The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (47 page)

She flung it open and hurled herself, sobbing, into his arms. “Mahoney, oh, thank God. Oh, Franco,” she cried.

“Okay, okay. Take it easy, baby.” He led her gently inside. “Was it Brad? Did he hurt you?”

Her shocked blue eyes met his.
“He was going to kill Rebecca”
she said.

“What stopped him?”

“The phone rang. It sort of broke the spell, I think it brought him to his senses.” Phyl’s legs suddenly turned to jelly, and she sank helplessly onto the sofa. He looked at her white face. Then he inspected her meager stock of liquor and poured her a stiff bourbon.

“You look as though you need it,” he said. “And I want you to answer some questions.” She nodded, sipping the bourbon, looking trustingly at him.

“Did he assault you?”

She shook her head. “I mean, he grabbed my arms
and put his hand over my mouth, but he didn’t hit me.”

“Did you let him into the apartment?”

“He was here when I got back. He took me by surprise.”

“Then how the hell did he get in?”

“He had my keys copied. He said he had taken them when I was in Hawaii.”

“What about the doorman?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Yes, I do. You know the way Brad is. He looks as though he owns the place. He had been here before, and I guess the doorman knew he was a friend. He probably told him that I’d asked him to wait for me, that I had given him the keys…. I guess.”

She looked pleadingly at him. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing much we can do. He gained illegal entry to your apartment, but he can always claim you gave him the keys. After all, you were friends. He can say it was just a lovers’ tiff. We see them all the time, though not usually in apartments as fancy as this.”

“But he’s
crazy
, Mahoney. He thinks I am his mother. He’s in love with
her
—not me!”

Mahoney knew it, and that was what was worrying him. Crazy men were unpredictable. There was no way to know what Brad Kane’s next move might be. “You said he left when the phone rang? Do you mean he just got up and split?”

She shook her head. “He had me on the bed. He took the pillow, I thought he was going to suffocate me…. I was trying to talk to him, to calm him. Suddenly he seemed to come to his senses; he remembered who I was. I wanted to get him out of here. I suggested we go and have something to eat, talk it over. Then the phone rang, and we both jumped. We just looked at it, listening to it ring and ring … and then it stopped. Brad was staring at the night table and I
thought he was going to rip the phone out of the wall. But instead he picked up Bea’s photograph.”

Phyl looked at Mahoney with bewilderment. “He asked me who it was. I had mentioned her to him once before and told him about her lost memory. I said her name was Bea French, and then I got confused because she’s not Bea French anymore.

“And then Brad did something really strange. He put the photo in his pocket. He said there was something he had to do, and he would be back later. He said I should plan to go to Kalani with him this weekend and we could talk some more. Then he left.”

“But why would he take Bea’s photograph? Had he ever met her here?”

“Never. He never met Bea, I swear it.”

Mahoney prowled the floor, his hands clasped behind his back, asking himself what Bea French or Marie-Laure had got to do with a crazy guy who had been in love with his own mother and had transferred that fixation to Phyl. He sighed, looking at her, sitting on the edge of the sofa, clutching the empty bourbon glass, with her knees together and her ankles buckled like a kid. He thought she looked terrible. Her face was totally drained of color, unless you counted the shadows under her eyes.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, taking the glass from her. “You’re coming home with me.”

She smiled tremulously at him. “For safekeeping?” she asked, remembering how they had laughed earlier about the idea.

“Damn right, baby,” he said, throwing her jacket over her shoulders. “You can have my bed. Coco will curl up behind your knees for company, and I’ll be in the next room, making sure nobody disturbs you.”

“Oh, Mahoney,” she said, leaning against him as they went down in the elevator. “Whatever would I do without you?”

*   *   *

Four hours later Mahoney was still up. He was in his favorite place, leaning against the window frame, watching the fog rolling in great soft waves across the horizon until it finally blotted out the bridges and the landscape. The tabby’s yellow eyes followed him as he began to pace the floor again. He wished he could put on some music, something sad and haunting and a bit kitsch, an aria by Puccini or Verdi. But Phyl was sleeping the sleep of the dead. Or
almost
dead, he amended. Thanks to his opportune telephone call.

The thing he didn’t get was the Marie-Laure Leconte connection. Why would Brad want her picture? Maybe he had another fixation. Maybe he had multiple fixations. They were not dealing with a “normal” man here. Yet it was a fact that Marie-Laure had flown in from Hawaii that night. But that was the only link.

He decided to put Marie-Laure on the back burner. The important thing was, what was he going to do to protect Phyl? Brad Kane would be back, and then he was not going to take no for an answer.

He sighed as he finally threw himself onto the sofa and closed his eyes. It had been a long night. He would think about it later, when his brain was functioning again. In a few hours, he would put Phyl on the plane to France. At least there she would be safe, and it would give him time to find out more about Mr. Hawaii.

34

I
t was a beautiful morning in Cannes. A soft breeze rustled the palms, fluttering Marie-Laure’s short hair as Nick drove the red Alfa convertible along the Croisette and then up through a maze of one-way streets.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He just grinned and said, “It’s a surprise.”

He parked outside the City Art Gallery. “I think I know what the surprise is,” she said.

“Bet you don’t,” he said.

He took her hand and they ran up the steps to the entrance. He walked her quickly through the galleries. “Close your eyes,” he ordered finally.

“It’s going to be one of my father’s paintings, isn’t it?” She smiled. “Of Nanny Beale, I’ll bet.”

