Little Death by the Sea (2 page)

She looked at her image in the hotel room
mirror and saw a fleeting hologram of her sister Elise’s face form
and dissolve. Maggie fought the feeling of melancholia that
accompanied it. She tucked her purse under her arm and hurried
downstairs and out of the lobby of the
Gray d’Albion
Hotel.

One of five seafood restaurants studding the
Rue Felix-Faire, Petite Bouche was tiny, frill-less, staffed with
the prerequisite surly waiters and absolutely crammed with
Mediterranean charm. She and Roger had chosen the little café,
because it was so close to Maggie’s hotel.

He sat where she had left him thirty minutes
before, a second wine bottle being opened as she approached.

“Everything all right?” He half-stood as she
neared.

“I guess so.” She sat down and pushed her
dinner plate away. “My Mother doesn’t know what to make of all
this.” She waved her hand at the dining room. “Me, here in Cannes,
I mean. You.” She looked directly at him.

“I should think not.” Roger reseated himself
and poured Maggie a glass of wine. “Not the usual thing at
all.”

Maggie stared at their dining table as if
she’d never seen it before, and hadn’t spent an unanticipated two
and a half hours having dinner at it. A blue chipped crock of goose
paté
, a platter of half-eaten
pommes frites
,
mushrooms
Provençal
, the ubiquitous Evian bottles (four of
them), and the remains of two platefuls of veal and pasta. She
looked at Roger. Do people not talk much about gluttony these days,
she wondered? Her eye fell upon the pretty white saucers with the
little primroses painted on them, each looking like an original,
not part of a set. She pressed a finger to the crumbs, only a
scattering of evidence to tell of the sticky-sweet strawberry tarts
they’d both had.

“So, tell me again how you know all you
know.” Maggie accepted the wine glass. “How you came to be driving
the getaway car, how you know Nicole’s father...and where is the
slimy bastard now?”

“The ‘slimy bastard’ is no longer on the Cote
D’Azure, I’m told.” Roger took a savoring sip of his wine and
Maggie half-expected him to smack his lips in satisfaction. “He’d
taken the child about five or six months ago—”

“I know. Elise called me to say Gerard had
kidnapped Nicole.”

“Yes, quite. I’m really not sure to what
purpose. Perhaps they’d had a quarrel? At any rate, a friend of
mine asked me to help him. It seems his...cousin, Gerard Dubois,
desperately wanted his child. He said the mother was a real
wretch—I’m just repeating what he said, you understand...”

“It’s okay,” Maggie said, feeling a wave of
exhaustion. “Please, go on.”

“Well, he said that the mother was a drug
addict. I was asked to give assistance in snatching the child so
that it might live with its more responsible parent.”

“Gerard.”

“Right-e-ho.” Roger squinted into the crowd
as if expecting to see someone he knew, then played with the stem
of his wineglass. “In any case,” he continued, “my participation in
the ‘kidnapping’, as you call it, amounted to driving a car to an
address—“

“My sister’s apartment here in Cannes.”

“As it turned out, yes. I waited in the car
with the motor running. My friend came out of the apartment with
the child in his arms. He deposited
l’enfant
in the car and
I departed.” He shrugged and took a sip of his wine.

“Gerard didn’t get in too?”

“Ah, no. He remained behind. But the
cousin...my friend...was in the car with me and he calmed the child
during our ride.”

“Where did you take her?”

“To an apartment near here, actually. A woman
was waiting for us...a jolly nice woman, it seemed to me. And she
took the girl. That’s it.”

“Were you paid?”

“I was helping a friend.”

“I see. Will you take me to this
address?”

“If you like, Miss Newberry, but I must tell
you that the child is no longer there.”

“How do you know?”

Bentley sighed and motioned to the
garçon
hovering in the wings of the café.

“I know, Miss Newberry, because I just do.”
He turned and spoke briefly to the waiter, his French clumsy and
abrupt. The man disappeared. “Look, she’s not there but I believe I
know where to find her and isn’t that the whole point?”

“I’d like to see this place that you took
her. Is it a permanent address? I mean, does that woman live there
all the time or was it just a temporary thing?”

