“Pulling out from a standing start without killing the motor is tricky. If you can manage to do that, we can make this whole trip in first. We only need to get to our rental car in the parking lot, then I can drive.
“Use your left foot and press the clutch all the way to the floor. Hold it there ‘til I tell you to let it out.” Phoebe turned the small key and the engine started on the first crank. She put the little truck into first gear. “Let the clutch out really slow now. When it gets near the top of its range you’ll feel the car start to roll.”
He did as she said and the car jerked but didn’t die. “Now use your right foot to press on the accelerator—the pedal on the far right.”
He did and the little truck raced out of the shadows and across the wide open moonlit space of the courtyard. The motor wasn’t loud, but it was enough to alert their pursuers.
“Don’t mash too hard,” Phoebe warned, as the car swerved through the open gate, sliding in the gravel.
“Okay, now you can press a little harder,” Phoebe said. J.J. accidentally floored it and they cleared the wall enclosing the château in a blur. “Slow down,” she said.
Phoebe was leaning against him, steering from the passenger seat. She turned right and then right again and guided them onto the narrow lane. There was only one way to go, or they’d be trapped inside the walled grounds, like doomed deer trying to escape from hunters. They crossed the stone bridge across the moat and zipped toward the hotel parking lot.
“Okay, let off the accelerator. I need you to use the brake. Go very easy on the pressure.”
J.J. pressed gently.
Phoebe steered the truck toward the center of the parking area, “Now harder!”
J.J. tromped on the brake and both of them nearly went through the windshield.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“No, you did great!” Phoebe said, meaning it. “Now we need to get into the rental car and get outta here ASAP. I can drive it. It’s an automatic.”
J.J. transferred her to the rental car and ran around and threw himself into the other side. Phoebe tore out of the lot spewing gravel before he’d even gotten his door closed. Men were running toward them from the château.
They were already across the moat. Surely the Range Rover wouldn’t be far behind. Phoebe left the Kia’s lights off and pressed hard on the accelerator.
* * *
Phoebe had no idea where they were going. She turned left onto the two-lane main road leading away from the château and away from Paris and drove as fast as she dared without lights. “Any destination in mind?” J.J. asked.
“Not a clue.”
“There’s a château near here that was built as the residence for the man in charge of the construction of Chambord. The name is Villesavin. If we can find it, we could stop there and think about what to do next.”
There was no traffic, not exactly surprising in the wee hours of the morning, but it made it obvious that they’d managed to elude their pursuers. That was a miracle.
Within minutes Phoebe saw signs for Château de Villesavin and followed them off the main road. She drove slowly down a narrow overgrown lane in the darkness. The place looked abandoned, utterly deserted. She wondered if it was falling into ruin.
She drove to the far end of the château, which was of an impressive size, but seemed small compared to Chambord. She let the car roll to a stop. There were no lights on anywhere. There seemed to be no one living there. The place looked gloomy and haunted.
“I think we’re okay now,” she told J.J., “at least for awhile. We’re hidden from the road. Nobody seems to be around. I think it’s okay to talk.”
He bent and put both hands over his face and said with feeling, “Mon Dieu.”
“That was an amazing display of manliness you put on back there,” Phoebe said. “You saved my life at least half a dozen times in a row—when I fell, when you punched that guy out, when I would’ve gone the wrong way, when I tripped on the stairs, when you carried me out, and then when you drove the truck.”
She turned toward him in the darkness, his hands were still covering his face. “You really shoulda been a cheerleader,” she said. “You’d have been a great one.”
“Thank you,” he said. He dropped his hands and turned to face her, “I drove! I actually drove a stick shift on a real road! And I parked!”
He was obviously thrilled, and rightly so.
“It was amazing,” Phoebe agreed. “If you hadn’t been able to use a clutch on your first try without killing the engine, we wouldn’t be here now. They woulda caught us for sure. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to drive a stick shift that well on the first try.”
He was smiling, proud of himself, and obviously relieved that they were still alive and running loose.
“That was a good call on the stairs,” Phoebe said. “I never realized how handy it could be to know a guy who can see through walls.”
He nodded, now serious.
“By the way, who were those guys? Security guards for the building?”
“I don’t know,” J.J. said. “Maybe.”
“They weren’t wearing uniforms with any identification on them, like badges or patches.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
Then she added, “I’m impressed if security guards in France all get to drive unmarked Range Rovers. Very stylish.”
He looked worried now. Neither of them said anything, but they were both wondering the same thing—if those guys weren’t security for Chambord, who were they?
* * *
When the adrenalin rush had died down and Phoebe began to relax, she realized her ankle was killing her. She pulled up her pants leg and took a look. It was swollen, excessively warm to the touch, and bruising was already apparent. Her shoe hurt, but she didn’t dare take it off now. She was afraid she might not be able to get it back on.
