Romantic Road

by Blair McDowell

  She bid a tearful goodbye to Zsuzsa and Irenke, promising to stay in touch, and she and Max boarded the train to Vienna. They had not seen each other for three weeks.

  Lacy was uncomfortable. What was she doing here with this man she’d known for less than a month before her world blew apart? Who was he?

  Max, too, seemed tense as they settled into their seats in the first class compartment. He fussed around her, putting her small bag in the overhead rack, placing a pillow behind her, offering her bottled water.

  “I’ve missed you, Lacy.”

  Lacy sighed. “And I’ve missed you. But I need time, Max.”

  “It’s okay, Lacy. No pressure. There’ll be time enough for us to talk once we’re in the Salzkammergut. You don’t need to do anything now but get well.”

  ****

  In Vienna, Max’s grandmother welcomed them warmly into her apartment.

  “She’s well again, Oma,” Max said, smiling down on Lacy.

  “Are you?” Ilse Petersen took Lacy’s two hands in her own and studied her face critically.

  Lacy shrugged uncertainly. “The doctor said I could travel. The scars have faded, almost disappeared.”

  “Those are only the scars you can see. What about the scars inside? Those take longer. I’m sure you don’t want advice from an old lady, but don’t make any hasty decisions, Lacy.”

  Lacy frowned. “About what?”

  “About anything. Give yourself time to heal inside.”

  At that moment the doorbell rang, and Ilse moved to the speaker. “Come up, Dietrich.” She buzzed the newcomer in.

  “I’m sorry, children, but I wasn’t sure when you were coming, and I’m afraid I have a date for the opera tonight. Supper is laid out for you, and your room is ready. I’ll see you in the morning.” She took a fur wrap off a chair and placed it around her shoulders.

  The newcomer, a very distinguished-looking man in his fifties, arrived at the door, and Ilse, after making hasty introductions, swept out on his arm.

  Lacy smiled and shook her head as Max closed the door behind them. “Your grandmother is quite a lady.”

  Max laughed. “I’m perpetually surprised by Oma. Come let’s see what she’s left us to eat.”

  They found the table set with an inviting array of cold cuts, cheeses, and fruits and a plate of delectable looking Viennese pastries. A bottle of white wine sat in a cooler. By the time they finished their meal both were more relaxed.

  Max took Lacy’s hand and brought it to his lips. He stood, pulled her to her feet and turned toward the bedroom.

  Lacy froze. “I can’t, Max.”

  “Can’t what, Lacy?”

  “I can’t make love with you. I just can’t do that. I’m not ready.”

  A range of emotions flitted across Max’s features. Then resignation. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  “No need for that. I don’t want to have to explain anything to your grandmother. You can sleep with me. But the operative word is sleep.”

  “I see.” Max sighed.

  ****

  The smell of coffee awakened Lacy. The bed beside her was empty. She hastily dressed and followed her nose to the kitchen where she found Max and his grandmother sitting over their morning coffee and pastries. Max looked drawn and tired.

  “I didn’t hear you get up,” she said to him as she pulled up a chair.

  “I woke early.”

  Ilse looked from one to the other of them.

  To preclude any possible questions, Lacy rushed into speech. “How was the opera?”

  Ilse shook her head. “The opera is always good in Vienna, although I must say I find directors who think they can take something like La Traviata and place it the present day are very tiresome. It’s so ridiculous.”

  Max smiled. “And your escort, Oma? Was he tiresome also?”

  His grandmother laughed. “I did enjoy my companion. I think I’ll be seeing more of him.”

  Lacy studied Ilse Petersen. She seemed so complete as a person, so secure in who she was. How Lacy envied Max’s grandmother. Would she ever again be that sure of who she was?

  Ilse broke into Lacy’s thoughts. “I have something for you.”

  “For me?”

  “After you left Vienna so precipitously, Max called and asked me to collect your belongings from the Pension Suzanne.”

