The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (48 page)

“Soon, Scotty,” she replied, her voice trembling with relief because he sounded so normal.

Then Brad said, “Here’s Julie,” and she could almost see him smiling. But she heard the edge of uncertainty in Julie’s sweet little voice as she said, “Bea, why didn’t you meet us for lunch like you said?”

“I … Julie, Nick and I got held up. I’ll see you soon, though.”

Brad got on the phone again. “I told her you would be here for dinner, for certain.” He laughed lightly, easily. “Though, of course, I did not mention what might happen if you were not.”

His voice had that remote freezing edge that she recognized, and Marie-Laure suddenly knew without a shadow of doubt that this was the real Brad Kane she was talking to. The man with the mad obsession. A man crazy enough to kill.

Her heart felt like solid rock in her chest “Where are you?” she asked.

“I’ll give you directions. Get a pen and write them down,” he said briskly. “Take the A-seven Autoroute du Soleil west, past Salon de Provence. Exit at Cavaillon and pick up the D-two, then the N-one hundred to Apt. Stop at the Café Saintons, three kilometers after the Gordes turnoff. Be there at six o’clock. Wait for my call.”

She wrote it down. “What are you going to do with the children?” she asked shakily.

“My dear Marie-Laure, you know I have no interest in the children. They mean nothing to me. They are not part of this. Obviously you will tell no one about them—or us. You will not go to the police. That is part of our bargain. Otherwise I agree it would be a pity for such nice little children not to enjoy a long and happy life.” He laughed softly. “The decision is yours, Marie-Laure.”

“I’ll be there,” she said quickly.

“Wait at the café for my call. And make no mistake, if you have told anyone or brought anyone with you, I shall know.”

The phone went dead, and she sat helplessly cradling it, wondering what to do. She thought of Nick’s coming back to get her and of Phyl’s arrival at the airport in a couple of hours. She remembered Scott’s happily telling her about the beautiful black Ferrari and the wavering edge of uncertainty in Julie’s voice. And she knew she could not tell anybody. She had to do as Brad said. And she had no time to lose.

She leaped to her feet, then realized she was going to meet a madman, a killer and had no weapon. There was no gun in the house, not even a hunting rifle. She saw the rack of sharp kitchen knives and quickly took one.
Not too big
, she thought, so she could hide it in her pocket. Then she realized with shock that she was thinking like a criminal.
Like a murderer
.

She read the scribbled directions again and realized she didn’t need them. She knew exactly where Brad was. She crumpled the paper and threw it at the basket just as Poochie came gamboling in from the garden. He jumped enthusiastically at her, but she pushed him away. She put the knife in her purse, then ran outside and got in the Mercedes. Poochie’s claws skidded on the marble hall floor as he ran after her. He stood at the top of the steps, his big, shaggy head cocked to one side, staring pleadingly at her. Marie-Laure hesitated. The thought of his company was comforting, and
maybe it would be a good idea to have the dog there for the children. Because she had no idea what might happen to her. Or them.

She opened the door, and the dog bounded in beside her, barking joyously as they sped off down the gravel driveway. She wondered briefly how Brad had known about Les Cerisiers, then remembered the newspaper reports of her father’s death had been full of details about the house in Provence where he did most of his work. It would have been easy for Brad to get directions. And she knew the roads of Provence as well as she knew her own face. It was Marie-Laure Leconte, not Bea French, who was setting off to meet her destiny for the second time.

At the San Francisco Police Department, Mahoney grabbed his first cup of coffee of the day. He paced the corridors, thinking about Bea—aka Marie-Laure Leconte Jones—still troubled by the idea that there was something he had missed. He poured another cup, then checked the files once again: the flight manifestos, the private planes. And there it was: the Gulfstream IV from Hawaii to San Francisco, piloted by Brad Kane on the night of the attack.

Mahoney sat back in his chair, thinking about coincidences and telling himself that in this case one plus one surely added up to two. It proved Brad had been in San Francisco at the time of the crime. And the man was crazy enough to kill. There
had
to be a connection; he felt it in his bones.

He put through a call to the Villa Mimosa. Nick Lascelles answered. “I’m glad I got you, Nick, instead of Bea,” Mahoney said. “I wanted to ask her some questions, but it’s tough over the phone because they are likely to upset her. I wanted to ask if she knows a man called Brad Kane.”

“Brad Kane? I don’t know if she knows him personally, but she certainly knows about the Kane family.”
He quickly filled Mahoney in on the story of Johnny Leconte and Archer Kane and the Kanoi Ranch on Hawaii.

Mahoney tilted his chair back and breathed a sigh of satisfaction; he finally had his motive. And his man.

Then Nick said, “The thing is, though, I just arrived at the villa. I arranged to meet Bea, but she’s not here. Nor are the children. The housekeeper said a friend of Bea’s picked the children up earlier in a black Ferrari. And the weird thing is he told her his name was Johnny Leconte. She said when Bea got home, the man calling himself Johnny Leconte telephoned her. Jacinta heard Bea speaking to the children on the phone and arranging to meet them somewhere.

“Detective Mahoney, we’re supposed to be picking up Phyl at the Nice airport right around now. Bea wouldn’t just forget that. Phyl’s coming here was important to her. She couldn’t wait to see her. And who is this guy calling himself by Bea’s father’s name? I’m worried, sir, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t do anything,” Mahoney yelled. “Don’t make a move. Especially do not call the police. Let me take care of it. Go and meet Phyl and warn her. Tell her the guy is Brad Kane. Tell her I’m on my way.”

