The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense

by M. J. Rose

  “I want you to try to relax,” he said. “Take a few sips of your wine.” He slathered some of the soft, runny cheese on a piece of crusty baguette and handed it to her. “And eat this.”

  “Orders?”

  “Suggestions. You’re under a lot of stress. I’m just trying to help. When was the last time you ate?”

  Jac resented that he’d remembered this about her and took a small bite of the bread, more to stop herself from commenting on what he’d said. She was hardly hungry.

  “It doesn’t feel right to be in a restaurant while—”

  Griffin interrupted. “We need to eat, and we might as well do it someplace where the food and the wine are good. And where no one is watching the door.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Marcher has someone following you.”

  “Protecting me or watching me?” Instinctively, she turned around. She hadn’t noticed before, but the room was eerily empty. All the other guests were on the terrace, enticed by the view.

  “Protecting you, I hope. But I’m not positive. That’s why I insisted we go out—so I could talk to you. I’m not sure if it’s safe in the house, the store, or the workshop.”

  “Safe?”

  “They could be listening, too.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I saw a man follow us here. Noticed him on the bridge. And then in the reflection on the pyramid. That’s why I think he’s protection. It was too easy to spot him. He’s not trying to be invisible.”

  It was suddenly oppressively hot in the room. Jac wanted to get up. To run. She couldn’t just sit there while Robbie was missing. She’d been crazy to think she could manage it.

  As if he sensed what she was thinking, Griffin covered her hand with his, and the slight pressure was enough to tether her to her seat.

  “It’s okay. I promise.”

  With his other hand, he lifted his glass and raised it toward her.

  “To Robbie,” he said, softly, kindly.

  Jac felt tears prick her eyes but blinked them back.

  She put the glass to her lips. Out of habit, before she drank, she sniffed the bouquet. All the subtle smells came together in a smooth wave of scents: cherry, violet, and roses along with leather and oak. She sipped. The taste danced in her mouth. It seemed indecent to notice the subtleties of the wine while Robbie was out there somewhere. In danger.

  “What happened to your hands?” Griffin asked.

  There were angry scratches across her knuckles where blood had dried in thread-thin lines. Cuts from when she’d tried to pry off the manhole cover at the center of the labyrinth. She rubbed at them, but only made them redder.

  “Jac?” His voice was laced with worry.

  “Even though the room is empty, could they be listening?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  She leaned across the table toward him, not realizing how seductive the movement was until she saw its impact reflected in his eyes.

  “I think I know where Robbie is,” she said in a quiet rush of words.

  “Did he contact you?”

  “No. But he left another sign. I think I know where he is. But I can’t get there by myself.” She held her hands out as evidence. “I tried.”

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  Jac frowned. “I am telling you.”

  “Only because I asked about your hands.”

  She’d been foolish to think they could ignore the past—just move around it—without acknowledging it or giving it its due. “Let’s get this over with. Okay? I’m not the one who left, Griffin.”

  His expression told her that he hadn’t expected her to broach this subject. For a moment, he was quiet. Drank some of his wine. Reorganized his utensils. “No, you weren’t.”

  “Then why are you angry at me?”

  “I’m not.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “You wouldn’t have been happy with me,” he said in a low voice.

  “You decided that. Not me.”

  “I knew it.”

  “You thought you knew.” She drank more wine.

  “All these years . . . we really haven’t forgotten about each other, have we?” He’d asked a question. It sounded like a confession.

  Jac thought about whether or not to answer. About how to answer. Her feelings were buried so deep, and were so private, talking about them seemed almost obscene.

  Griffin leaned in. She could smell him. The scent of punishment.

  “They don’t sell that cologne anymore. Haven’t in years. You’re still wearing it?”

  “I’ve never found another cologne I liked, so your brother offered to have the formula analyzed and then recreate it for me. He replenishes my supply whenever I run out.”

  Jac’s laugh sounded slightly hysterical even to her. While she had been buying up memories—half-empty bottles of the fragrance at flea markets—Robbie was in touch with Griffin, mixing up fresh bottles of the cologne for him.

  “Whatever it is, tell me.”

  She lifted her hands. Tried to say something coherent. The air fell through her fingers. Jac couldn’t order her thoughts or make sense of what she was thinking. She shook her head.

  Griffin scooted his chair a quarter of the way around the table, moved his wine glass beside hers. And then leaned in, as if he were going to tell her a secret.

  Then his mouth was on hers, and suddenly she wasn’t just smelling him and tasting the wine but remembering what she’d thought she’d forgotten about how they were together. About the way he held her when he kissed her, with his hands on either side of her face. About the pressure of his lips moving on hers. Them together, the two-ness of them, was woven into the fabric of who she was. This memory was so deep, she felt that if she pulled the string of it and followed it, she’d wind up—where? The feeling of his palms on her cheeks, of his breath inside of her, of his hair brushing her face. It felt familiar in another way too. This was what Marie-Genevieve had been remembering while she was drowning. This was what the Egyptian princess on the edge of the river had been remembering when her lover told her he was going to be killed.

  Killed? Drowning?

