Almost Gone (The Au Pair—Book One)

by Blake Pierce

  “Yes, poor things, I remember it was this time last year their mother passed away, although I couldn’t attend her funeral as I was abroad. She crashed her car, you know, late at night, on the main road going toward Guignes.”

  Lowering her voice, the woman elaborated, “It left the road, rolled multiple times, and burst into flames. I don’t think they ever found out the cause of the accident. What a tragic year Pierre has had.”

  “Nobody should have to deal with so much loss in such a short time. If you’ll excuse me, I must just keep an eye on Marc,” Cassie said, before turning away.

  Where had the boy gone? Her first stop was the dining room, but thankfully he wasn’t there. She took the opportunity to grab three sausage rolls, stuffing them into her mouth and turning her face to the wall so she could chew and swallow quickly, without anyone talking to her.

  Marc must have headed outside to burn off his energy after eating all those cakes, pies, and pastries. Cassie weaved her way back through the lounge and took a detour to the left, just in case he’d found his way into the music room.

  Thankfully, he hadn’t, and the room was empty. Cassie pushed the door closed and slumped down on the piano seat, unable to face the crowds for the moment.

  The bejeweled woman she’d just spoken to had dropped another bombshell. Cassie found it deeply troubling that Pierre’s wife had died under such mysterious circumstances. Where had she been going late at night? What had caused the car to lose control so badly? It sounded as if it had been a single-vehicle accident. And now, another tragic death had occurred. Why was nobody questioning all of this? Cassie wanted to scream.

  She buried her head in her arms, wishing she was anywhere other than here.

  In the darkness, she relived the fight she’d had with Margot.

  How she’d fought her off, twisting away from those lethal spiked heels. How Margot’s screamed insults had assaulted her, piercing deep into her soul.

  “Bitch! Whore!”

  She’d hated Margot for her viciousness, her entitlement, her complete lack of empathy or even recognition of Cassie as another human being. How did you get to be so aggressively self-obsessed, believing you were better than everybody else and could treat them exactly as you pleased?

  One thing was for sure, even if you weren’t supposed to speak badly of the dead, Cassie thought she’d deserved what she had gotten.

  She remembered how she’d looked down from the parapet and seen Margot vanish into the darkness below, limbs flailing, under the cold light of that serene moon.

  “No!” Cassie shouted aloud.

  She opened her eyes wide, breathing deeply, staring down at the richly patterned carpet. It hadn’t happened. It hadn’t. It was her own fantasy, intermingled with the nightmares she’d been having about Jacqui, and the view of the moon from Ella’s room. She hadn’t really done that. She couldn’t have.

  “Are you all right?”

  Cassie jumped, realizing Pierre had walked into the room and was closing the door behind him. He must have heard her shout. He could never know what she’d been thinking.

  She scrambled hurriedly to her feet.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’m so sorry, I’ve been with the children the whole time but Marc went outside, and I was just taking a minute to gather myself before I looked for him. It’s been such an emotional day.”

  She made to leave, but he stopped her, his hand heavy on her shoulder.

  “It has indeed been an emotional time. For me, worst of all. I am feeling very alone, Cassie. At times like this, we realize how vulnerable we are, how fragile life is. Come here, hold me, let us comfort each other for a moment.”

  The last thing she wanted was mutual comfort from Pierre. The idea made her skin crawl, but since a refusal at this time would be heartless, she stepped reluctantly into his arms. He drew her tightly into his embrace while her arms clasped loosely round his waist. Her cheek was crushed against the perfectly stitched woolen lapel of his suit.

  “Ah, Cassie. You are so young, so beautiful, so alive. I think you do not know your own beauty.”

  Too late, she realized she was trapped in his grip. His breathing had changed and roughened. His hands roamed down, to her waist, to her hips. He pressed her into him, cupping her buttocks with his right hand, kneading and squeezing them while his left hand pinned her close. He bent his head to hers, his breath tickling her ear.

  “We shall console each other. Not tonight; I have other obligations as some guests are staying over. But soon, I will come to your room, or maybe I will bring you to mine, so that the children do not hear us. I see how caring you are to them, how concerned. But you cannot think of pleasing them all day and all night. You must think of your employer, too, no? You must please the man who has given you this job.”

  “No,” Cassie cried, but her face was pressed into the smothering wool and her voice was muffled.

  Shell-shocked by what was happening, Cassie wondered if she should just grit her teeth and endure the experience, violating as it was. With so many people next door, surely this was just a grope taken too far, and he would stop at any moment?

  But then she realized this was Pierre. His home, his rules. He would stop whenever he felt like it, and probably not at all. Worse still, every moment she spent in his arms would be seen as passive consent, giving him the entitlement to continue.

  “No!” she shouted, louder this time, and she knew he had heard her but he didn’t stop.

  She tried to push him away, but his arm clamped like a vise around her. As she struggled in his grasp, he found the gap between her skirt and top and his hand slipped inside, into her clothing, under her panties—his fingers splayed out, hot against her bare flesh.

  Panic flooded Cassie. She did not consent to this, not at all, not to any part of it, and she wasn’t going to let Pierre fool himself into thinking so.

