Haunted Echoes

by Cindy Dees

  “How are you, my dear?” she murmured.

  “I believe that’s my line.” I smiled back. She grasped my hand, and her grip wasn’t as firm as I remembered. Must be the concussion making her weak. “How are you?” I asked.

  “I’ll live. So. What have you come to ask me today?”

  At her dry remark, I felt more than a little guilty. I was, indeed, here to interrogate her again. But it would have to be in private. I waited while the nurse injected something into Elise’s IV drip and then announced that I could only stay a few minutes. The nurse left the room and shut the door behind her.

  I looked down at Elise. Her hair seemed whiter than I remembered, her skin more fragile. Must be the stress of her injury and being in the hospital. I said quietly, “I had a visitor last night. Guy by the name of Montrose. He spun an interesting tale.”

  “Pray tell.”

  Cautious of the policeman sitting in the chair outside her door, I said only, “He talked about some interesting lines.”

  Elise nodded immediately.

  “How did you learn about—all of that?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I am a scholar.”

  I frowned. “I thought you studied the history of the Catholic Church.”

  Another nod and a firm answer. “I do.”

  I stared down at her. Was she trying to tell me the Catholic Church was somehow mixed up with the use of these supposed ley lines? Her eyelids sagged to half-mast. The nurse must have put a sedative of some kind in her IV.

  “You will need my jet. The pilot knows where to land in Rome….” her voice trailed away.

  Rome? What the heck was in Rome that had to do with ley lines or the Catholic—Of course. Not Rome. The Vatican. “Elise!” I said sharply enough to pop her eyelids back open a millimeter. “Do I need to go to the Vatican?”

  She gave the faintest of nods and whispered, “Go into…the…wind.”

  And then she was out cold. Dammit. I was really sick of all these innuendos and puzzles. What the heck did “go into the wind” mean? I left her room, thinking. The Vatican, huh? I was waiting for an elevator when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out and was relieved to see it wasn’t one of my bosses calling to pester me.

  “Ana Reisner,” I said.

  “This is Madame Lebec at the city morgue. I have a body that came in early this morning. We have a tentative ID from a wallet, but procedure requires me to attempt to find someone to make a positive ID on him. The police suggested I call you.”

  Robert Fraser’s face flashed through my mind, and the thought of him pale and lifeless made me miss a breath. “Who is it?” I asked in alarm.

  “We believe it is René Hallibert.”

  Oh, no. Not René. I felt punched in the stomach. “I’ll be right there,” I said heavily. I suppose it was inevitable. Living out in the elements was hard on a person, not to mention the inherent dangers of the humanity a soul was exposed to on the streets.

  When I arrived at the morgue—an appropriately grim structure on the outskirts of Paris—I was directed to an empty waiting room holding a few tattered issues of the Paris Match magazine and uncomfortable plastic chairs.

  A second before the waiting room door opened, I felt who was about to walk through it. I looked up in anticipation, my breath catching in my throat. Sure enough, Robert Fraser strolled in. His presence was a physical thing upon my skin. I could all but feel his body against mine, inside mine, surrounding mine, and I instantly ached to make it real.

  He stopped cold when he saw me, too. His pupils dilated hard and fast, and I felt my own eyes go wide as he stared down at me. The heat in his gaze nearly brought me to my feet. He moved then, stepping fully into the room and letting the door close behind him. He eyed the chair beside mine, and then moved carefully to the one across from me. For a moment I was crushed, but then the advantage of this arrangement became clear. We could look at each other to our heart’s content this way.

  He sat down, leaning forward, his elbows planted on his knees. And stared at me. Intently. Enough to send what little breath I had whooshing out of my lungs. I told myself I was sitting in a morgue and this wasn’t the slightest bit appropriate, but darned if I could tear my gaze away from him.

  “What is your name?” he murmured. “I lay awake half the night wondering what to call you in my thoughts.”

