I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the hell out.” He shoved at the door, creating a gaping hole.
Broken wood creaked and groaned again.
She crawled through, trying to force her numbed mind to function.
Dead, a man was dead. Well, she had known that, had known it since she had heard the scream. And, of course, one thing was true. This man hadn’t killed his French coworker. He had been in the corridor, chasing after her, just as he had said, when they both heard the scream. She was an American, snooping around an excavation site she had been asked to leave.
She would have to explain . . .
What she didn’t understand herself.
“A man is dead,” she said, the words coming from her painfully. “I can’t run away.”
“A man is dead, and there is nothing you can do,” he reminded her. “You were where you shouldn’t have been at the time. Trust me, I intend to report the matter.” He swore again. “Listen, I’m trying to let you out of this mess.”
It was night. Her grandfather’s old Citroen sat in the lot by the cafe. People were milling outside it. She heard music, laughter.
She needed to see Jacques. She could always go to the police.
He must have read her mind. He was about to speak when he stiffened suddenly, almost as if he had seen something.
But he hadn’t.
It was more as if he had sensed something, like smoke on the air, a promise of a devastating fire.
“Drive home,” he said, his words suddenly tense. “Go home. If you don’t like what you see in the newspaper, you can run to the police tomorrow. Tell them what you saw.” He turned away from her, starting down the walk from the church to the street. She ran after him. “They had best find out who did this,” she said firmly, her words a warning.
He nodded, letting her go as she passed him.
“Tara.”
She stopped and turned back.
“Be careful. Get in your car immediately. Now. Lock the doors, drive straight home, don’t pause for anyone.
Don’t invite anyone into your house who is a stranger. Don’t go out alone at night. Do you understand?“
“Why?”
“Obviously, there is a murderer loose in Paris. One who might have seen you.” He walked past her. She saw that his determined footsteps were bringing him up the slight bill to the village center, and she knew that there was, indeed, a police station there.
She started across the street. Suddenly, she panicked, wondering how she was going to drive home when she had lost her purse in the crypt, then realized that the keys to the car were in her pocket.
But as she got into the Citroen and gunned the engine, she realized with a sinking heart that the police would know that she had been in the crypt. They would find her purse.
But as she was about to go back, a chill shot through her.
Tara.
He had called her by her real name when she had introduced herself to the professor with an alias she had pulled out of thin air.
Her mouth went dry.
She needed to stop, get out of the car, go to the police.
She turned. He had stopped, he was down the street staring at her. Staring at her, or watching over her, like a strange sentinel?
She couldn’t go back. Not now. By tomorrow, she would know if he had indeed gone to the police, and if he hadn’t, she would do so. And she would be able to describe him. And insist that although he had not committed the murder, he might know something about it.
This was illogical. She should go to the police immediately.
But an instinctive voice was rising inside her. No. Do as he says!
Shaking as she was, she pulled the car out onto the street, and headed for the chateau.
She needed to talk to her grandfather.
CHAPTER 3
There would be little that the police could do.
As Brent Malone sat in a chair before the desk of Inspector Henri Javet, he answered every question with complete honesty.
He didn’t attempt to offer his own insight into the bizarre murder.
He admired the detective, and the speed with which the man worked. Within minutes, police officers had scoured the tomb. They had done so with competence and efficiency, being careful not to compromise any evidence that might be discovered by crime scene detectives and the forensic team. Then, when the site had been roped off and officials set in place to do all that they could, the questioning had begun.
And it hadn’t been difficult to tell the truth. He and Jean-Luc had been closing down. He was afraid that a tourist might still have been on the premises. When he went in pursuit of the offending visitor, he heard the screams. The visitor had departed. Professor Dubois had left by the excavation route, but after finding the remains of Jean-Luc, he had panicked himself and departed by crashing through the church door.
Javet, a man with dark eyes, slick dark hair, and a build that spoke of many nights in a gym, was amazed that Brent had been able to break down the door.