  In any case, this was his fiancée’s funeral, for crying out loud—could there ever be a more inappropriate time for him to force himself on her?

  The outrage provoked by that thought gave Cassie the courage to act. She twisted to the right, just far enough to grab the only item that she could see out of the corner of her eye. It was one of a set of old, hard-covered encyclopedias in a shelf next to the piano.

  She lifted the book and slammed it as hard as she could into Pierre’s head.

  The heavy volume caught him on his left temple. It was no more than a glancing blow, but it was painful and unexpected, and it was enough to make him let go of her.

  Adrenaline gave her wings as she squirmed away and dodged past him, heading for the door. She snatched it open, hearing his cry of rage as she escaped, not daring to look back but knowing his face would be set in a thunderous frown, flushed dark with anger.

  Then she was out, her heart pounding, her hair in disarray, her blouse pulled loose from her skirt and its top button missing. But she’d escaped him, and was back in the safety of the crowds.

  Totally shaken by what had just occurred, Cassie decided to give up on the search for Marc. She needed to go to her room, get herself tidied up, and try her best to regain enough composure to get through the rest of this endless afternoon, even though she felt like lying on her bed and sobbing in hysterical reaction at the horror of Pierre’s assault.

  But when she headed that way, she saw Bisset standing at the foot of the staircase. As she approached, she noticed the detective was looking at her curiously.

  Cassie turned away immediately and walked outside, worried that her disheveled appearance would make Bisset suspicious. If any questions were asked, it would only be her word against Pierre’s. The police would eventually leave, and she’d be on her own, faced with Pierre’s fury. The consequences for her would be unthinkable.

  With coldness tightening around her heart, Cassie realized the consequences already were.

  Pierre had said there were guests at the chalet tonight, but they would leave tomorrow.

  She knew Pierre would not be
discouraged. She had bought herself a couple of days’ grace at the most. He’d be coming after her again—angrier this time, more determined than ever, and prepared for anything she might do.

  There was nobody who could protect her from this, and without her passport, she was imprisoned here.

  Suddenly, Cassie wondered if Margot, too, had been a prisoner in her seemingly perfect life, and if her death had been the punishment for trying to escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Cassie barely slept that night. Her mind was buzzing with ideas as she tried to think of workable ways that she might escape her situation. She’d come up with plenty of plans for how to get away, as well as ways she could protect herself while she was at the chateau, but every single one was impractical, or simply impossible.

  Near the end of the seemingly endless night, she finally dozed off and started to dream. Desperate for a good outcome, her subconscious invented a brilliant solution to her problems—a logical, step-by-step process that she could follow to be safe from Pierre, get her passport back, and leave.

  On waking, the dream dissolved, and so did the feeling of incredible relief that had filled her, knowing that everything would be OK.

  There was no solution. Her moment of comfort was snatched away from her by the cold morning light, leaving her feeling vulnerable and alone.

  Cassie went to the bathroom and had a long, hot shower. The running water was comforting, and it helped to kick-start her brain. She resolved that her next step would be to call the au pair agency and explain the entire situation to Maureen. Maureen would know how to handle this. She could advise her on what to do, and at least somebody else would be aware of the predicament she was in, because at the moment she was utterly alone.

  Returning to her room, she walked to the outlet where her cell phone was charging.

  It wasn’t there.

  Cassie looked down at the place where she was sure it had been. The cable was lying on the floor and she frowned in consternation as she realized her phone was not in the room at all.

  When was the last time she had seen it? Cassie tried to think back over the whole of the previous, chaotic day. She’d wanted to take the phone with her to the church, just in case she was able to get signal there. She’d picked it up—and then she’d thought, correctly as it turned out, that she wouldn’t have any time to spare during the funeral service.

  Even so, she’d considered taking it and now she couldn’t remember if she had.

  If that phone had ended up in her jacket pocket, there was a good chance she’d dropped it somewhere or it had fallen out, and there was a very long list of places where that could have happened. The church, somewhere in the graveyard, the parking lot as she’d wrestled the reluctant Marc back into the car. It could have dropped out while chasing him through the orchard, or even in the music room.

  Cassie bit her lip as she recalled what had happened in that room yesterday. She wouldn’t have noticed if she’d lost her phone while she was trying to escape Pierre’s advances, and if he’d picked it up, he wasn’t likely to give it back after what had happened.

  She’d left her bedroom door unlocked while she’d showered, and also the previous evening while the children had been having supper. So someone could have taken it.

  Cassie decided she wasn’t even going to go down that road. It was far more likely she’d dropped it, and in that case she’d lost all her contacts, all her downloaded messages, and all her emails. She didn’t even have a hard copy of the agency’s phone number. The mails, the calls, the messages, the screenshot of the contract—everything had been on her phone.

  She wasn’t sure if it would be possible to get a new sim card here in France. This was a complete disaster. Her only means of communication with the outside world, with people who knew her, had gone.

  Cassie turned away from the depressing sight of the empty charger, desperate for a new plan, but unable to think what it could be.