  Lacy burst out laughing, looking at Max. “You didn’t?”

  His face relaxed, and he grinned. “You kept accusing me of losing your clothes. It seemed the least I could do.”

  “All the beautiful clothes I bought on the Kärntner Strasse?”

  “All.”

  Suddenly everything seemed right between them again. Max’s grandmother looked on with satisfaction. She left them and then reappeared with Lacy’s bags. “Here they are.”

  Lacy hugged her. “Thank you so much.” Inexplicably she felt close to tears. It wasn’t the clothes. It was the thoughtfulness behind the act that touched her. How could she have doubted Max? He had never done anything except protect and love her.

  “Well, now that that’s settled I must be off. I promised to meet Dietrich at Demels for coffee at ten. You’ll be here when I return?” Ilse asked.

  “I thought we’d leave for the Salzkammergut later this afternoon,” Max replied. “There’s a train at four.”

  “Good. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

  With that, she was gone and Max and Lacy were alone once again.

  Max sat, staring at Lacy, his expression a picture of indecision.

  “What’s wrong, Max?”

  “I have something to tell you, Lacy, and I don’t know where to begin.”

  Lacy looked at Max in confusion. “Something to tell me?”

  “About who I am. What I am now, and what I was before. I should have told you long ago, but I was afraid you wouldn’t understand. That you’d have run away from me. And how could I have protected you if you’d done that?” Max shook his head. “Not that I did such a great job of protecting you. If I had, you’d never have ended up in the hospital in Budapest.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Max? You’re not making any sense.” Lacy’s stomach churned. What now?

  “Maybe this will help.” Max took out his wallet, flipped it open to his ID and handed it to Lacy.

  Lacy studied it, frowning. It had his name, Maximillian Petersen, and then…realization dawned. “Interpol? You’re an Interpol agent?”

  “I’ve been with the Canadian Office of Interpol for ten years. Basically, I’m a glorified cop, Lacy, an international cop, but a cop.”

  “A cop?” Suddenly she understood it all. “I was an assignment. I was nothing but an assignment to you!” She stood white faced, staring at him.

  “No, Lacy. It wasn’t like that!”

  Without speaking further she went into the bedroom and gathered up her belongings. Coming back to the kitchen, she picked up the bag Ilse had retrieved from the Suzanne.

  Max sat at the table, his head in his hands. “Lacy. Hear me out, please. There’s more.”

  Slowly she turned, her eyes on him. There was more? Could it get worse?

  Max sighed. “Please listen to me. You weren’t just an assignment, Lacy. I was trying to protect you, yes. But at the beginning it was on my own time. It wasn’t part of my job. I was on my annual leave and on my way to St. Wolfgang for a holiday, and Claudette and Jean-Paul asked me to keep an eye on you. That much of what I told you was true.”

  “How did you know Claudette and Jean-Paul? You didn’t just meet them at the Auberge the way you told me, did you?”

  “No. No, I didn’t. We were colleagues. I met Jean-Paul and Claudette fifteen years ago. We worked together. I was just out of university. A raw young recruit in COCI when I met them.”

  “You were in COCI?” She tried to absorb that information. Her mind filled with suspicion. What wasn’t he telling her? She stared hard at him. Then she said, accusation in her voice, “Igor. You knew
Igor.”

  Max sighed. “It was long ago. When I first joined COCI, Igor was the operative I was assigned to for training. He was my mentor. I worshiped him. He taught me everything I know about covert operations. When he and Jean-Paul and Claudette left COCI, so did I. That’s when I went to Interpol.”

  “You worked with Igor? With Jean-Paul and Claudette? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “We were all worried for your safety. It was a dangerous game Igor set up for you. I only let my superiors at Interpol know what was happening later, when I realized the international implications.”

  Lacy’s legs refused to support her. She sat down abruptly. She’d been just a job to Max. A job with side benefits, but a job. And she’d thought he was in love with her. She’d even though she loved him. What an idiot she’d been. How gullible she was.

