Murder in Nice (18 page)

“
Oh, I’ve already
decided.”

Maggie stopped walking. “Really?”

“
It was always going to be
Desiree,” Randall said, shrugging. “Well, after Lanie dropped out
of the running.”

You mean dropped
dead
, Maggie couldn’t help but
think.

“
Then why do all
this?”

“
My production company
insisted. We want it to look all above board.” He waved his hand in
the air. “No, it
is
all above board. We just want to dot all the i’s is all. We
have to go through the process.”

“
So Dee-Dee is giving her
presentations but she doesn’t stand a chance?”

Randall peered at Maggie and grinned. “You
were on the boat when the crazy bitch killed a duck, right?”

Maggie suppressed a laugh. “Yes. Although I
understand the duck lived.”

“
She’s totally mental,”
Randall said. “Can you imagine her being co-host? We’d be sued in
every city we shot in.”

“
I can see your
point.”

“
I wasn’t going to say
anything,” Randall said, his voice dropping a level as he looked
over his shoulder to where Desiree was still standing on the curb.
“But we had an issue with her at the start of the tour.”

“
An issue how?”

“
Seems she came on to
Lanie’s boyfriend while we were in Orange, and not only did he turn
her down, but he told Lanie about it.”

Maggie gave him her full attention.

“
Lanie basically laughed it
off,” Randall said, “but unfortunately she did it in a very public
way.”

“
She humiliated
Dee-Dee.”

“
Yeah. Well…” He leaned in
closely, as if his next words were extremely important and covert.
“You saw how Dee-Dee went off on a poor duck, right?”

“
What are you saying? You
think
Dee-Dee
might
have wanted to kill Lanie?”

Randall held up his hands as if to defend
himself. “I’m just saying she’s crazy and Lanie did a number on
her. Someone else might want to connect the dots on that one.”

Especially someone trying to deflect
suspicion from himself?

“
Anyway, I just wanted to
mention it because I saw the two of you chatting in the car earlier
and I wanted to put a bug in your ear.”

“
Sure. Thanks. I appreciate
it.”

“
Listen, if you can walk
yourself the rest of the way from here, I’d better get back.
Desiree is definitely hot-blooded, and while sometimes that can be
a good thing—if you know what I mean?” He grinned lasciviously at
Maggie. She worked to keep her lamb vindaloo from coming
up.

“
No problem,” Maggie said.
“You probably won’t see me in the morning. I’m catching the seven
o’clock train.”

“
Well, good travels,” he
said as he turned to head back up the street. “And thank you for
filling in. The company will send you an online eval to fill
out.”

He jogged back up the street to where
Desiree stood on the corner, smoking and waiting. As Maggie turned
to head back to the hotel, she tried to imagine what Randall was up
to throwing Dee-Dee under the bus like that. And why to Maggie?
Because she was Lanie’s friend? Was he covering for Desiree?

As Maggie reached the
hotel, her phone vibrated and she checked the screen. It was Grace.
For the first time in her friendship with her, Maggie pushed
Decline
.

She knew something was going on with Grace.
She had been hinting at needing to talk about it but tonight was
not the night. Maggie didn’t have the emotional or physical energy
to hear it, let alone help with it.

She would call first thing in the morning
after she’d gotten a decent night’s sleep. She quickly texted
Laurent to tell him goodnight and to kiss their baby for her, then
found her way to her hotel room on the ground floor.

Was there something in the
wine?
She couldn’t remember ever feeling
this exhausted. She set the alarm on her phone, stripped her
clothes off and left them on the floor then slipped between the
sheets of the bed, groaning when she did. She was asleep in
seconds.

Some time in the middle of the night she
awoke, her senses tingling with the scent of a man’s aftershave
mixed with sweat thick in her nostrils.

Someone was in the room with her.

Eleven

Maggie flung
the bedcovers back to scramble out of bed when she realized she
wasn’t wearing a nightgown. She grabbed the sheet and lurched to
her feet.

She saw a dark form hunched by her bed, as
if ready to climb into it.

“
Who are you?” she cried
out, hating the tremor she heard in her voice. “I’m American so I’m
armed.” She backed away from the bed toward the door.

The form stood up slowly from the shadows
and she saw him raise his arms in her direction. “Don’t shoot,” he
said. “It’s only me.”

Maggie turned to the lamp on the dresser and
snapped on the light.

Bob Randall stood before her totally nude.
He was grinning.

“
What the hell are you
doing in my room?” Maggie sputtered. She spotted Randall’s jeans
and t-shirt in a crumpled heap on the floor next to her own
clothes.

“
I would have thought that
was obvious,” he said, reaching for the duvet on the bed and
winding the fabric around his waist.

“
How did you get in here?”
Maggie’s heart was still racing from being awoken so abruptly. She
clutched the sheet across her breasts, twisting it in her
hands.

“
Well, this is my rodeo,
isn’t it, darlin’? I have access to all the rooms. Sorry about
this. Guess I misread our little conversation earlier.”

“
Are you demented? You
thought I wanted you to show up in my room in the middle of the
night? Is that what you figured Lanie wanted? Did you show up
in
her
room
uninvited too?”

“
Whoa, whoa! I did not
visit Lanie in her room in the middle of the night, or any other
time.” The smile fell from Randall’s face. He went to his pile of
clothes and snatched up his pants.

Maggie backed up to the door, ready to bolt
if she had to. He dropped the duvet and pulled on his jeans.

“
Maybe you had the same
crap sense of communication then that you do now,” Maggie said.
“Only instead of leaving peacefully you got mad and hit Lanie
across the head with a wine bottle.”