  As she took the children down to breakfast, Cassie distractedly wondered what kind of blithe optimism she’d had when signing up with the agency, believing she would end up in a normal house, with ordinary, likeable people. Instead, she was stuck in a hellish situation that was spiraling further out of control with every hour that passed.

  She didn’t know what she would say to Pierre at breakfast. She guessed she would have to act as if everything was normal, because those were the rules of the grotesque game he’d forced her into playing. She could step out of the game and confront him, but she knew how risky that would be. And if she did it in front of the children, it would be hurtful and cruel to them.

  The tables that had been set out for the funeral service had been tidied away, but the large, framed photos of Margot were still displayed on the hall table. There were three of them—a head shot, a full-length photo of her in an evening gown, and a portrait of her and Pierre standing in front of the chateau. The one of Margot and Pierre looked like it had been taken during a formal shoot, and Cassie thought the other two must be studio pictures, because Margot looked like she was modeling the clothing and jewelry she wore.

  Cassie had noticed when she’d first seen them, and was reminded again now, that Margot wasn’t smiling in any of the photos.

  To her relief, there was no sign of Pierre at breakfast, and when Marnie brought coffee and orange juice, she confirmed he had other plans.

  “It is a fine day, so Monsieur Dubois will be taking his guests on a tour of the estate and the winery at eight, and we are setting up breakfast for them at nine, on the verandah overlooking the vineyards,” she explained, giving Cassie a warm smile as if she sensed Pierre’s absence was good news.

  “Will the guests be spending another night here?” Cassie hoped that this meant she’d be safe for longer, but fear prickled her spine when Marnie shook her head.

  “They are leaving after breakfast,” she said.

  “Is there anything the children or I need to do today?” Cassie asked.

  “The holidays are over now, and school will be starting on Monday. Could you check that the children’s school bags are ready, and that they have all the supplies of notebooks and textbooks they need? Whatever is required, you can buy in town tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do that,” Cassie said.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee, realizing her hands were trembling and hoping the children wouldn’t notice. Ella was busy spreading Nutella on her toast, and Marc was picking all the strawberries out of the fruit bowl, but Antoinette seemed to sense her worry. As soon as Marnie had left the room, she struck up a conversation, in the sugary voice that Cassie had learned to be wary of.

  “Did you go to your sister’s funeral, Cassie?” she asked.

  Cassie spilled some of the cream she was pouring. It splashed across the blue saucer and onto the tablecloth, and she hurriedly grabbed a napkin.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. “My sister didn’t have a funeral.”

  The memory of her dream surfaced again. Jacqui’s taunting words, and the way she’d pushed Cassie over the edge mentally, so that in turn, Cassie had shoved her physically into the ravine.

  She wished she could speak to somebody about that dream and find out what it meant, what fears she needed to address, and how she could work through them. She was sure a therapist could help her, but she couldn’t use anyone local. After what had happened to Margot, she would only incriminate herself by sharing it.

  “Did they not bury her?” Antoinette asked, sounding deliberately shocked.

  “She didn’t die.” Cassie spoke cautiously, worried about where this was heading.

  “You said she was dead,” Antoinette shot back, but she said it more in a matter-of-fact way than tauntingly.

  “I never said such a thing!” Cassie could hear the defensiveness in her own voice.

  “But you did. When we were talking in the car, on the way to the funeral yesterday. Didn’t she say that, Marc?”

  Antoinette looked across t
he table at Marc, who had finished the strawberries and was now picking out the mandarin segments.

  “You said your sister was lost in the woods!” Marc said loudly, and Cassie froze as Antoinette nodded vigorously.

  “Yes, that’s what you said. She was lost in the woods and you were worried she had died.”

  Cassie felt sick. She put down her cup without drinking any of the coffee. Surely it couldn’t be possible for both children to confirm a completely fictitious story. Also, their mention of the woods was deeply disturbing because it had formed part of that terrible dream. She had never intended to share those details with any of the family, ever. Now the children were telling her she had.

  Struggling for perspective on the situation, Cassie guessed it was possible that Marc was remembering back to when Ella had been lost in the woods—thinking of his own sister, rather than hers, and simply playing along with Antoinette.

  She’d been nervous driving to the funeral. She’d felt stressed and unsettled. In the car, she’d chatted without really thinking about what she was saying, preoccupied by the need to find the church and get everyone there in plenty of time. She’d been fielding Antoinette’s probing questions, which always put her on the defensive, and she’d been trying to keep an eye on the back seat where Marc had been undoing his seatbelt and sticking his head out the window.

  So, given the amount of distraction she’d had to cope with, it was possible that she’d said something, especially seeing both children were certain of it.

  Cassie felt like crying. She couldn’t trust herself anymore. The gaps in her memory were terrifying her. She could so easily have said something to the children that would implicate her, and perhaps she had. If she’d mentioned the woods, she could have taken the conversation further, and spoken about that haunting, vivid dream.

  *

  After breakfast, Antoinette went to the music room to practice her piano, and Cassie decided to make a start on the school supplies. She found herself longing for Monday to arrive, so that she could have some time to herself each day, and the children could hopefully have more structure and discipline in their lives.