about him. Just keep moving forward.”

I nodded. “I need a drink.”

“Coming right up.”

We walked through the lounge to take a seat at the bar. Once I had a vodka martini in front of me, and once Ethan knew I was okay, he started grinning again. I could tell he had something good to tell me. He could barely contain himself.

I sucked on a vodka-soaked olive as Ethan described visiting the prison. And shared the only piece of useful information he'd gleaned: a name, Lafayette.

“Lafayette? Who is it?”

“Well, I didn't know at first,” Ethan said, leaning toward me on his bar stool. “But then I started looking into it, doing some digging. And I found that Lafayette was the name of a security guard at the Louvre who was instrumental in busting Bruno.”

“But in prison Bruno said he was a backstabber,” I said as the pieces began to fall together. I shifted in my seat and did my best to ignore the incredibly appealing scent of Ethan's cologne.

“Yes. So I'm thinking, this prison guard was helping him out. Up to a certain point, anyway.”

“Maybe he was a plant. Someone setting Bruno up, like an entrapment sting.”

Ice cubes clinked in the glass as Ethan took a sip of his whiskey and narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Possible. But the thing is, Lafayette still works at the Louvre. If he had any kind of official capacity, wouldn't he have been reassigned if he had been undercover? I had Gladys pull up some of his performance reviews as an employee of the Louvre. Seems to be a fairly disgruntled employee. Bad attitude, frequently late, that kind of thing.”

“So, if he's a disgruntled guard, he may be motivated to help a thief.”

“He did it once before, it seems. I think something must have gone wrong, and he panicked and blew the whistle on the guy.”

I drained my martini glass. “So this is someone we could not trust.”

“Trust? No. Get information from? Maybe.” Ethan beamed and raised an eyebrow.

“Hmm. Interesting.”

The next day, Ethan went off to see what he could make of the lead, and I got ready to attend a wedding.

Or, more specifically, to crash a wedding.

When I'd called Professor Atworthy, he'd said it would be impossible for me to see him while he was in Paris the next day.

“I'm sorry, Cat. I just won't have time. My niece is—what is that term?—a bridezilla. She has booked out every minute with various family activities.”

My only option? To crash the wedding and try to speak to him there. I was in trouble, I needed help, and I needed it fast.

I dressed in my best wedding-crashing outfit: a navy silk Alexander McQueen, cocktail length. Not so much swagger to draw undue attention, and just enough swank to blend in.

I hired a car to take me to Vaux-le-Vicomte, a seventeenth-century château just outside Paris. A fairly opulent venue for a wedding, but evidently, this was a bride who would settle for nothing less.

Fortunately, I wasn't totally inexperienced when it came to crashing weddings. Receptions were traditionally a fabulous opportunity for a little pickpocketing work. I'd had many assignments at weddings. It was refreshing to be able to use my skills for less directly nefarious purposes.

Walking in, all I could see was jewelry. Bling this, sparkly that, it was enough to throw my concentration. The air rippled with the sound of a string quartet and the lush scent of white peonies by the thousands. An ice sculpture shimmered beneath a glittering chandelier.

Crashing a wedding requires a few things. You have to look the part, of course. You need to know the dress code. Furthermore, you need to behave naturally. No furtive behavior, no hiding from people. And under no circumstances should you attempt to sneak in. Just stroll in like you were invited.

Of course, nobody will recognize you, but how different is that from many of the weddings you attend? Don't be unnerved by people wondering who you are. Just smile with an expression that suggests you're wondering who
they
are.

And this approach was working for me today at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Right until I encountered the wedding planner.

The bride might be bridezilla, but the planner was equal parts drill sergeant, gestapo, and inner-city vice principal.

I was standing among a group of people signing the guest book when I got yanked out of the crowd and interrogated in a caustic rain of French. A rough translation of her words went something like this: “Who are you? I do not know you. Are you an invited guest? I do not think so. Wait here. I am going to find out exactly who you are.”

Waiting was not going to work for me. Because waiting wouldn't get me any closer to talking with Atworthy.

So I watched the wedding planner disappear through an arching doorway into the Grand Salon. And then, when nobody was looking, I slipped along the foyer and through side doors into the ballroom. Guests dressed in Valentino and Versace were mingling, sipping champagne. Waiters wove through the crowd, offering lacquered trays of hors d'oeuvres.

Now I was doing a trickier maneuver. I had to keep one eye searching for my target—Atworthy—and one eye on the lookout for the wedding planner.

I programmed my brain to register green—the color the wedding planner was wearing. Anything green in my peripheral or direct vision would trigger an alarm. Likewise, I needed a quick change of outfit. There was a sky-blue pashmina resting on the back of a chair. I casually swiped it as I walked by and wrapped it over my shoulders.

That should help a little.

As I walked, I surreptitiously tugged at the pins holding my bun together and let my hair fall down. Good. Another little change. Each of these should buy me a few minutes, anyway.

I saw the wedding planner speaking urgently to the father of the bride, and the two of them angrily looking about the room. I assumed they were looking for me.

And I must say, this was a lot more hostility than I typically received during a party-crashing effort. But I soon figured it out.

In the meantime, I needed to attach myself to a group. I scanned for appropriate candidates. There was a small clutch of women nearby—not my first choice. I usually had a little more luck with men, but I didn't have many options at the moment. I needed to join a herd, where I could safely look around the room for Atworthy, while avoiding the hunting gaze of the wedding planner.

I approached the women, plucking an unattended glass of wine off the table as I went. I had no intention of drinking it; I just needed something to hold in my hand.

Now, if I were actually looking to make friends, I'd perhaps introduce myself. As it was, I just wanted to gather into the circle unobtrusively. So I sidled up to them and smiled politely, as though we were distant acquaintances. They were in the middle of an animated conversation, in rapid French, about babies.

This was somewhat unfortunate, as it was a topic I knew nothing about. I caught a few fragments on sleep-training techniques and then a little something about toilet training. Was parenting just a series of training exercises? Some of the women had passionate viewpoints on both topics, which I found fascinating, because I was sweating with the effort to seem even mildly interested.

I grew increasingly uncomfortable as it became obvious I was not contributing in any way to this conversation. One or two of the women looked my way with curiosity, and perhaps mild suspicion. I had to join in. I had to say something, or this was not going to work.

Glancing at the woman beside me, I grasped at an opener. “So when is
your
baby due?” I asked in French, smiling brightly.