She watched him go, unable to move. She couldn’t even think for a moment, so great was her disappointment. She looked blankly down at the gloves in her hand and then dropped them into her shoulder bag. So, this was it, this was all that was going to happen here, now, today. A pair of gloves delivered to her by a strange courier, an ugly man who smelled of garlic. She shouldn’t have even thought her wish; she might as well have shouted the name of the Thane of Cawdor. The gods had denied her.
She wanted to linger in this beautiful setting, gazing at her favorite artworks, surrounded by art lovers. This museum was so peaceful, so civilized. She was all alone on a foreign continent, unable to contact the few people she knew here, not even sure how to call her daughter in New York without her cellphone. She felt detached, isolated, as though she were the only person in the world. The smiling faces around her were carefree; no one could possibly suspect that the woman there in the garden was as close to despair as she had ever been in her pleasant, sheltered life. She didn’t know what to do.
Then she thought, There’s no time for this. I have to keep going. I have to get out of here.
With a wistful glance at her favorite statue in the distance and a troubled glance at the big man who now stood with the tourists inspecting it, Nora turned around and retraced her steps. She moved quickly through the rooms to the entrance and down the walk to the street. The little driver, Jacques, was waiting for her, grinning and waving.
Chapter 11
The folded slip of paper was inside one of the gloves, in the space where the ring finger would go, which Nora thought was very clever. This message was written in neat block capitals instead of his familiar script, but as with the first one, it was encrypted specifically for her.
GOOT!-DIX ROSES POUR GRAND-TANTE J CE SOIR
Jacques had fetched the car and collected her in front of the museum, and she’d told him to just drive. He’d asked no questions; they’d sailed back the way they’d come, across the bridge, then turned right and proceeded along the Seine on the Quai des Tuileries, past the Louvre, heading east. He hummed a little tune under his breath as he drove.
She’d waited until they were well away from Musée Rodin before pulling the gloves from her bag and inspecting them. Now, in the backseat of the car, she smoothed the paper across her thigh, studying it, thinking how bizarre it was-coded messages and weird messengers. As much as all this might have appealed to the dramatic performer in her, it wasn’t nearly as romantic as she’d assumed it would be. She was too mature to be cast as an action figure, and violence held no allure. The idea of actual physical danger nauseated her. She wasn’t a hero; she was a wife, a mother, an actor who now taught her craft to bright young people. Well, the life she knew was obviously on hold for the time being. She forced herself to concentrate on the note.
GOOT! was easy, thanks to her daughter’s incessant texting: Get out of town! It was meant as a joke, for emphasis, the equivalent of I don’t believe you. Their daughter used it so much that even Jeff had taken to putting it in his emails. Occasionally, Dana would also burst out with a heartfelt Shut up! which meant roughly the same thing. But not this time; Nora was certain of it. This time, the slangy acronym obviously meant precisely what it stated. She was being told to leave Paris. She knew where to go, and when: Dix roses pour Grand-tante J ce soir. Very well, she thought. So be it.
“Jacques,” she said, “which train do I take to Besançon?”
The little man regarded her in the rearview mirror. “Besançon, mademoiselle? When would you wish to go?”
“Now. Immediately. I’ve-I’ve received a message from a friend asking me to go there. Well, not there, exactly, but nearby. A village in the Jura mountains, south of the city. I’ll need a train to Besançon, and then I suppose I can rent a car-”
“Un moment, mademoiselle.”
Nora stopped talking, aware of the urgency that had come into his voice. She watched him as he accelerated, glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time, though now he wasn’t looking at her but at something behind them. The car sped along the river, faster and faster, and Jacques suddenly turned the steering wheel, throwing the car sharply into the left lane, cutting off a taxi with only inches to spare. The cab driver blared his horn and shouted, but Jacques paid no attention. With another fierce twist of the wheel, he swerved into a full turn, across the lanes of oncoming traffic and into an avenue heading north, away from the waterfront.
The screech of brakes and the shrieks of a variety of horns let her know just how close they’d come to a collision with any number of cars heading west. She cringed at the sound, even as the car made yet another sharp turn, this time to the right, into the Rue de Rivoli. More horns and angry shouts. What on earth-
Nora slid over toward the door and grabbed the seatbelt, fastening it across her waist as Jacques drove even faster. Buildings and people flew by outside, and the Rue de Rivoli became Rue Saint-Antoine. A familiar blur on her right was the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville; she’d dined in a restaurant near it once with Jeff, years ago. Now she knew where they were, but it didn’t allay her sudden fear. This man had seemed so polite, so friendly. Was he abducting her? Was he part of this? Was that even possible?
Lonny had made her reservation on his own personal laptop, and early this morning he’d spirited her out a back door of the Byron Hotel and bundled her into a waiting taxi in the next street. No one had followed her to the train station; she was certain of it. How could Jacques-or anyone else-possibly have expected her arrival in France? No. Whatever was happening here, her driver couldn’t be involved. Or could he? He was definitely racing her away from-or toward-something.
She twisted around to look out the rear window, but she couldn’t see anything extraordinary, merely cars and crowds going about their business. She looked forward, through the windshield. The big intersection ahead of them was the Place de la Bastille, the site of the 1789 uprising, outside the long-gone prison for which the place was named. It was a virtual wagon wheel of streets with spokes that extended out in every direction.
“What?” she finally managed to say. “What is it, Jacques?”
“Je ne sais pas,” he muttered, still checking the mirrors. “Give me the moment, mademoiselle.”
At the roundabout, he turned the car sharply and shot up Boulevard Beaumarchais, into the arrondissement known as the Marais. This had always been a favorite part of the city for her, reminding her of Greenwich Village with its jazzy shops and restaurants. If they continued north through this sector, they would arrive at the Place de la République, not far from the famous Conservatoire where the Immigration girl from this morning would soon be studying.
Jacques apparently had no intention of going that far. He slowed the car to a crawl, and his head bobbed back and forth as he searched the crowded side streets. He turned abruptly into one of them, which was actually an alley, and drove swiftly down its length toward the next street. There was no one about and nothing here in this dark place but back doors of buildings and rows of garbage cans. He pulled over between two large trash receptacles and stopped the car.
In the abrupt silence and stillness that followed, Nora’s heart gave a sickening lurch. She was in a deserted alley, cut off from the main streets, with a man she didn’t know at all. What if he were to turn around now, and aim a gun at her? Or suddenly throw open the door and leap from the car, run away while his unseen confederates closed in to finish the job? The actress in her had a sudden vision of Faye Dunaway in the car in those final moments of Bonnie and Clyde, that slow-motion dance of death as she was riddled with a hundred bullets…