The waiter returned with another bottle of
red wine and two chilled bottles of Evian. He deposited the mineral
water, one at each of their elbows, and began to decant the wine.
Bentley watched the man intently, as if ready to jump in and do the
job himself if necessary. Bentley was handsome, Maggie decided, but
his features were sharp, nearly hawk-like, and she wondered if, in
spite of his good looks, many women found him attractive.

Finally, the waiter poured the wine and left.
Maggie reached out and touched Bentley’s hand as he reached for his
glass.

“You said on the phone to my father that
Gerard was a very bad man.”

Bentley looked at her sadly.

“I did not know it at the time,” he said.

“But he is bad.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Newberry. The child is, in
my opinion, in some danger by remaining with Dubois. He is a drug
addict, he beats the girl...”

“He’s had her now for almost six months.”

“Yes. I would say that time is probably
critical. Wouldn’t you?” He looked at her kindly.

“She is...” Maggie looked around the
restaurant as if expecting to see Gerard and her niece seated
nearby. “She is in Cannes?”

“Or nearby. Probably not right in Cannes.
Surely you must be aware by now of the cost of one room for one
night in this town? I imagine, as Monsieur Dubois didn’t have a
pied-a-terre
here himself—and probably wouldn’t have been
foolish enough to have taken the girl there even if he had—the girl
is somewhere in the country, a remote village, probably.”

“And that’s where she’s been all this
time?”

“Presumably.”

“And you think you’ll be able to find this
place?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“May I ask how?”

“Why don’t we see how things go, shall we? I
hate to tip my hand—and by doing so, get your hopes up—if things go
awry. Let me try a few avenues, knock on a few doors that I know
of, and see where they lead.”

“I’d like to be a part of this door-knocking,
if you don’t mind.”

“I’m afraid that would be impossible, Miss
Newberry.” Bentley pushed aside their collection of dishes and
glasses and drew an ashtray nearer to him. “I would suggest instead
that you try to enjoy what the South of France can offer you. Hire
a car and see the palace at Monaco tomorrow.” He lit his cigarette
and exhaled a cloud of gray-blue smoke into the air above her head.
“There are some enchanting little villages along the way, I
personally recommend
Villefranche
—a charming little place,
or
Juan les Pins
, you remember the song? Do a little
sight-seeing and let me see what I can uncover. If it turns out we
are successful, you will have to leave the country fairly quickly
with a person who will possess false identifications, and a forged
American passport. It would be best if you were as uninvolved as
possible until that time.”

Maggie nodded. Although technically
possessing dual citizenship, Nicole would still classify as a
kidnap victim if Maggie were caught leaving the country with
her.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said.

He nodded solemnly.

“I’m absolutely right. Just leave it to me,
Miss Newberry. If all goes well, by this time tomorrow night, you
will have your niece, her forged papers and two tickets back home
to the U.S. Everything neat and tidy. Neat and tidy.”

Maggie stared off into space, across the
tables of diners and into the happy nighttime streets of Cannes.
Black gypsies, bejangled and braided, waved their wares of
bracelets and bells, beaded necklaces and earrings from the street
in hopes of attracting attention. Some accompanied their selling
with strumming on guitars and soft crooning that caught on the calm
Mediterranean breeze and wafted back to Maggie as she sat at her
table. The music of the night mingled with the scent of olives and
lemons and dusky perfumes that pooled in the open-air café.

4

“Maggie, I need you.”

“Of course, I’ll help. You know I will. Just
tell me what you want.”

“I need you here with me.”

“Be reasonable, Elise. I can’t just pick up
and go. I’ve got responsibilities here. A job—“

“He’s taken her and I don’t know where she is
and it’s been days now. My little girl, my
petite
, wee
chou
...”

“Elise, please, pull yourself together. You
should call the police. Have you done that yet?”

“I need you here, Maggie. I’m so sorry I
haven’t been in touch with you or Mother or Dad in so long. It’s
not that I don’t love you or didn’t want to be with you...”

“Elise, listen to me! You must call the
police if Gerard has stolen Nicole. They can help, I can’t. Don’t
you see that?”

“
Ma petite poupee, mon ange, petite
Nicki-nicki...”