  I was in his thoughts? I pressed my thighs tightly together against the lust raging in my loins. “My name is Ana. Analise,”

  “Lovely,” he murmured. “It fits you.” His gaze touched me all over and he nodded in affirmation. “It’s elegant. Classic. Timeless.”

  He thought I was all those things? My initial pleased reaction gave way to dismay as it dawned on me that elegant and timeless sounded like my grandmother’s jewelry, not sex. I wanted to be hot and irresistible to this man. Misery washed over me. Why hadn’t I done something about my wardrobe before now? And why hadn’t I put on more makeup this morning and fixed my hair in something other than a boring, sexless ponytail?

  Robert shifted in his seat and I focused on him once more. He spoke in the lilting rhythm of Scotland that sounded more like song than speech. “I apologize for staring at you. I’m afraid I canna’ take my eyes off you.”

  “Why not?” I blurted. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Dull heat crept up my neck and spread over my face.

  He laughed quietly. “No need to blush for me. At least not yet.”

  The sexual undercurrent of his words about knocked me off the chair. I squeezed my thighs even more tightly together.

  The waiting room door opened, and a sniffling woman came in and sat down at the end of the room. Periodically, she erupted into full-blown sobs, and then they’d trail off to nose-blowing.

  Robert leaned back in his seat, his eyes twinkling as if we shared a hilarious secret between the two of us. And maybe the fact that he actually seemed attracted to me was just that. At any rate, we sat there in silence, looking at each other. I can’t even begin to describe the things I imagined while I looked at him and he looked at me. I felt another blush begin to climb my neck, and his mouth twitched up into a quick grin with a flash of dimple. Praying he had no idea what I was thinking about doing to him, I succumbed to yet another blush, and the rest of my face burned fiercely. I must look like a tomato.

  I don’t know how long we sat there. But eventually, my befuddled mind finally unwound enough for it to dawn on me to wonder why he was here. The sniffling woman had pulled out a cell phone and began sobbing into it.

  Under cover of her commotion, Robert leaned forward as if to speak, and I matched the motion. In unison, we both said, “What are you doing here?”

  We laughed awkwardly, and he motioned for me to go first. I complied, saying, “I’m here to identify the body of a friend. You?”

  “The same,” he said in that rough voice that sent chills down my spine. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “And I for you,” I replied, frowning. Was it possible that Robert knew René?

  He leaned back once more, propped a leather boot on his opposite knee and draped an arm across the back of the plastic chair beside him. I couldn’t strike a pose that casual and sexy if I practiced it for a year. I was painfully aware of my primly crossed ankles tucked underneath my chair and my hands clenched together in my lap. God, I was a stick-in-the-mud. But for the life of me, I couldn’t uncoil my body into something approximating relaxation. The very presence of Robert Fraser tied me in knots.

  “How’s your search going?” I finally managed to choke out.

  His eyebrows shot straight up and he didn’t look thrilled that I’d brought it up. With a glance at the woman on the phone he answered, “Slowly.” Then silence. Not going to help me maintain a conversation, was he?

  Problem was, I was nervous. Not only was I in grave danger of making a complete fool of myself over him, but I’d never seen a dead body before and I didn’t know how I was going to react to it. I’d have been
okay by myself, but with him here, now I had to worry about throwing up or fainting or something else equally embarrassing. An urge to babble nearly overwhelmed me, but I managed to bite it back.

  I was surprised when he spoke again. “Do you work in the art world, or are you just a lover of art?”

  Grateful for the safe topic of conversation, I replied, “Both, I suppose. I’m an art historian. I catalogue and mark pieces of art.” So guys like him couldn’t fence their stolen pieces.

  “Do you have a favorite time period?”

  A harmless enough question, small talk, really. But it occurred to me to turn it into a minor fishing expedition. I replied lightly, “I love statuary. Pre-Renaissance. And you?”

  He jerked upright in his seat. “Really? Are there any good private collections in Paris?”