  Max reached for her hands.

  She jerked them away from him. “Don’t touch me. Just don’t touch me.”

  “Lacy, it was no part of my plan to fall in love with you, but I did. I love you, Lacy. I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “Marry you?” her voice was scathing. “Marry you? I don’t even know you.”

  The voice inside her head was raging, just as she hadn’t known Igor.

  “I know this has come as a shock to you, Lacy. But please don’t throw away what we have. It’s real.”

  Her voice was flat and emotionless. “No, it’s not real. Nothing about us is real. Not only do I not know who you are, I no longer even know who I am. In the last two months I’ve been Alice Ames from Baltimore and Tracy Thompson from Kitchener and Janine Dubois from Paris. Oh, and let’s not forget, Lacy Telchev from Manhattan. That one’s the biggest lie.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve been a redhead, I’ve had black hair and brown hair. You’ve never even seen the real me. I’m a blonde. Did you even know that?”

  In spite of himself, Max laughed. “Of course I know you’re a blonde, Lacy. Do you think I wouldn’t notice something like that when we were in bed?”

  Lacy continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “At one time I used to be Lacy Jones. Just simple plain Lacy Jones from Ames, Iowa. I have to find Lacy Jones again before I can even think of knowing anyone else.”

  She stood and picked up her bag. “I’m going home, Max. Don’t follow me. I’m going straight to the airport, and I’m going get on the first available flight back to New York.”

  “Lacy, please…” He held out his hand in supplication.

  She gave him a withering look.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back in New York, Lacy opened the door to her musty apartment—Igor’s apartment—and threw the windows open to let in what passed for fresh air in Manhattan. She willed herself not to think about the past two months. She’d go back to work. Working would help her forget.

  Forget? Why was it she couldn’t remember a whole catastrophic night in her life, and yet she couldn’t stop remembering Max Petersen? All the way across the Atlantic she kept remembering the feel of his arms around her, the feel of his lips on hers, of their bodies moving together. Wondering if she’d done the right thing when she walked away from him. He’d looked so desolate.

  But of course she’d done the right thing. How could she possibly have done anything else? Her life was a shambles. She couldn’t keep piling mistake upon mistake.

  She looked around the apartment. The decorators had done an excellent job. The new sofa and chairs were showroom fresh, the window coverings in excellent taste. Everything looked new and clean and…sterile.

  She picked up the phone.

  “Jane? It’s Lacy. I’ve just got back.”

  “Lacy! It’s wonderful to hear your voice. When can we get together?”

  “Right away, I hope. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare bed for me tonight?”

  “You’re in luck. My roommate has just moved out.

  “Wonderful! You’ve got a new roommate! I’m putting the condo on the market.”

  Two weeks later Lacy was fully back into her former life, as if the past five years had never happened. She was working at the U.N. and living in the walk-up in Brooklyn with Jane. She’d called Claudette to see about getting Sica back, but after some discussion they both decided the cat would be happier left where she was in Quebec.

  The condo sold quickly as furnished, bringing a very good price, and Lacy kept only the few personal items she wanted, Inga Graff’s painting of Irises, Riana Rolfe’s recordings, Igor’s little Russian triptych, and the small antique Italian desk he’d given her. His manuscripts and books, she donated to New York University. She placed the proceeds from the sale into a trust fund for Irenke. Somehow doing that made her feel much better.

  She kept the cabin in the Berkshires, although she couldn’t yet bear to visit it.

  She consulted a lawyer about taking back her maiden name. It took time to sort it all out and get all her papers and cards switched back to Lacy Jones, but once it was done she felt better. She’d done her best to erase the last five years of her life.

  When she went back to work, it seemed she’d successfully stepped back in time. To the Lacy she had been before Igor. Before Max. Before a night she couldn’t remember on a vineyard above Lake Balaton.

  Then the nightmares started. The first time she awoke drenched in sweat, Jane was shaking her and calling her name. “Wake up, Lacy! Wake up!”

