Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer (24 page)

A BURST OF coolness traveled through my body like electricity, quickly blossoming into a pulse of pain. I gasped, feeling my arms and legs suddenly spring back to life.

“Colette?” Pilar cried, rushing over. “Are you okay? Do you need me to —”

“If you can help me,” I said, air rushing back into my lungs, “I think I can get out.”

She came closer and looked down at me in horror. “That thing must weigh a thousand pounds.”

“Yeah, but …” I wiggled around a little and found room to move. “Here, take my hands and pull.”

She hauled me out, and after I sat for a minute and caught my breath, we looked under the shelves.

Tipped on its side, supporting the weight of the giant piece of furniture, was the queen’s music box.

It began to play.

“Um, Colette? I don’t think I know where we are. Or how I got here. How did all these candles get lit?” She looked around at the lights, which were growing fainter. “And … how did you learn so much French all of a sudden?”

“What?” I asked.

“You were speaking French,” she said. “For, like … the whole time.”

“Let’s go, and I’ll try to explain when we’re out of here, okay? I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

We left the cottage and stood out in the night air for a minute, watching the flashlights bob around in the distance.

“I think they’re looking for us,” Pilar said.

“They definitely are.”

“Well … we could go out the back way,” she suggested, pointing off to our right. “I saw it on the map the other day. See the cars? That’s a road.”

I nodded. “Good idea. I just need to do one thing.”

I reached around my neck and took off the medallion. Then I walked to the edge of the pond and threw it into the water. It landed with a soft
plink
and sank out of view.

Then we started walking. And as we walked, I started talking.

I don’t know exactly how much Peely believed, but she listened to the whole thing and then didn’t say a word. She just patted me on the shoulder.

“I was so afraid you were dying,” she said.

“Me, too.”

She stopped and faced me. “So this does have something to do with Armand? And the murders?”

I nodded. “But I think those are over.”

Then I remembered to check for the mark on my arm — it was gone. So was the mark on Pilar’s. I could breathe again.

When we reached the road, I asked Pilar to use her phone (Mathilde’s was buried forever in the tunnel) to call Jules. She answered his panicky questions and told him where we were. In three minutes flat, he pulled up and drove us back to the hotel. We explained everything to him, and he kept looking at me, taking my hand, like he couldn’t believe I was real.

“I’ll have to find a way to pay for the dress,” I said. “And your sister’s phone.”

Jules shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll pay,” Pilar said from her spot in the backseat. “You ruined them saving me.”

“Thanks, Peely,” I said.

She gave me a little smile. “You’re welcome.”

At the hotel, we went to Audrey’s room, where she was waiting, her fingernails chewed to nubs. We told her the whole story, and as she listened, her mouth dropped farther and farther open.

“Just to be clear,” she said, when I’d finally finished. “You’re not just messing with me?”

But by the look in her eyes, I could tell she was joking. That broke through a bit of the stunned shell that had hardened around me, and I was able to laugh — just a little.

“But it’s over?” she said.

“I hope so.”

Pilar sat up and folded her hands in her lap. “I know I’m not very smart, but —”

“Stop saying stuff like that about yourself,” I said.

“Well — about ghosts and whatever, I mean,” she said, but I could tell she was pleased. “But I was there, and I saw her, and I think she’s done murdering people. She looked really peaceful at the end.”

Audrey sighed. “That’s good.”

I tried to hold in a giant yawn, but it forced its way out. “I think I need to take a shower and get some sleep.”

“You should stay here,” Audrey said. “That way you don’t have to face Hannah.”

“Oh,
Hannah
.” Pilar frowned. “I forgot about her. I’m not looking forward to dealing with her.”

I wasn’t, either. Audrey’s offer was beyond tempting. But I wasn’t going to send Peely up there alone.

We rode in the elevator together. When Peely knocked on the door, Hannah opened it.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said.

“Hannah,” I said, “shut up.”

“Pilar, I think your
friend
needs to learn some manners.”

Pilar stopped in the hallway and looked at her. “Hannah,” she said, “seriously. Shut up.”

I WOKE THE next day unsure of what had really happened the night before. Was the mark on my arm really gone? Yes. Was I really alive? Yes. Had I almost died and then been saved by the ghost of Marie Antoinette?

Yes, to all of it.

It was our last day in Paris. We had to leave for the airport at four o’clock.

Pilar and I headed downstairs to the café for breakfast and found Audrey in the buffet line, waiting for crêpes. When she saw me, she gave me a knowing glance and a smile.

After Pilar got her plate and started walking toward the exit — to eat in the penthouse, I guessed — Audrey stopped her.

“Sit with us,” she said. It was almost a question, like she expected to be snubbed.

But Peely’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, okay. Hannah’s being a total pill.”

Brynn showed up a minute later, and then we all sat down to eat — me, Brynn, Audrey, and Pilar. The conversation was slightly awkward, since all Brynn knew — all anyone from our group knew — was that there had been a falling-out at the party the previous night and I was no longer in Hannah’s good graces (to put it mildly).

But it was still a nice breakfast. Pilar, when she realized nobody was counting her calories for her or planning to criticize her every dreamy thought, relaxed and talked as much as the rest of us.

As for Hannah? She was up in the penthouse suite — alone.

Jules came by the hotel later, and he and I went out walking. We stopped at a little café for an early lunch. He asked a million questions — he wanted more details about the night before. I told him as much as I could remember.

“So there are tunnels under the palace,” he said.

“
Oui
,” I said, taking a bite of my
croque-monsieur
. “They go all the way out to Le Hameau.”

“And yet they have never been found?”

“They have now,” I said. “But I doubt they’ll still be there the next time someone thinks to look for them. I’m pretty sure they flooded.”