Randall stopped dressing. “That’s how she
died? She was hit with a wine bottle?”

“
Like you don’t
know.”

“
Did the police find the
bottle?”

“
We’re not having this
conversation. Get out of my room this minute before I call the
cops.”

“
Trust me, the French
police don’t care about two consenting adults in a hotel
room.”

“
I’m not
consenting
, you moron.
That’s kind of the whole point.”

“
Well, how was I to know
that? I thought I got the green light from you.”

“
By what possible stretch
of the imagination did you think that?”

“
You said you enjoyed your
trip with us and then you licked your lips and looked right into my
eyes.”

“
You are seriously
deranged. Get the hell out.
Now
.”

“
And for your information I
have an alibi for the night Lanie died. I was with Desiree and
she’ll confirm that.”

Maggie jerked open the door and stepped
aside as he passed her. He walked into the hallway.

“
I hope this little
miscommunication doesn’t ruin what I thought was a
very—”

Maggie slammed the door and latched it. She
stood with her back to the door listening to her heart pound in her
ears.

After a moment, she walked to the dresser
and turned on her cell phone. Three a.m. Too early to get up for
the day, too late to even think about trying to go back to sleep.
She dragged a desk chair over to the door and wedged it under the
doorknob and then went to take a shower and begin her day.

*****

Ben stood in the hallway of the old house
and listened. He knew Laurent was usually up before anyone else. He
glanced at his wristwatch. Four in the morning. He glanced at
Haley’s sleeping form in the bed. He was fully dressed. He went to
the door and moved quietly down the slick, wide stairs to the
living room. The two big dogs lifted their heads when he passed
through the room. They knew him and so didn’t bark. But they
watched him as he opened the exterior French doors.

He slipped out onto the terrace just as his
cell phone began to vibrate. He closed the door behind him,
glancing up at Laurent’s bedroom window above the doors. It was
dark.

“
Newberry,” he said into
the phone as he moved silently to the edge of the terrace. He
didn’t expect his voice to carry into the house but it sounded loud
in his ears in the otherwise still night.

“
Have you talked to
him?”

“
He speaks French, you
know,” Ben said acidly. “Which I don’t speak, if I have to remind
you.”

“
Strange you didn’t mention
that fact when you insisted you were the man for the job,” his
caller said, a tone of menace lacing every word.

“
I am still the man for the
job,” Ben said. “It’s just taking time to win his
trust.”

“
What do you know at this
point?”

Ben was ready to give his report but was
surprised to realize he was experiencing a twinge of discomfort.
Except for that first day, Laurent had been okay with him. Almost
friendly. He shook off the feeling. He was doing this for
everybody’s sake.

“
I know he’s just about
given up recruiting any takers to restarting the co-op. Except for
one old geezer, they’re all either selling out or signing with
us.”

“
So what’s his next
move?”

“
He…I…you have no idea how
secretive he is. I found out through my
wife,
who found out through my
sister’s best friend, that
she
doesn’t even know where his money comes
from.”

“
We
know
he’s secretive, Ben. We knew this
wasn’t going to be easy. Can you
not
get him to change his mind?”

“
Of course I can. I just
need you to appreciate the difficulties.”

“
We don’t give a shit about
the difficulties. If you want your little problem back here to be
resolved you need to get him to fall in step with his neighbors and
get him to sign the papers.”

“
I just need a little more
time.”

“
No can do. It’s all going
down the middle of next week. If you can’t talk him out of this
little act of rebellion of his, you’re going to need to bring
pressure on your sister and get
her
to sign the contract. Jesus. Can you handle it or
not?”

“
I can. Yes.”

The line disconnected and Ben realized he’d
been holding himself rigid for the duration of it. He let out a
long breath.

Remember why you’re doing
this
. He turned back to the house. This is
the hard part. He wiped a line of sweat off his forehead although
the chill of the early morning had produced goose bumps on his arms
and legs.

When Ordeur contacted him two months ago it
had seemed like an answer from God. Ben had literally been moments
away from picking up the phone to call the old man when all his
problems were swept aside.

True, at first they made it sound like they
needed his services as a corporate attorney, and he’d been
flattered—and stupid—enough to believe it. When the meeting came
down three weeks ago where they told him they were aware he’d
laundered money for a client through his trust account for a
fifteen percent fee he was frankly surprised he hadn’t seen it
coming.

The way they presented his
current “opportunity with the company” was:
take a tour of Provence with your wife to
visit your sister, and while you’re there convince her husband
to sign the contract with Ordeur or expect a visit from a DEA
confidential informant upon your return.

Ben looked forlornly at the
dark hulk of the house.
If you dance with
the Devil
, he thought,
expect to get your ass singed.

He and Haley were scheduled to fly back to
Atlanta on Monday. That gave him two days to finish the job here
before his deadline of next week.

Just the thought of what would happen if he
failed prompted a shiver that sped up his spine and ended in a
painful twinge in his neck.

Laurent didn’t trust him and he wasn’t ever
going to. Ben saw how the man watched him and it didn’t bode well
for any heart-to-hearts. Besides, Ben’s people skills were never
his strong suit. No, it was pretty clear he needed to go straight
to Plan B.

He slipped back into the house and stood
quietly in the living room. One of the dogs growled. “Shut up,” he
whispered. “It’s just me.”

What’s with these people
and their obsession with pets?
He sidled
past the two large dogs. Maggie’s poodle must be upstairs in Maggie
and Laurent’s bedroom. He walked to the hallway and stood quietly
again, waiting for the dogs to settle, waiting for complete silence
to return to the house once more.