Getting Old Is Très Dangereux: A Mystery (7 page)

“Please. I beg you. Is someone here?”

The Snake is poised to go after her should she try to run. But no, she seems to have calmed down. He hears the heels clicking again
.

As quickly as she can, she climbs the ladder with her few books in one hand. She thrusts them on the shelf and starts to step down
.

Now! The Snake leans from his hiding place behind the bookcase and pushes. He hears the redhead gasp as she feels the bookcase vibrating. She tries to steady it, but she realizes someone is there, pushing it toward her. She tries to hurry back down the ladder. But The Snake gives her no chance as she suddenly feels herself tilting backwards. Both arms go out instinctively to stop the now quickly falling bookcase with all its books tumbling out
.

The Snake imagines the look of helpless horror on her face as the bookcase slams his victim to the ground. Her screams die inside her. The job is done
.

AFTERMATH

“G
laddy, are you sure I should leave?” Evvie hesitates at my door.

“It’s all right. The babysitter may go home now. Thank you for playing ten endless rounds of Spite and Malice to keep me company.”

“Thank you for letting me win. Not because you played the cards badly, but because you weren’t concentrating. As if I didn’t know where your mind was.”

How right she is. All I can think about is why Jack isn’t home yet. How long can a signing take? I gently push her out the door.

“All right. I get the hint. See you in the morning. And don’t worry.”

After Evvie leaves, I curl up on the couch and
watch another rerun of
Lost
. My favorite show. I admit I’m still hooked on the adventures of the once-stranded islanders. But this time it doesn’t distract me. Not even the sexy Sawyer or Sayid hold my attention. I can’t stop myself from looking at my wall clock every few minutes. I give up. I’m going to bed.

I turn all the lights off in the apartment except for a night-light. When Jack finally arrives home all is silent except for the dishwasher in its last rinse cycle. I listen to him tiptoe into the dark bedroom so as not to wake me. But I am up. Believe me, I would have waited all night, if necessary, for his return.

I’m turned on my side, pretending to be asleep. I don’t want to talk to him right now. He probably knows I’m faking it and he’s undoubtedly thankful. I hear the rustling of material as he takes off his clothes. Then he is in the bathroom. Naturally, I’m curious about what happened and why he is late. But I’m afraid if I discuss it now, I might handle it badly and maybe say all the wrong things. Better to sleep on it.

Jack climbs into bed behind me and snuggles his naked body close to mine, reaching his arm around my waist. Our favorite sleeping position. Do I smell perfume on him? I’m not sure. I don’t want to know. In moments I hear him snoring lightly.

Now that my ship is back safely in its harbor, I can sleep as well.

But it seems I’ve only just drifted off when the phone rings. We both stir.

“Please, you answer it,” I tell Jack in my barely awake state. One open eye glances at the clock; it’s only five
A.M.
Then I become more alert. No one phones at this time of night unless it’s bad news. Oh, my God, has something happened to one of our children?

I hear Jack’s voice, full of tension. “When? Where? Yes, of course I’ll come right away.”

He jumps out of the bed and hurries to the closet he shares with me.

It couldn’t be family. All of our clan are up north in New York. It’s someone close by. Oh, no … one of the girls … ?

“What’s wrong?” I’m definitely awake now. “Who’s in trouble … ?”

Jack struggles into his clothes. “It’s Michelle. Her niece Colette has been very badly hurt. She’s unconscious. Michelle is afraid she might die.” As he runs out the door, he calls back to me. “I’ll call as soon as I know more.”

Great. No way I can fall back to sleep now.

Jack stands in the hallway outside Colette’s cubicle in ICU watching Michelle, who is sitting at her
niece’s bedside and softly crying. It is very quiet in the hospital. Patients are still asleep. The only person around is a slightly built older man in a white jacket dusting the floorboards along the corridor. Nurses are preparing medication doses. Breakfast will follow soon after. Doctors will make their rounds. After that, there will be a lot of activity. Another nurse comes by with a bouquet of flowers for one of her patients. The old man sneezes. Three times. Jack turns and says, “Gesundheit.”

