Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer (13 page)

Back in the room, Hannah was in a rage because Armand hadn’t returned her calls or texts. Trying to avoid attracting her attention, I changed out of my rained-on clothes and borrowed Peely’s laptop to see if I could find anything online about the Order of the Key. But every lead took me to a dead end. There were offhand mentions of the various families, usually in the context of accompanying the king on a diplomatic trip or being present at the signing of a treaty or whatever, but nothing that linked them together … and nothing at all that linked them to the queen.

At dinnertime, Hannah declared that she was going to order room service and watch the DVDs she’d brought from home. Pilar ordered from room service, too, but I said I’d go down to the café and grab some food.

“It’s all the same food,” Hannah said scornfully.

It’s not the same at all
, I thought.
It’s free.

I endured her eye rolls and made it to the café just as the waiters were making their rounds.

“Colette, over here.” Audrey waved to me from the small table where she and Brynn were sitting. I wove through the tables and stood behind one of the chairs.

“Are you alone?” Brynn asked. “Sit with us.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m not eating here…. I’m going to get my food to go.”

I ignored their quizzical expressions but pulled a chair out and sat down.

“I love that dress,” Brynn said. “Is it vintage?”

I nodded. I was wearing a simple black-and-white rayon dress, loosely cut, with buttons down the front, and over it, a short, structured black jacket. I’d found both of them at the thrift store. What Brynn (or Hannah or Pilar) didn’t know is that my so-called vintage clothes weren’t
designer
vintage. Most of them had labels from brands my friends would never be caught dead in.

“It must be so fun to shop with you,” Brynn said. “Like a treasure hunt.”

“I hate shopping,” Audrey said. “I just wear whatever my grandmother buys me … except the dresses. I have like fifteen dresses in my closet gathering dust.”

“I walk into the Gap, find a mannequin I like, and buy everything the mannequin is wearing,” Brynn said. “Baa, baa.”

“If I could figure out how to dress like Colette, I would try harder,” Audrey said. “But what’s the point? And I don’t want to end up looking like I obeyed the corporate mall overlords. No offense, Brynn.”

Brynn laughed. “I welcome the guidance of our evil corporate overlords.”

“It’s not that complicated,” I said. “You just follow your instincts.”

Audrey sighed. “Easy for you to say. My fashion instincts are defective. I don’t know the first thing about what color goes with what pattern, or whatever.”

“I could help you sometime,” I said, without meaning to.

“Really?” Audrey was looking at me like I’d offered her a pony. “That would be really cool. It would make my mom’s entire year.”

I shrugged, but inside I was already wondering (a) what I’d just done, and (b) how to get out of it.

Before I could say anything else, the waiter came to take our orders. I asked for a ham and cheese quiche, and then Audrey started talking about French food, and nobody said anything else about clothes.

I was halfway through my meal before I remembered that I was supposed to be going back to the suite to eat with Hannah and Peely. I stopped short, my fork hovering in midair.

“What’s wrong?” Audrey asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost or something.”

Um.

“I was supposed to get this to go,” I said. “I totally forgot.”

“That’s not a big deal, though, is it?” Brynn asked.

“Hannah’s in a bad mood already,” I said, starting to stand.

“At least finish eating,” Brynn said. “She’s got Pilar in her clutches; she can’t be mad that you ate dinner, can she?”

I didn’t answer. But not answering felt like making a giant confession about my friendship with Hannah.

Brynn and Audrey exchanged a quick glance, and that one little moment contained an eternity of shame and humiliation for me. A warmth spread up through my face, and I hoped the lights were too low for them to see me blushing.

“Colette, don’t take this the wrong way …” Audrey spoke slowly, cautiously. “But do you really need Hannah in your life?”

The warmth reached my ears and turned to heat. “She’s my friend,” I said. “I know she’s a little high maintenance sometimes, but you don’t ditch people based on little flaws.”

“Hannah would,” Brynn said shortly.

Audrey gave Brynn a look. “Colette’s right. You have to decide how much you’re going to put up with.”

I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with either of them. “Thanks for letting me sit with you. I’d better get back upstairs.”

I left my plate of half-eaten food and walked out of the café. But I made it only halfway to the stairs before someone moved into my path.

“
Bonsoir
,” Armand said, smiling down at me.

I took a step back, Peely’s warning echoing in my head.

“Hannah’s upstairs,” I said.

“I am not here to see Hannah,” he purred. “You called me, so I came.”

I stood up straighter, not letting my guard down for a millisecond. “You could have called me back … you know, on a phone?”

“It is time to tell you about
La Clé
.” He gently took hold of my arm. “It will be better to do it face-to-face.”

I looked up at him warily. “Like, really tell me, or just drop a bunch of mysterious hints?”

His laugh echoed off the lobby walls. One of the girls at the reception desk glanced up in curiosity and then popped to attention when she saw him. You couldn’t blame her. He looked like a movie star.

“No hints,” he said. “I will tell you everything I know.”

I sighed. If Hannah came downstairs I’d be in huge trouble … but what were the chances of that happening? Still, I nudged him toward a little sitting area that wasn’t visible from the elevators.

“Five minutes,” I said. “I have to get back to Hannah.”

“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “I will deal with that later. So what do you know about the order?”

I told him about finding the building and the names on the engraved plaques in the basement. “I guess that means our families knew each other.”

“They were very rich, very powerful, and very closely tied together,” he said. “They knew each other intimately.”

The sound of the word
intimately
in his French accent sent shivers through me.

“But that was more than two hundred years ago. What difference does it make now?” I asked.

Armand clasped his hands, interweaving his fingers. “We are bound together. Our families are linked, and we can preserve that. We need to claim our birthright, and we must all act together to do so.”

“What do you mean, claim our birthright?”

He unclasped his fingers and relaxed. “I did some research on you. Your father is Leo Iselin, heir of the Iselin estate, and the rightful owner of the title of
Duc de Broglie
.”