  Well. That certainly had hit a nerve. He was looking for private collectors, was he? Perhaps looking to acquire Elise’s stolen statue on the black market for a private buyer? He had been asking Catrina about Black Madonnas, after all. I didn’t know that was what Elise’s statue was, but the coincidence was hard to ignore.

  I shrugged noncommittally. “There are a few collectors here and there.” And given his past, I couldn’t in good conscience reveal who any of them were to him.

  His unwavering gaze held mine captive, weighing my vague response. Good Lord, the man was looking straight into my soul.

  Partially to distract him, and partially to see how he answered, I casually asked, “Who did you say you were working for again on tracking down the provenance of that statue?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Damn. His face closed up tighter than a bank vault. And all those lovely sexual vibes abruptly ceased rolling off him. I felt their loss acutely.

  An interior door opened just then, and a woman wearing green surgical scrubs stuck her head out into the waiting room. “Ah, good. You are both here.”

  I jumped about a foot straight up in the air. Tearing my gaze away from Robert, I looked up at her. “We are both here?” I echoed, confused. That sounded as if we were supposed to have come here together.

  “Yes,” she said briskly, “To view Monsieur Hallibert. If you will follow me.”

  I looked quickly at Robert, but he beat me to the question. “How did you know René?” he demanded.

  “He…worked…for me now and then.”

  Robert frowned. “You mean he snitched for you?”

  I shrugged and said, “For what it’s worth, I liked him. We had dinner together this weekend. How did you know him?” I suspected I knew the answer to that one, but I wanted to hear it from his own lips.

  “We worked together a number of years ago.”

  “Stealing things.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he answered evenly. But his shoulders went stiff and his jawline looked as if he were biting down on something hard.

  God, why had I gone and said that? Stupid, stupid, stupid! It was a surefire way to kill any attraction between us. Plus, I felt like a complete heel for bringing up the guy’s past. He’d done his time and was out of jail now. For all I knew he’d turned over a new leaf. Silently, I followed him into the morgue, cursing myself with every step I took.

  The smell of formaldehyde permeated the air. I supposed the antiseptic smell was better than the alternative, but it was enough to make a person faintly nauseous. I braced myself when the woman in front of us opened a small door in businesslike fashion and pulled a long tray out, holding the covered body of a corpse. She flipped the rubber sheet back.

  The first thing that captured my attention were the vivid purple marks around the dead man’s throat. They were garish against the blue-gray pallor of his skin. I steeled myself and lifted my gaze to his face. And stared. Robert’s hand gripped my shoulder all of a sudden as if to steady himself against the nearest solid object.

  But his voice was strong as he spoke aloud the exact words ringing in my head. “That’s not René Hallibert.”

  That knocked the bored look off the attendant’s face. Startled, she glanced over at me. I shook my head in the negative.

  “There was a wallet with identification in his clothing,” the woman insisted.

  I looked down at the clothes the dead man was wearing and nodded. “I saw René two days ago, and that is what he was wearing. And trust me, he only had one set of clothing to his name. Maybe this guy robbed René and was killed later.”

  “Or maybe Monsieur Hallibert killed this man,” the woman retorted.

  Robert flared up. “René is an art thief. Not a murderer. Art thieves do not kill people.”

  And he should know. But I didn’t say that. Yet again, the question ran through my head. What art thief broke that code and stole Elise’s statue with the intent to kill her? He or she was likely a lone wolf. Other art thieves working in the same ring would never stand for the violence. Of the most wanted thieves in Europe at the moment, only Dr. Moon was thought to be a solo operator. Whoever Dr. Moon might be.

  I piped up. “I have to agree with Monsieur Fraser. René Hallibert is no murderer.”

  The woman shoved the tray back into the refrigerated wall and led us back out to the waiting room, muttering all the while about the hassle of having to retag this guy as a John Doe and all the extra paperwork it was going to cause her.

  Robert and I made our way out of the building in silence. We stepped out onto the sidewalk, squinting in the late morning sunlight. Then he turned to me and asked, “Do you have any idea where to find René?”