Maggie sat up in bed, the sounds of her
sister’s weeping seemed to ring throughout the hotel room. “Nickie
Nickie Nickie Nickie Nickie Nickie Nickie Nickie Nickie...”

Maggie pulled back the duvet and scrambled
out of bed. She flipped on the light in the bathroom and stood,
breathless, on the cool tile as she waited for her heart to stop
pounding.
Oh, Elise
, she thought.
I’m so sorry! I’m so
sorry, so sorry!
She leaned against the bathroom door and
closed her eyes. Elise would have been so close now. Just around
the corner and down a street. Right there, with geraniums in the
window.

Maggie opened her eyes and looked at her
reflection in the warped mirror over the bathroom sink. Oh, Elise.
Except for the hysterical call from her six months before, they
hadn’t heard from her in almost two years. At the age of
twenty-nine, Elise had dropped out of sight, with only the
briefest, most painful glimpses of her filtering back to them in
Georgia: Elise has dropped out of her art classes. Elise has had a
baby. Elise was arrested. Drugs? Prostitution? Assault? The news
was always vague and always indicting.

Her parents had been distraught. Embarrassed
too? wondered Maggie. Were they awkward about Elise at the Cherokee
Country Club? Did everyone know that John and Elspeth Newberry’s
eldest daughter was a drugged-out flake with an illegitimate
child?

Maggie rubbed her hands over her eyes and
turned out the bathroom light. She went back to the bed, her head
throbbing. But Elise had had the last word. Hadn’t she always
managed to do that, even when they were kids? Whether it was an
undisturbed night’s sleep or an unselfconscious walk across the
tennis courts of her parents’ country club, Elise had made sure
that things would—undeniably, irretrievably—never be quite the same
again.

Chapter 2

1

Maggie jabbed a sliver of toast into her
eggcup. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an eye-to-eye
reaction. If he were going to eliminate her involvement in this
important adventure—and she was absolutely aware that he could do
it and she would accept it—she could at least let him know she
wasn’t happy about it. Heck, for fifteen thousand dollars, he can
damn well care how I feel.

“I can’t say how long, exactly, negotiations
will take.” Roger looked starched and smart in the late-morning
swelter. He flapped his cotton napkin out flat across his lap and
smiled across the table at Maggie. He had, again, chosen their
meeting place, the sunny and fairly private outdoor dining deck of
yet another famous, old Cannes hotel, the Majestic.

“Might be a few days, actually. Need to be
prepared to wait. All good things, and all that.” He smiled
brightly at her and then reached over to pour his coffee. “But I’m
very happy with my plan—“

“Which you feel no need to divulge to me.”
Maggie stared at her speared egg-cup, the toast point weakening at
the base and beginning to collapse into the murky yellow.

“No, no, I can’t say that I do. I hope you
understand. I feel that I’m protecting you, Maggie.”

Maggie felt a pinch of annoyance at Bentley’s
use of her Christian name but shook herself out of it. He was
friendly enough and he certainly was doing her—and her whole
family—a service that she’d be hard-pressed to find someone else to
do. She looked at him quickly, and then back at her plate. In fact,
if he hadn’t called her father in the States, her family might not
even have gotten this far on the road to finding Elise’s child.
Before the phone call, they had had no idea where the child might
be. In fact, to assuage that awful helplessness, her parents—and
Maggie too—had decided to try to believe that Nicole was happy in
France—if not in Elise’s custody, then, with her father. Bentley
had put an end to that little fantasy with one phone call. He
convinced Maggie’s father that not only had Elise disappeared,
dropped out of the world, but that Gerard was a man who would
corrupt and eventually destroy the child. He had insisted that he,
Roger, could locate the child for them, and, in a single phone
call, the Englishman had galvanized the Newberry clan into action.
No, if Roger Bentley hadn’t called and offered to help them find
and retrieve the girl, Maggie certainly wouldn’t be sitting here in
the hotel dining room of the shabby and unmistakably elegant
Majestic Hotel in Cannes, France.

Roger attacked his breakfast with gusto,
spreading the delicate French jellies onto his croissants with
almost exaggerated hand movements, carving up his sausage and
broiled tomatoes as if he didn’t expect to eat this well again for
a very long time.