“Adrenaline,” Brent told him, lifting his hands in a rueful explanation. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but
... I had no thought other than to get out, and get to the police.”
“You‘ re certain that Professor Dubois had departed?” Javet asked him.
Dubois had been a total asshole through much of Brent’s association with the man. That the professor was going to face intense questioning from the police himself seemed to be a beacon in the darkness.
“I believe he was gone. I can’t be certain. Jean-Luc and I were working to finish for the night. And then I heard noise and knew someone was not out of the church. I thought perhaps a kid, a tourist. Maybe even someone who had been dared to spend the night in the crypt. You know how crazy people can get.
I hadn’t started along the corridors long before I heard the screaming. But I have no actual time frame.
When I emerged from the church and came to you, it was dark already. I might have been walking along the corridors for several minutes ... or more.”
“And then you raced back?” Javet said, though they had been over this before.
“He screamed. My first thought was to help. Then I went to him, and I knew I couldn’t help. My next thought was to get the hell out and get to the police.”
65
“You were working legitimately in France?” Javet asked sharply.
Brent produced all his papers. Javet nodded. “This is your correct address in the area?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t intend to leave the country?”
Brent smiled. “No, sir. I have no intention of leaving at all.”
“You might be out of work for some time.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be all right.”
“And that is how?”
“Family money... I dabble in the stock market and real estate back home.”
“And yet, you were doing manual labor on a dig.”
“I’m an eternal student of history, Inspector. I was fascinated by the dig, and glad to take any work to be apart of it”
Javet nodded. “While it seems that the man who was killed was working to keep food on his table.”
“I realize that I remain a suspect,” Brent said flatly.
“You were there. In fact, you were the only one there. Except for this tourist or student or whomever it was you were chasing when you say the murder occurred. What else can you tell us about him—or her?”
“There is practically nothing I can tell you. I didn’t have a chance to find the person. Perhaps they had managed to get out. When I heard the screams, I went back to the site. And found Jean-Luc. I touched him to see if he was still breathing, but I touched nothing else at the site. I got out of there as quickly as I could.”
“Dead is dead. And still, the way the man looked...” Javet wasn’t an old man, but he had a drawn look to his features, as if he had seen many evils in his years as a detective. “Such a heinous murder. And all for an empty coffin,” Javet said, shaking his head sadly.
Brent shrugged, lifting his hands again in a hopeless expression.
“I touched nothing after I tried to see if Jean-Luc had a pulse. When the head... well, I was quickly certain that he was dead, and, as perhaps you can imagine, I felt a surge of pure self-preservation. And I also wanted to get to professionals like you as quickly as possible.” Javet nodded. Brent forced himself not to look at his watch. Hours had gone by.
Hours he needed.
“I will be holding on to your passport,” Javet said.
“Naturally.”
“Now,” Javet said, leaning back, “we will go over it all one more time.”
“Again?”
“Indeed, the entire event from the beginning to the end.”
He had waited and waited, and all to no avail. Watched when the two had run from the broken door.
Watched, cursing and angry, as the police had arrived, swarming over the place.
And he had stood there and tried and tried to fathom ...
All for nothing.
So he had listened. Listened to the officers talking. And then he had known what was about to occur, and hurried to position himself properly.
Shadows were easy to find in the dark streets of the village. By the train station, they were numerous.
And so he waited, watched, tensed and ready, using every sense within him.
They weren’t needed. The man arrived on the train from Paris in full uniform. He immediately began to follow him. When they were on the streets alone, and the shadows were dense and tight, he approached him.
“Monsieur!”
The man, assured of his office and his own abilities, stopped impatiently. “Yes, where are you? What is it?”
He stepped out of the shadows.
And approached the impatient officer.
“I have information for you,” he said quietly, coming close.
A cloud covered the bit of moon in the sky, and all the stars, and the two were swallowed up by the shadows.
Brent again looked at his watch, damning this man who went over and over every small detail.
Javet spoke. “I must tell you as well that, as you were the only person known to be present, I could hold you now for suspicion of murder.”