  Jac pushed Griffin away so hard that he fell back against his chair. At first the look on his face was shock, then it moved to curiosity.

  “You look scared, Jac. I didn’t mean to—”

  She shook her head. “It’s not about me. It’s Robbie.”

  “No. Something happened to you just now. I saw it on your face. What is it?”

  “Forget about me!” She was almost shouting. “All that matters now is my brother.”

  The dinner arrived. They were both silent as the waiter placed the chicken paillard in front of her, a croque monsieur in front of Griffin.

  For the next few minutes, they ate and drank without saying much, then Jac put down her fork and knife. She’d consumed only a little of her food.

  “Can’t you eat any more?”

  She shook her head.

  “When my daughter won’t eat, I bribe her.”

  “I’m not your daughter, and there’s nothing you have you could bribe me with.” Jac had meant it to sound light. Instead it came out bitter.

  She pushed away her plate.

  “Will you come with me and try and find Robbie now?”

  “Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

  As they left the restaurant, neither of them noticed the pale woman sitting by herself in the corner of the terrace listening to headphones while she sipped a glass of white wine and nibbled on foie gras and French bread. But once they’d walked outside, Valentine Lee threw a handful of euros on the table and followed.

  Like the Champs-Élysées, the Louvre’s courtyards were always crowded. It was easy enough to get lost among them and avoid the plainclothes policeman who was also watching Jac and Griffin.

  Valentine wove in between the steady stream of people crisscrossing the wide-open space. Keeping her p
rey in her sight, she sauntered around a group of teenagers hanging out in front of the pyramid, smoking, texting and talking on cell phones. Twice, she avoided being photographed by tourists taking shots of the scenery.

  She hadn’t taken out her earbuds. A woman listening to an iPod was an ordinary sight. But there wasn’t any music coming through. The directional on her belt was picking up traffic and ambient noises. She couldn’t hear Jac and Griffin’s conversation any longer, but she’d heard them throughout dinner.

  Where were they going now? Where did Jac think Robbie L’Etoile was hiding? She’d never mentioned a location.

  As Valentine crossed the Pont, she kept a safe distance between her and the couple she was following. When the light turned red at the end of the bridge, she stopped, pulled out a camera, and snapped pictures of the Seine.

  Paris was dark now. The city’s lights shimmered off the river’s surface. A tourist boat drifted under the bridge, and from its deck, strains of Django Reinhardt wafted up.

  The sound of the familiar music wrapped itself around her and squeezed her tight. Valentine was helpless to fight back. A wave of emotion broke over her. The sound was François. It was his rhythm. It was his beat. He moved to this music. Lived it. Breathed it. Played it. Reinhardt had been François’s idol. The loss she’d refused to deal with came at her now. Greater than she was prepared for. Part of her welcomed the grief. It had been wrong to keep moving when she heard François was dead. He was as close to a father as she’d ever had. She should have stopped. Just sat and cried. Wept. Mourned for him. Let the pain of losing François take her over. Now, standing on the bridge, the strains of the music drifting downriver, she couldn’t pretend she was all right.

  No one around her seemed to notice the woman weeping as she looked out at the City of Lights. There was no better disguise, it turned out, than tears. It was the first lesson she’d learned without François by her side in over twelve years.

  Thirty-two

  8:58 P.M.

  Jac stepped out onto the terrace and reached for the light switch.

  “Wait.” Griffin stopped her. “Let’s see if there’s enough ambient light.”

  “None of the surrounding buildings can see down into the maze.”

  “The maze? Is that where you think Robbie is?”

  She nodded. “I’ll show you.”

  Griffin looked up and craned his neck. “Are you sure no one can look down on us? What about there?” He pointed.

  “That’s part of our building. These trees were planted so that no one can see the labyrinth except us. One day if a skyscraper goes up nearby, perhaps, but not yet.”

  “It’s still better if you don’t turn on the lights. Even if they can’t see us directly, there might be some kind of glow. You don’t want them to know you’re out here at night.”

  “I’m just taking a walk in my own garden,” she argued. “How suspicious could that be?”

  “Let’s try it without the lights.”

  As stubborn as Jac was, he was worse. She bristled. How, after so long, could they reprise their roles so easily? The good and the bad. The comforting and the annoying. Over the years, Jac had assumed the grooves they’d worn in each other’s psyches would have smoothed out. But they hadn’t. In little more than twenty-four hours, she and Griffin had slipped back to the way they had a decade ago.

  It was a moonless night. Opaque black. But Jac knew the twists and turns in the warren of lanes by heart and led the way without a misstep. She could have done it blindfolded—by smell. There were roses and jasmine planted in the center, and the stronger their scent, the closer she knew she was.

  Arriving at the maze’s heart, she dropped to her knees and with the palms of her hands moved the black and white pebbles away, revealing the metal disc she’d discovered earlier that afternoon.

  There had been no flashlights in the parfumerie. Or if there were, she didn’t know where to find one. Griffin always carried a penlight in his briefcase, but that was back in his hotel room. A supply of scented candles from the shop was the best they could manage. Fat, expensive votives that were imbued with the signature fragrances of the House of L’Etoile.