Mahoney slammed down the phone. He contacted Interpol and alerted them to the situation. Then he called the FBI. International kidnapping came under its jurisdiction. He didn’t even want to think about murder. Within the hour he was on a special flight heading for Washington. He would then take the Concorde to Paris, where another plane would be waiting to fly him to Nice. He prayed to God he would make it in time.

Phyl paced the terrace of the Villa Mimosa distractedly. Nick had filled her in on what had happened on the way back from the airport. Fear and guilt weighed on
her heart as she thought of Bea and the children, alone with Brad Kane.

Nick was leaning against a pillar, staring blankly across the lawns. He finally threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t stand just
waiting
,” he said with frustration.

Phyl stopped her pacing and looked at him. Their eyes met, and she knew the same terrible thoughts were going around in his head.

“Why didn’t Bea leave a note?” she cried. “At least give herself a chance?”

“Because Brad Kane had the children and he told her not to. That’s the power of the kidnapper: the threat of what he might do.” Nick didn’t say it, but they both knew that Brad Kane was not an ordinary kidnapper; the ransom he was demanding was Bea’s life.

“But she knew it was dangerous. She must have remembered what happened to her at Mitchell’s Ravine. Oh, God, Nick, what can we do?”

“I’ll ask Jacinta again, see if she remembers anything else,” he said, heading for the kitchen.

“Tell me again
exactly
, what happened, Jacinta,” Nick said, keeping his voice gentle because the housekeeper was obviously distraught.

“I know now I should not have let the children go,” Jacinta wailed. “But he was such a nice man, so friendly and so—so smart, and kind to the children. He did not look like a kidnapper—”

“Yes, Jacinta, I know that,” he said. “Look, the police will be here soon to ask you some questions. But first I want you to tell me again
exactly
what happened.”

“He telephoned,” she said. “Mam’selle Bea answered. She spoke nicely to the children; it sounded normal to me. I heard her arrange to meet him. She wrote down some directions, and I went back to my cooking because I thought now everything is all right
… and then she left in the car. The dog jumped in beside her—”

“The directions, Jacinta,” Nick said quickly. “Where did she write them?”

“On the pad, sir. By the telephone, here in the kitchen.”

Nick grabbed the pad. The top page had been ripped off. Of course, Bea would have taken the directions with her … unless—He looked at the waste-basket, but it was empty. Then, on the floor behind it, he spotted a crumpled ball of paper. He pounced on it. “Autoroute du Soleil,” he read, “exit at Cavaillon, D2 to N100…. 3kls G. exit … Café Saintons….”

“My God, Phyl,” he yelled, “I think we’ve got it.”

“We must tell the police at once,” she said quickly.

“No, Mahoney said not to. He said to do nothing. Just wait for him.”

“At least let’s leave a note for him,” she said. “He has to know where we’ve gone.”

They wrote the note with the directions and told Jacinta to give it to the first policeman to arrive. Then they took off in the red Alfa, following Bea’s directions to the café in the village in Provence.

35

T
he Café Saintons was a typical roadside stop, set back a pace or two and up a couple of steps. There was a tiny iron-railed terrace with a couple of plastic tables and chairs and faded umbrellas emblazoned with the Kronenbourg logo. Inside was the usual cheap gray-speckled floor and zinc bar with a glass-covered plate of wilting commercial pastries and a couple of browning bananas.

The patron was leaning on the counter, reading a newspaper. He glanced up briefly as Bea walked in. She looked quickly at the few customers, but none of them was Brad Kane.

Bea ordered a brandy and asked for a bowl of water for the dog. The surly patron served her without a word and without bothering to remove the ash-laden cigarette from his lower lip.

Poochie slurped the water noisily, then settled himself under the table, behaving for once like a well-brought-up French dog. Bea gulped the brandy, her eye on the telephone by the counter, willing it to ring. When it did, noisily, a minute later, she almost jumped
out of her skin. The patron dropped ash over the wilting bananas as he answered it.

Bea got up from her chair, gazing anxiously at him, but he was talking animatedly, obviously to a friend. She sank back down and checked her watch. It was five minutes to six. She eyed the patron nervously; he was throwing his arms about and talking about the Marseilles football team. He looked as though he might talk forever, and the six o’clock deadline was fast approaching. She stared at him, silently willing him to get off the phone.

He finally finished his conversation and began to serve another customer. Her eyes were riveted to the phone. She heard the minutes tick by on the big wall clock: six-one, six-two, three, four. On five it rang. And this time she got there first. “
Excusez-moi, monsieur,
” she said quickly to the patron, snatching the receiver, “
mais j’attends un coup de téléphone
.”

He shrugged, watching her as he wiped the zinc with an old rag, then lit another Gauloise from the butt of the one in the yellow Ricard ashtray.

“You were on time,” Brad said evenly. “And alone. I’m pleased to see you accepted my terms.”

She sank onto a barstool, clutching the phone with both hands. “Where are the children?”

“They are here, with me.” There was that smile in his voice again as he said, “I don’t have to tell you where to meet me, do I? It’s a place you know well.”

She knew he meant the Leconte farm. “Les Cerisiers,” she said.

“Wait for me there. If you are alone, the children will be released unharmed. You have half an hour.”

Bea slammed down the phone. She flung money for the brandy on the counter and, without waiting for her change, ran down the steps and hurled herself into the car. Poochie barked excitedly as he jumped in beside her. She gunned the Mercedes and squealed onto the main highway almost under the wheels of a giant nine-wheeler
truck. She scarcely even heard the long blast of its horn as she sped toward the Bonnieux turnoff.