“I told you, it’s a surprise. Okay, now you can open them,” he said quietly.

Marie-Laure stared at the full-length portrait of the plain, dark-haired woman in an unsuitable yellow silk dress. Her features were large, but she had a pleasant expression, and her long hair was caught girlishly back with a ribbon, though she was no longer young. Unsoftened
by the artist’s brush, all her uncertainty about herself was revealed in her somber deep-set brown eyes.

“Marie-Antoinette Leconte,” she said quietly. “My grandmother.”

“I found it quite by chance,” Nick said. “I was hunting down pictures in the newspaper archives when I read about it. Isn’t she exactly the way you imagined her? It was painted a few years before she met Archer Kane. Before he tried to make her over into his version of a twenties flapper with bobbed hair and short skirts.”

“The saddest thing must have been that he took her dignity away.” Marie-Laure sighed. “I’m glad she was painted like this, the way she really was.”

They walked from the gallery back to the car with their arms around each other, still thinking about Marie-Antoinette Leconte. Then they drove to a favorite café near the marketplace for lunch and afterward to the jeweler’s to buy an engagement ring.

“I want Phyl to be the first to know,” she said happily surveying the diamond in its antique setting. “Let’s keep it our secret until she gets here.”

Brad Kane drove the sleek black Ferrari up the curving gravel drive of the Villa Mimosa. He knew Marie-Laure or Bea, as she was known, was out; he had seen her leave. And shortly afterward he had telephoned the housekeeper.

“My name is Johnny Leconte,” he lied. “I am an old friend of Miss French from the States. I’m meeting her for lunch in Antibes. She asked me to pick up the children and bring them with me.” The housekeeper hesitated, but he laughed with reassuring charm. “She said it will be a special treat, their first taste of the famous bouillabaisse.”

He felt her relax as she agreed to have the children ready in ten minutes.

They were waiting on the steps for him, and he saw the boy’s eyes widen as he looked at the car.

“Wow,” Scotty yelled, “oh, wow, a real Ferrari! Oh, man!” He almost fell down the steps in his hurry to inspect the gleaming black monster. He ran his hand along the paintwork, peering at the sleek leather and wood interior and the glittering instrument panel.

Brad grinned at him. “Hop in, my friend,” he said easily. “I’ll show you how well she drives.”

Jacinta came toward him, holding Julie by the hand.

“Hi,” Brad said genially. “I’m Johnny. And I know you are Julie because Bea told me all about you.”

Unsmiling, she stared at him. “Where is Bea?” she asked suspiciously.

“Didn’t I tell you? She’s waiting for you at the restaurant,” Jacinta said, eyeing Brad and his expensive car approvingly. “Now you just go with Mr. Johnny, and have a good time.”

Scott clambered excitedly into the Ferrari with Julie after him.

“Don’t worry, I won’t speed,” Brad said, throwing Jacinta an easy smile. “I’ll take good care of them,” he promised as he revved the powerful engine and drove off in a spurt of gravel.

After a leisurely lunch Nick dropped Marie-Laure off at the villa. He knew she was still afraid of what she might remember about the night at Mitchell’s Ravine, and he hated to leave her alone, but he had things to do. He told her that he would be back in an hour and that they would go together to meet Phyl at the Nice airport.

“I’m glad I found you, Nick Lascelles,” she called after him as he drove off. He beeped his horn cheerfully as he rounded the bend in the drive and disappeared.

Marie-Laure felt good as she walked up the steps into the villa. Into her villa, she reminded herself with a
smile as she thought of Millie. There wasn’t a single day that went by that she did not think of her. The Villa Mimosa was the best memorial Millie could ever have had.

“Julie,” she called, walking through the silent hall, “Scott.” But no one came running to welcome her. She went out onto the back terrace. Shading her eyes, she looked across the lawn at the pool, but that, too, was empty. She circled back to the kitchen and asked Jacinta where they were.

“But your friend picked them up, the way you asked him to,” Jacinta said.

Marie-Laure stared at her. “But Nick was with
me
.”

“Not Mr. Nick. Your friend Monsieur Leconte came for them in his big black Ferrari.” Jacinta smiled. “The children loved it. He told me you had sent him to collect them and they were meeting you for lunch at a café in Antibes.”

“Monsieur
Leconte?
” Marie-Laure’s knees gave way, and she sank weakly onto a chair.

“He said his name was Johnny Leconte,” Jacinta said, looking worried. “Is something wrong, mam’selle?”

“
It’s him
,” Marie-Laure whispered to herself. “
He finally came to get me.
” Panicked images flashed into her mind as she remembered with sudden awful clarity the man who called himself Johnny Leconte and what had happened. Her heart lurched as she realized the past had finally caught up to her. Brad Kane wanted her dead, and now he had taken Scott and Julie. She knew only too well that he was capable of murder and he was using the children to get her.

The telephone rang, and she ran to answer it, praying it was Nick. She would tell him everything. He would know what to do. He would help her. Jacinta watched anxiously as she picked up the phone.

“The children want to say hello to you, Marie-Laure,”
Brad said in that easy voice of his. “Or do you prefer to be called Bea now?”

A violent rage swept through her as she realized what he had done.

“Where are they?” she screamed. “Why have you taken them?” She heard him laugh. Then Scotty came on the phone.

“Hi, Bea,” he yelled. “Your friend has a terrific car, and he even let me start it. When are you coming to meet us?”