He spots his son, Morrie, coming toward him down the hallway. The old man is still sneezing.

“What did you find out from her doctor?” Jack asks as Morrie reaches him. Detective Morgan Langford. Jack can’t help thinking with pride about his son who followed in his footsteps.

“They don’t know yet. She has a serious concussion, cracked ribs, and a fractured leg.”

“Is it possible this was an accident? Could she have pulled the shelves down on herself?”

“I went with hotel personnel to inspect the bookcase. It seems like a bolt had come out of the wall. Though they can’t understand how that could happen. They swear everything was up to code. They probably fear a lawsuit out of this.”

“Maybe she grabbed at the shelves trying to steady herself on the ladder and accidentally loosened them even further.”

“No way of knowing until she regains consciousness and tells us. If she comes out. She might remain in a coma.” Morrie glances over to Michelle. “So, this is the woman you fell in love with in Paris?”

“You remember me talking about her?”

“How could I forget? You came back a confused and agitated man. You drove us crazy. Should I have married her? Did I do the right thing leaving her? It took you forever to stop agonizing over whether you had made the right decision. She is a beauty, Dad. You weren’t exaggerating.” Morrie sees Michelle glancing out the door at him. He speaks softer. “So, you were with Gladdy when you ran into her at the book fair?”

“Unfortunately—yes.”

“Good luck with this, Dad. I see complications ahead.”

Jack sighs. “It’s already complicated.”

Michelle comes out to join the two men. Jack is pained to see how upset she is. She is beside herself. “It’s my fault. I never should have let her go alone.”

Jack tries to be comforting. “Don’t say that, Michelle. How could you possibly have known?”

Michelle clutches at his arms. “If I had been with her.”

Jack shakes his head. “Then possibly both of you would be in hospital beds now.”

“I saw how rickety that ladder was. How could
I have been so careless? I should have kept her away from it. Will she be all right?”

Morrie says, “We don’t know for sure yet. But the doctor did sound confident.”

Michelle looks at Morrie and then at Jack. “You are related?”

“Michelle, this is my son, Morgan.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. The policeman. You talked so much about him. It is terrible to meet you like this.” Michelle still holds on to Jack as Morrie takes notice and exchanges a meaningful look with his father. “Your father is the only person I know in this country. I feel so alone.”

Morrie adds his sympathetic comment. “Well, now you know two people. We’ll do all we can to help you.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m on my way back to the hotel to meet with Security.” To Jack, he says, “We’ll talk later.” With that he nods at Michelle and heads back down the hall. The hospital employee dusting the woodwork scurries out of his way.

Michelle clutches Jack even tighter. “I am so frightened.”

“I’m here for you, and my son is very good at what he does.”

“I have already called our family back home. They are distraught. They want her home. But
there is no way I can move her. She was my responsibility and I failed her.”

The tears start to fall again and Jack puts his arm around her.

“Please stay with me for a while? Please?” she begs.

“As long as you need me.”

The Snake slithers away, pulling off the white lab coat he stole from a closet, and tossing it and the dust rag into a nearby trashcan. Damn his allergy to flowers. Not that it really mattered. He has always had the ability to seem invisible, to slither in and out of people’s lives, allowing them to recognize him only when it was too late and their fate was sealed. No one has ever been able to identify him
.

But now he is furious with himself. The woman Michelle is still alive. How could he have been so stupid as to try to kill the wrong person? And he even failed at that! The niece is still alive. The red hair fooled him. No, no
, alors!
Admit it. He was told he needed glasses, but how can so famous a man as The Snake wear glasses? Absurd!

