Confessions: The Paris Mysteries (21 page)

There’s more I have to tell you,
of course. So much more. Let me start with this: I’ve checked into an institution in Upper Manhattan. Waterside is something like Fern Haven, but the doctors here are trying to help me, not experiment on me, and going for treatment was
my
idea.

Still, Waterside is kind of a madhouse. There is no cone of silence here. I hear screams of people enduring detox, doctors being paged at all hours, sirens, and all the noise that is the backdrop of the city that never sleeps.

At Jacob’s insistence, Private has stationed a twenty-four-hour rotation of armed guards, and someone is always right outside my room.

Sometimes I feel safe.

But the gory death tableau in the Escalade haunts me night and day. At first, it was hard to identify the crushed bodies, but finally, I recognized the driver. He was one of Royal Rampling’s goons, who had boiled out of that SUV on the Place du Carrousel in an attempt to separate James and me.

The dead man in the passenger seat was Royal Rampling, none other. He had personally fired on the Town Car, had personally tried to shoot me. And now he was gone for good.

But Peter Angel is still alive, and he could be anywhere. He is still a threat to me and everyone I love. Sometimes, when I sleep, it feels as if he’s a gargoyle perched on my headboard, leering as I dream.

As for my treatment, I’ve been diagnosed with “extreme exhaustion,” or as the admitting physician said to me, “You’ve undergone more stress in the last few months than most people experience in a lifetime. You need a break, Tandy.”

But I wasn’t going to get it yet.

Day one, while I was still shaking from stress, I got a note in the form of a greeting card: flowers on the outside, some words printed on the inside,
Thinking of you.

Then there was a message. I could hardly keep my eyes on the tangle of words in a handwriting I recognized.

Reading C.P.’s words hurt in so many ways, I couldn’t begin to list them.

I skimmed the rest of C.P.’s note in one painful flash. She wrote that she wanted to visit me and that she would make everything up to me and that she would work hard to prove to me that we could be friends again.

By the time I got to the
X
s and
O
s, I was ripping mad, crazy mad, feeling a rage like I’d never felt before. Maybe it was not just anger at C.P. and at James, but unexpressed fury at my parents and my uncle Peter all rolled up into this one rotten thing.

I’d been savagely betrayed by so many people I had loved.

I was even furious at
myself
for ever loving any of them.

I crumpled C.P.’s disgusting card; then I straightened it out so
that I could shred it into tiny pieces. When all that was left of C.P.’s spidery apology was a pile of confetti, I scooped it into my fist and then flushed every word down the toilet.

I felt relieved.

But I was still a mess.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from
an address I didn’t recognize. I was about to delete it, but for some reason—boredom, curiosity, gut instinct—I clicked it open.

The subject line read, “Someone I want you to meet.”

The body of the e-mail contained only a link to a video—but not so fast.
Who
, exactly, wanted me to meet
whom
? Was this hate mail from Peter? Had Mr. Rampling sent another threat in the form of a virus, this time from the grave? Was C.P. trying to reach me again?

For better or for worse, I was curious. And so, with great trepidation, I clicked on the link.

The video opened on a close-up of a darling baby in a carrier. He was wearing blue, and between giggles, he beat the air with
his little hands and cooed. At the halfway mark of the twenty-second clip, another face came on the screen.

It was Katherine.

She said, “Tandoo, meet your nephew, George. He’s the sweetest little boy in the world and also very, very special. I’m going to tell him all about you.”

The baby was gorgeous, and he had Katherine’s eyes.
My
eyes.

Katherine looked at me through my computer screen and breathed, “I love you.” She grinned and kissed the baby’s hand. They both waved—and the screen went black.

Tears shot out of my eyes.

I played the video over and over again, each time feeling elated, connected, renewed, and yes,
curious
.

Kath had said that George was very special. In what way? I was aching to see him, to hold him, and to know more. And I haven’t told this to anyone before now.

I swear I
will
see Katherine again if it’s the last thing I ever do. That’s part of my plan for the future.

And when I have more to tell, I promise I’ll confess all.

Your sadder, smarter, and cautiously hopeful friend,

Tandoori Angel

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