  Lacy looked around her, confused. She was in her bed, not on a hillside in Hungary. It was Jane, not Max calling her. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “Honey, you probably woke the whole neighborhood. You were screaming bloody murder.”

  “Sorry. I can’t imagine…I never dream…”

  After the fourth time the nightmare woke her, Jane suggested Lacy should get professional help, see a doctor she knew, Emily Petzold.

  Lacy agreed.

  Gradually, under the gentle prodding of the psychiatrist, Lacy pieced together what had happened that night, and as she remembered the reality, the nightmares ceased. But the sense of unease stayed with her.

  She continued her meetings with Dr. Petzold.

  “Tell me how you felt about your husband,” the doctor suggested.

  “He wasn’t my husband.”

  “How did you feel about Igor Telchev?”

  Lacy hesitated for only a moment. “I loved him,” she said, knowing it to be true.

  After that admission, Lacy found she was able to visit Igor’s grave, and experience, not anger and resentment, but only sorrow. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “About this Max you mentioned…,” the doctor probed another day.

  “I can’t talk about him.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “He’s tried to call. I won’t talk to him. He’s written letters. They’re unopened in my desk.”

  “But you’ve kept them?”

  The question hung in the air.

  ****

  One day in March a large padded envelope arrived, forwarded from her Manhattan address. Lacy turned it over in her hands, noticing the Canadian return address. She started to put in in her desk drawer, beside six unopened letters from Max, then hesitated.

  Before she could change her mind, she slit the end of the envelope and reached in to extract the contents. Igor’s picture stared up at her from the back cover of the hardcover book. She turned it over. The title was slashed across the front in blood red letters, Betrayal. Igor’s book had made it to print? How?

  She opened the cover and a short note fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, she read.

  My darling Lacy,

  I copied each section of Igor’s book as we retrieved it, and I forwarded it to Igor’s publisher. I didn’t tell you because it was important that the men following you believe they were in possession of the one and only copy and that it had been destroyed. Any information to the contrary would have endangered both you and Igor’s publishe
r. I believed, falsely as it turned out, that I could keep you safe. I’m so sorry about everything.

  I love you.

  Max

  Lacy sat for a long time with the unopened book and Max’s note in her lap. Had it been worth it, this book? Igor murdered? Riana and Inga both terrorized and injured? Irenke’s kidnapping? Her own hospitalization and long drawn-out recovery? Richard dead. Poor, twisted, misguided Richard who, whatever his faults, had thought he loved her?

  And Max. What about Max and her feelings for him? If only they could have met in some other time and place, without danger and intrigue dogging their steps, perhaps they might have had a chance.

  Lacy’s throat tightened and tears blurred her vision. Max was sorry? She could hardly bear thinking about him. She reached into the desk and pulled out the small bundle of letters. Going to a chair by the window she wiped her eyes and carefully opened the first one, the one he sent two months ago, right after she stormed out of his life.

  ****

  Spring arrived in a burst of color. Central Park was alive with cyclists and runners and mothers pushing prams. Trees were in bud, and daffodils bloomed along the walkways. Lacy walked down one of the paths, deep in thought. It was time to move on. But first she needed to say a proper goodbye to the past.

  She called Claudette. “Are you thinking about reopening the Auberge soon?”

  “At the end of the month. Come join us, Lacy. We haven’t seen you since you returned from Europe, and we’d really love to have you.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about. Could I book the whole inn for the last weekend in May? I’d like to invite some personal guests. I’ll only need four rooms, but I’d like the privacy of not having other guests in residence.”

  “Of course, cherie. What’s this all about?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a good-bye party.

  Lacy’s next call was to a travel agent. When everything was arranged she told Doctor Petzold what she’d done.

  The middle-aged woman smiled. “It’s a curious way to come to terms with what’s happened, but it could be effective. I’ll be interested in the results of your little experiment.”