And now, to discover the woman knows
un flic—
a policeman—in this country! It complicates things, but The Snake will prevail. He manages a cruel smile. So far the authorities believe it was an accident. He will have to call his nephew, Gaston,
back in Paris. But now he has an excuse for his failure. He can tell the others he injured the niece on purpose, to separate from the target the one who is always at her side
.

He sneers at a fast-moving nurse who almost collides with him as she hurries into a patient’s room. No, perhaps he won’t call Gaston yet. He will do the job right next time. He will not miss again
.

I’m warming up for our morning exercise downstairs next to our usual patio table before the girls arrive. Why? Because I don’t want them to find an excuse to come into my apartment. Otherwise they’ll ask where Jack is and where he went so early in the morning. Since I won’t lie and say he’s still sleeping, it will open a can of peas I don’t want to open. All right. It’s not as if he didn’t check in and call me from the hospital, but there was no mention of when he’d be home. It is very small-minded of me to feel distress about Jack being there to help Michelle. And now Morrie’s showed up. I’ll bet he heard about Michelle years ago. Pretty soon my entire world, meaning all of Phase Two, will be sticking their noses into my business to find out about the mysterious gorgeous Frenchwoman who may or may not be taking Jack away from me. I love living here, but somehow privacy is not a word in anyone’s dictionary.

“You’re talking to yourself, did you know?” Evvie briskly jogs over to me as part of her warm-up. She’s wearing bright orange shorts and a green T-shirt.

“I know.”

“You’re here before Ida and Bella. The three of you always come downstairs together. Change of pattern means something’s happened.”

Here we go. I have to tell Evvie, so how can I keep it from the other girls? “Michelle’s niece Colette had a horrible accident last night.”

“Tell me.”

“Might as well wait for the others, so I don’t have to repeat it.”

“So I gather Jack is with her at the hospital.”

“Right on. Since five
A.M.”

“Fate.” Evvie leans her hands against a building wall and does arm and leg stretches. “If you hadn’t gone to that book fair, you and Jack would never have run into her. And this wouldn’t be happening.”

“And your point is?”

“No good deed goes unpunished. You shouldn’t have driven the girls to the hotel.”

“So, you think this was meant to happen? Miss Philosopher?”

Now Evvie is doing knee bends.
“Que será, será.”

Bella and Sophie, in color-coordinated sweat
suits, Sophie in yellow, Bella in pink, trot over in their imitation of jogging. Teeny tiptoe steps at a snail’s pace. Sophie stops and jogs in place. “We’re here.”

Bella immediately sits down at the nearest patio table.
Her
philosophy is why stand when you can sit.

Ida, in her usual grungy-looking gray sweats, arrives. “What’s going on? Since when do we do warm-ups downstairs?”

I fill them in, giving the same useless warning: Keep it to yourselves. I know they’ll try, but I also know they’ll slip up.

“Wow,” says Sophie.

“Me, too, wow,” says Bella.

“That’s what you get for driving them to the book fair.” Ida bends, touching her toes.

Evvie shrugs. “I rest my case.”

I hear a “Yoo-hoo, Gladdy,” coming from behind and we all look around. There’s Lola heading toward us with a woman in tow. Since when is she without Hy? And who is this strange apparition bearing down upon us? She’s about five ten and very hefty. I thought Evvie was the queen of colorful, but this babe puts her to shame. She is every color of the spectrum and that includes her hair. I can’t even describe the hairdo. It’s kind of fifties retro with a bubble top and bangs that nearly cover her face. Her dress seems like a muumuu, but isn’t.
It’s just large and bright. And she wears matching high-heeled shoes. Which seem too tight for her, since she’s wobbling on them. She carries an elephant-size purse over her shoulder. Ditto same colors. And a huge sun hat hanging from a string on her arm. Think of a very large walking rainbow.

Everyone stares.

I have a sinking feeling that this is Lola’s suggested wedding planner.

Lola plays Perle Mesta, the once-famous hostess. “Everybody, meet Trixie Tryhard, Florida’s most famous wedding planner.”