***
I was as intrigued as I was annoyed. A vampire shows up and tells me to leave and I know nothing about her. I called George into my office and told him what had happened the previous night.We set to researching Nanette, looking for unexplained disappearances in 1998, and found some newspaper clippings about the suspected murder of a prostitute in Marseille. While the article didn’t give much away, there was a nice picture of Nanette, as the police wanted information. I now knew that Nanette had been born Wided Achenoui, the daughter of poor Algerian immigrants, and that her married name was Medjnoun.
George and I searched the internet extensively but didn’t find any more about either Wided or Nanette until we came across a very small article in a society magazine from a few years before that talked about how Harold Weisman III, an 80-year-old millionaire who had lost the use of one arm after a stroke, had found love again with a 42-year-old woman named Nanette Dubois. After this we were able to follow her life up to the moment I had met her, as the society papers now and then mentioned the couple, but of course there were never any photos.
Wided had obviously done an excellent job of reinventing herself and landing a big fish like Harold. I could well imagine how Nanette must have worked on Harold charming him into marrying her within only two weeks of meeting him and how not long after he’d suffered another stroke that left him bedridden and unable to speak. How convenient!
It wasn’t hard to imagine that during the day, Nanette played the devoted wife and nurse, sitting next to Harold in his windowless room and slowly sucking him dry. The nights she would spend partying and hunting for her next husband. I could also well imagine that she would not be happy about another vampire showing up, one that could unmask her and destroy her life. She’d be furious that I could also now reveal her as a former prostitute with very lowly beginnings.
I was unsure just how far Nanette would be prepared to go to have me out of the way. A dead vampire might suit her better than one in custody and staking me would probably leave no more trace than a small pile of dust. I told George to get ready to sail to Monaco – best to put a bit of distance between me and this pissed off vampire.
Language in the Blood Page 34