“Such a shame,” he said softly. “All that history …”

I didn’t reply, but I was thinking that it wasn’t such a shame. To Jules, it might have been a fascinating piece of the past, but to me, it was a reminder of the horrible things people could do when they were scared or selfish.

After lunch, he told me there was somewhere he wanted to take me. We got on the Metro and rode it for a while, holding hands but not really speaking. We got off at a little station a few miles outside of the city.

“Where are we going?” I teased. “To meet your grandparents?”

He smiled mysteriously and kept walking.

Finally, we turned into a small graveyard next to an old stone church.

“Here,” he said, pointing to one of the graves. “I had heard of it before — it is famous, in a way, because of the mystery. Now I know what it means.”

We stood together, looking at the modest stone, which read
JE REGRETTE
.

I sighed for the past, and for the future — for poor Véronique and for the question of whether my family could shake off the effects of a blood bond that seemed to make us genetically predisposed to use people for our own gain.

I’d made the right choice, saving Pilar last night. But in the face of the years of shallow choices I’d made, that didn’t seem like much to go on.

Then I thought of Charlie and how he was always looking out for Mom.

If he could do it, maybe I could, too.

On our way back into the city, we got off the Metro at the Villiers station — near the former Errancis Cemetery. After paying my respects to Véronique, I felt like I owed at least as much to the queen herself. I braced myself for the chaotic construction site.

But as we rounded the corner, we found that the street had been almost totally filled in. A single worker drove a small backhoe carefully around the torn-up asphalt. The construction was complete.

Maybe the queen really could rest in peace now.

Jules walked me back to the hotel. It was hard to say good-bye. I cried a little. We promised to email each other and to try to meet up again next summer — either in France or in America. But I wondered if what had existed between us was destined to be just a passing moment in our lives.

“It seems so Parisian,” I said, through my sniffles, “to find someone and then have to say good-bye so quickly.”

He cupped my face gently in his hands. “It is not Parisian,” he said. “It’s just life.”

“I know, but …” I let my voice trail off.

“Colette, you are so different now than you were on that first day. You have changed so much. And I am a part of that. So I am happy.”

It was true. I’d wanted Paris to change my life…. I’d just had no idea how dramatic the change would be. And Jules was a part of that, as much as the ghost had been.

“But what about you?” I asked. “What difference did I make for you?”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Besides convincing me that ghosts are real? You are the only girl I’ve ever kissed on top of the Eiffel Tower. And I swear, you are the only girl I will ever kiss there. So every time I see it, I will think about you.”

I nodded, wiping my eyes.

“Plus, Mathilde will never let me forget how nervous I was when you came to eat dinner with us,” he said. “And you know the secret of my brief career as a poet.”

I smiled in spite of my sadness.

“You are special, Colette,” he said softly, lifting my hand to his lips and kissing it. “You can forget
me
someday, but do not forget that.”

And then he kissed me … and kissed me … and kissed me. And I knew there was no risk of my ever forgetting him.

Pilar gave her first-class seat to Madame Mitchell and rode in the back of the plane with the rest of us. I was shocked, but Peely didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal.

“I didn’t want to sit there and listen to Hannah lecturing me the whole flight,” she said.

I was beginning to get the feeling that Pilar wouldn’t be putting up with much of Hannah’s lecturing at all from now on.

We landed and went to baggage claim, where Mom and Charlie were waiting for me with a sign that said WELCOME HOME! and, under that, in tiny letters Mom hadn’t noticed,
STUPIDHEAD
.

I hugged them both and pointed my bag out to Charlie. He picked it up off the belt and rolled it back to our car while Mom peppered me with questions about the trip.

I tried to answer them all, but she got so excited that they all ran together into one sustained request for information, and I had to promise her I’d talk all through dinner and well into the night if that was what it took to satisfy her curiosity.

She did want to know about the murders. She’d followed the news about them all week.

“I was worried about you,” she said, “but I didn’t call about it, because I knew you’d be mad at me.”

“She knew that because I told her so,” Charlie added. “You’re welcome.”

“Well, Paris is a huge city,” Mom chimed in. “Statistically speaking, I knew you weren’t in danger.”

“
I
showed her the statistics,” Charlie said. “You’re welcome again.”

I gave my mother a little smile, grateful she didn’t have to know everything that had really happened. “All’s well that ends well, right?”

She inclined her head. “That’s been my motto for a year. I’m just glad you’re home.”

We pulled into our space in the parking garage, and Charlie lugged my bag up the stairs.

“I know this will be a disappointment,” Mom said, “after being in a fancy hotel all week. I just want you guys to know that I’m going to get us out of this apartment as soon as I can.”

“Mom,” I said, “stop worrying. It’s great.”

“It’s … great?” she repeated.

I looked around the main room. She and Charlie had made a lot of progress while I was gone. “Yeah, you guys fixed it up super cute. We’ll be fine here, won’t we, Charlie?”

Charlie looked confused, then smiled at me. “
Très magnifique
,” he replied.

Mom looked as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

“You must be hungry,” she said at last. “Do you want to unpack while I make some dinner?”

I shrugged. “Unpacking can wait. I’ll help you cook. Charlie, you can hang out, too.”

She headed to the kitchen, glancing at me over her shoulder as if I were some apparition that might disappear. Then she pulled out a pot and a package of ground beef.

“How does spaghetti with meat sauce sound?” she asked.

“Yummy,” I said, and Charlie nodded.

As she cooked, we all talked, and I described as much of Paris as I dared. Then we ate, and afterward we sat around the table talking, like Jules’s family did.

“So,” Mom said, as we carried the dishes into the kitchen, “how does it feel to be back?”

“Wonderful,” I said. “It feels wonderful.”