As was her custom whenever she was in pain, she forced herself to calm down. She told herself it didn’t really hurt. As always, this was a surprisingly effective strategy. Her mother had taught her to do it. She sat up and looked over at J.J. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
Bending over to examine her ankle reminded her that she had something stuffed down the front of her jacket. She unzipped her coat and felt bits of plastic crunching in the inside breast pocket. Her cell phone was in pieces. It must have broken when J.J. threw her over his shoulder. “Well, we won’t be calling anybody for a while. My phone’s had it.”
She tossed the pieces into the backseat footwell.
“What about the other?” he asked, worried.
“I still have it.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. She reached farther down into the front of her jacket and removed whatever it was that Christian Rosenkreutz had hidden in the wall of the studiolo over two hundred years ago.
She took a deep breath and made herself as calm as she could. She could feel CR’s presence. She could feel a whisper of his hands alongside hers on the linen wrapping. She described what she was experiencing and what she was seeing. The bundle was still intact. She examined it carefully. It was hard to discern color in the dim light, but it seemed to be a pale blue linen parcel tied with a red ribbon.
“Should I untie it?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” J.J. said.
Inside the wrapping was a triangular book bound with a metal cover embossed with intricate symbols she didn’t recognize. She described it to J.J.
“We did it,” he said, simply. He reached across and took her hand and squeezed. “We did our job.”
Phoebe was amazed. They’d actually done something important. Such an unlikely duo and yet they’d succeeded. Phoebe felt young again.
“Now it’s imperative that we get the book to safety,” J.J. said.
Phoebe leafed through a few pages, but she wasn’t able to understand any of it. She rewrapped it and tied it back the way she’d found it. “Do you want t
o carry it?” she asked J.J.
“No, you are his courier.”
“The Boss’s you mean?”
“The Boss’s and CR’s. They’ll protect you until you can get it to safety.”
She rested the bundle against her chest and zipped her jacket up again, pressing the book to her heart.
“What now?” she asked.
“Well, Villesavin was on your list of places you wanted to see. We could take a tour.”
They both laughed at that. Phoebe actually thought about it for a few seconds, now that she knew she had burglary skills and was becoming accustomed to visiting famous places in the dark. But was frigid inside the little Kia. And the spitting snow was gaining momentum.
“Oh great,” she said. “It’s snowing for real now.”
Chapter 18.
J.J. suggested they head for the main road that ran alongside the Loire. At the intersection with the Levée de la Loire, the D951, Phoebe turned right and headed northeast toward Paris.
She was driving a little faster than she should’ve been when she got a strange feeling. She wondered if she was about to faint. Could she be throwing a blood clot from her ankle injury? She slowed the car, just in case. Then she realized the odd sensation was a vibe coming from the left. She glanced out her window to see what it might be and nearly wrecked the car.
A majestic château sat on the opposite bank of the river. Something about the luminous moonlit apparition almost made her swoon. She couldn’t help it, she stomped on the brakes without any warning and the car fishtailed across both lanes. It was a good thing she and J.J. were both wearing their seatbelts and no cars were coming in either direction.
“What!” J.J. said, alarmed.
Phoebe couldn’t speak. There was something hypnotic about the château. She’d never felt anything like it.
“What is it?” J.J. insisted.
“I … don’t know,” Phoebe said. “There’s a really big house across the Loire. There’s something about it that I recognize, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen it before. It’s not a sight you could forget.”
J.J. remained still and quiet to let her stabilize her impressions.
“There are amazing terraces between the house and the river. With long elegant sweeps of stairs that go down to the water. The place is stunning. Pure Louis XV. It’s screaming at me. It’s that couple again, whoever they are. The woman lived here and the man came here to visit.”
“Madame Pompadour? And Christian Rosenkreutz?”
“CR for sure, came and went. And maybe Madame P, at least a little, but the strong vibe is not quite her. I don’t know who it is, maybe a relative? Whoever it is, they’re still here.”
“Let’s find a bridge,” said J.J.
* * *
They had to backtrack to the town of Blois where they were able to cross the Loire and then resume their travel toward the northeast. The snowfall had gotten heavier and it was sticking. As they drove J.J. filled Phoebe in on Madame P’s beloved younger brother, Abel-Francois.
“Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, marquis de Marigny, and marquis de Menars was a French nobleman. He was born in 1727 and died on May 12, 1781. He was as Louis XV’s Director-general of the King's Buildings.
“He got the job in 1751, when he was only twenty-four years old, thanks to his sister. He retired in 1773. This was a remarkable tenure, the longest administrative service in the 18th century in France.
“Marigny was known for his extraordinary art collection,” J.J. said, then he named off some of the most famous paintings. Phoebe gasped when he mentioned the painting she’d identified to the Boss, Titian’s Portrait of Man with Glove. How interesting. So Madame P’s brother may also have had a relationship with CR.
“Marigny died unexpectedly at age fifty-four without leaving a will.”
“So perhaps it’s her brother who’s still at the house,” said Phoebe. “I wonder why?”
“We need to try to discover the answer to that question,” said J.J.
From his tone of voice Phoebe got the impression that they were skirting the need to know zone.