  Griffin squatted beside her, struck a match. Once the candle came to life, he shone it on the manhole cover.

  “This is a couple of hundred years old.” He ran his fingers over the metal numbers.

  1808.

  “How could I have missed that this afternoon?” she said, annoyed with herself.

  “You weren’t looking for it. You were looking for Robbie.”

  What had been impossible for Jac to do alone, she and Griffin did in their first effort. They lifted the plate and moved it aside revealing a three-foot-wide hole in the ground.

  “What’s down there?” he asked.

  Trying to ignore her growing panic, Jac kneeled down and peered over the edge. The scent that wafted up contained dirt and dust. Slightly rotting wood and moldy stone.

  Griffin lowered the candle into the hole. The small flame only illuminated the metal rim and a few feet of stonework. Beyond that, all Jac saw was an infinite darkness that offered no clues.

  “Can you smell the loyalty perfume?” he asked.

  “No, not anymore.”

  Defeated before they even began.

  Griffin lifted up the candle but the speed of his action was enough to blow out the flame. Now the garden was as black as the inside of the hole.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

  Jac couldn’t see Griffin’s face. Just heard his voice. It was like a cool wind. Coming from a distance. Washing over her. The familiar voice that made her shiver with its familiarity and pull her sweater tighter around her shoulders. As if she could protect herself from him.

  Griffin struck another match. The wick sputtered to life. He lowered the candle slowly, so that this time the flame didn’t blow out.

  The light illuminated only another foot of the stone tunnel. Jac still couldn’t see the bottom. Her heart was beating so fast she could hear it. Panic curled around her and teased her, threatening to paralyze her.

  “Are you all right?” Griffin asked. “This must be hell for you.”

  She nodded. For one moment, her fear was replaced by surprise that he’d remembered this, too.

  Jac had a fear of edges. It was a peculiar phobia. Rare, too, according to the therapists she’d discussed it with in Switzerland. Heights didn’t bother her at all. Her apartment in New York City was on the twenty-seventh floor. But she couldn’t stand on the edge of a train platform without feeling her heart speed up. What if she tripped, or slipped, or—even worse—became paralyzed on an edge, unable to move?

  She knew how it started, but identifying its genesis did little to eradicate its grip on her. She and an eight-year-old Robbie had been playing hide-and-seek. He’d climbed out the attic window onto the roof. She’d looked up there and, seeing the window open, climbed out after him. The roof was large, and the many chimneys and eaves were excellent hiding places. Jac was prowling around looking for him. Suddenly she heard voices. Walked to the edge. Looked down. Her parents were below, standing in the street, arguing. They fought hard and often, and it always bothered Jac. She couldn’t bear either of them being unhappy.

  This altercation was especially nasty and loud. She was so absorbed in their insults and threats that she didn’t hear Robbie come up behind her. He said her name, startling her. She turned too fast and her left foot slid over the edge. She was falling. Robbie grabbed Jac, held on, and pulled her up across the tiles—scratching her as he dragged her, but saving her from what would have surely been broken bones or worse.

  Breathe. The trick to everything. Breathe, she told herself.

  If Robbie is down there, you have to help him.

  She knew how to calm down. Inhaling, she focused on deciphering the scents in the air. Earth. Rotting wood. Stone dust and mold. Crisp, clean resins from the cypress hedges that made up the maze. The night-blooming jasmine pl
anted in the garden along with the early roses. And grass. Together all the scents created a loamy dark Oud. A mysterious and bewildering earthy perfume that suggested forests heavy with foliage. So thick only shafts of sunlight penetrated. So dense a child could wander forever and never find her way out.

  Nowhere in the scent was a hint of what she was searching for.

  Was her brother here or not? Had he been giving her clues? If not, then why was the tip of the obelisk smeared with dirt? Why had the pebbles been awry? Was it just a cat creating havoc?

  “Robbie?” she called out, then strained to listen.

  An echo of her own voice mocked her simplistic effort.

  As if he might be there just waiting for her, she thought to herself.

  “Robbie?” She tried again, despite knowing better.

  Nothing.

  “What is down there?” She whispered as much to the night as to Griffin. She sounded scared and was suddenly ashamed.

  Griffin opened his fingers and let the candle drop. For a few seconds it enlightened more stonework. Then, like a shooting star, it tumbled downward, extinguishing itself through its own velocity.

  Jac was shaking. Shivering as badly as if she were out in a snowstorm without any protection. She knew her physical symptoms were due to the phobia, but she couldn’t stop them. She turned to Griffin and was about to say something, when he put up his hand to stop her.

  When the candle hit bottom, the sound was faint, far away.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I wanted to see how long it took to fall. Figure out the depth by feet per second.”

  “How long did it take?”

  “Almost thirty seconds to hit bottom.”

  “How deep is that?”

  “Over a hundred feet.”

  Griffin lit a second candle, leaned as far over the rim as was safe, and lowered the light.

  “It’s just a rock wall covered with moss and lichen.”

  “No, look,” he said.

  She inched closer. Her heart accelerated. Jac couldn’t tell where he was pointing. “Where?”