* * *
The little Kia wasn’t made for driving in heavy snow. Their progress got slower and slower. It was becoming hard to see, and the car was skidding all over the road. It was scary.
“Where are we?” J.J. asked.
“I don’t know, the D152 I think. I can’t see anymore. The defroster can’t keep up with this. The windshield is freezing and the wipers are hardly working. It’s almost a whiteout.
“For what it’s worth,” Phoebe said, “I think we’re only a few miles from Chambord, but we’re across the river, on the north side, about a hundred miles from Paris.”
“Surely we’re close to the house you saw.”
“We must be, but I can’t see past the end of the hood. I’m so sorry, we might be only a mile or so from the place, but I have to be within a certain distance to find things and we’re still out of my range. If there are any signs for a turnoff, I’d miss them with the windshield frozen like this. I’m driving blind!” She realized what she’d said immediately after finishing the sentence and winced.
He turned toward her, smiling, and said, “Well, in that case, shall I try again?”
She laughed, but said, “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to pull over. I can’t go any further. I haven’t seen another car in a while.”
She pulled the little car onto the verge and turned the flashers on. She wondered if they’d freeze to death. It certainly seemed like a possibility. What a terrible way to go. Phoebe hated the cold. She was a Southerner through and through.
* * *
“Give me a minute,” J.J. said, and before she could stop him, he opened the door and got out. “Stay here,” he said, then slammed the door behind him and walked away from the car. Phoebe assumed he needed to relieve himself.
She didn’t want to invade his privacy, but felt it was only sensible to keep an eye on out a blind man who was out walking alone in a snowstorm. But J.J. didn’t do anything she expected. He didn’t open his clothing. Instead he simply stood there, in the dark. After a minute he lifted his arms wide and tilted his face up toward the sky.
The thick flakes of snow landed on him and covered him until he blended into the landscape—a living, breathing scarecrow. It was an eerie sight, made even more odd by the deep silence produced by the heavy snowfall.
She realized he was turning in place very slowly. He was doing it so gradually she didn’t notice it at first. It was a strange and beautiful thing to watch. After a few minutes he lowered his arms, stood perfectly still for a few moments, and then returned to the car.
He came to her side covered with the white stuff and opened her door. “We’re very close,” he said, “if we just continue down this road we’ll be there soon.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked someone,” he said.
“Wow,” Phoebe said. She’d finally found a man who had the brains to stop and ask for directions, but he didn’t ask a human being. That was just plain spooky.
During her training at The School for Psychics she’d been told several times that everyone’s gifts were different and that it was extremely important to learn to trust each other’s gifts. So she decided to follow J.J.’s advice without asking any further questions.
It helped that there were no alternatives. They might die if they stayed in the car.
Chapter 19.
J.J. leaned down to scoop Phoebe out of her seat. He asked her to put her arms around him and he adjusted her weight. Then he kicked her door closed, turned aroud, and trudged down the snow covered road into the forbidding black and white landscape.
It was a surreal experience. The only sound was J.J. shushing through the deepening snow. It was heavily overcast, so there was no moon, almost no light at all, but of course that kind of light meant nothing to him anyway.
J.J. made his way steadily through the snow, staying on the paved
road. Phoebe guided him as well as she could and watched for any sign of the house. It was so cold she had to turn her face toward his chest. Then, without realizing it, she started to doze. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, maybe it was just a few moments, but she didn’t wake until J.J. jiggled her in his arms and spoke. “I need your help,” he said. “I think we’re here, but I don’t understand how to get in.”
Phoebe looked up in a daze, saw his face at point blank range, the snow on his hat and shoulders, and remembered where she was.
“That’s gotta be it,” J.J. said, breathing hard.
Phoebe peered in the direction he was facing and struggled to focus her eyes. Even through the heavy snowfall, she could see the vague outlines of the house and now that they were closer, she could feel it, too. “You did it!” she said.
J.J. was standing in front of a huge set of ornamental gates. She could see through the wrought iron down an elegant manicured alleé of trees. “There’s an intercom about ten steps forward and two or three steps to the left,” she said. “If you’ll set me down and help me hop over there we can see if anybody’s home.”
Phoebe wondered if the kind of people who lived in a house like this would answer their door in the middle of the night. They certainly weren’t going to appreciate being called out of a warm bed and into a snowstorm.
J.J. walked closer to the intercom box and carefully set Phoebe onto her feet and made sure she was steady. Then he draped one of her arms over his shoulders and wrapped an arm around her waist so he could support most of her weight as she hopped the last couple of feet.
It was brutally cold and windy. Phoebe’s feet were soaked almost immediately, but she knew icing the ankle would be good for it. She could only imagine what condition J.J.’s feet were in.
She pressed the only button on the panel and they waited, hoping someone would respond. There was no way to know if anyone was at home, and if they were, whether they’d chat with a couple of ragamuffin strangers standing at their gates in the middle of the night.
Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics Page 11