  I shrugged. “He usually stays in an alley behind Le Jeu D’Amour in the Latin Quarter. But, given that those were his clothes on that dead guy, I’m betting he’s hiding somewhere only a rat could find him right now.”

  “I heard he’d fallen on hard times.”

  A silence fell between us. Awkwardly, I said, “Well, I must be off. Good luck.” I have no idea what I was wishing him luck for, but it had just come out of my mouth. I turned away and hurried off down the sidewalk, cursing myself for being such a social klutz around him. Clearly, I’d been out of the dating pool far too long. And darned if that guy didn’t make me think about diving back into its shark-infested waters.

  I walked for a couple blocks to clear my head. Why had René’s clothes shown up on a dead man? Where was René? Could this have anything to do with my investigation of Elise’s stolen statue? I had asked René to check it out, after all. Had he run into some sort of danger and had to make an escape that involved leaving his clothes behind?

  I hadn’t been kidding when I told Robert I was certain René would not be at any of his usual hangouts. I was also certain that, until the man decided to surface, nobody had a prayer of finding him. He hadn’t been a top-notch cat burglar for nothing.

  Now what was I to do with myself? Elise’s offer of her jet came back to me. I looked around. I was in a residential area. Just ahead, I spied a small park. It was enclosed by a tall, wrought iron fence and was bursting with an array of autumn-colored mums and yellow-leafed trees. I opened the gate and stepped inside the oasis. I found a bench in a secluded area surrounded by tall shrubs and sat down.

  I dug around in my purse, found the calling card Madame Trucot had given me and dialed the number on it. If I were lucky, maybe the housekeeper would pick up the phone.

  “Allô?” Madame Trucot said in my ear.

  Thank goodness. “Hello. This is Ana Reisner. I just visited Madame Villecourt, and I thought you’d like to know she’s resting comfortably. We spoke for a few moments and her spirits are good.”

  “Thank you for thinking of me!” The woman sounded genuinely pleased. “Madame Elise, she is such a fine lady.”

  “Indeed she is,” I agreed warmly. “I actually called you to ask about something else, as well. Elise offered me the use of her private jet just before she fell asleep. Was she likely to have been serious, or was that perhaps just the medications talking?”

  Madame Trucot laughed. “Oh, no. She was serious. She is an
extraordinarily generous woman. She is also intent on helping you as much as she can in your search. One moment. I will get you the phone number at the airport.”

  In a moment, I had copied down the number on the back of my electric bill, which was stuffed into my purse. I hung up with Madame Trucot and dialed the new number. Sure enough, I’d reached the company that managed Elise’s jet for her. I wasn’t entirely surprised when the man told me Madame Trucot was on the other line and had verified that the Villecourt jet was to be placed at my disposal.

  “Where do you wish to go, Mademoiselle Reisner?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Rome. The pilot knows where to land.”

  “When do you wish to depart?” the man asked me.

  “How soon can the plane be ready?”

  “It will take the pilots approximately an hour to get here and file their flight plan.”

  Wow. I didn’t need to leave that fast. I’d like to have a look around for René and make sure he was all right. “How about tomorrow morning? Say, eight o’clock?”

  “Very well. I will schedule an eight o’clock departure. You will need your passport to enter Italy.”

  Dang, that was easy! I stowed my phone in my purse and stood up to leave.

  And fell flat on my face, plowing my cheek hard into the dirt, as something incredibly heavy slammed into me and knocked me to the ground.

  Chapter 8

  I don’t know how other women react to getting tackled by strange men, but I sort of freaked out. The idea of getting raped or killed brings out the violent side of me, it turns out. I twisted in the grasp of whoever had me around my thighs and hit and clawed at everything I could get my hands on. And, of course, I screamed my head off.

  My assailant swore and called out, “Un poco d’aiuto qui!”

  That was Italian. He was demanding help. Oh, crap. Sure enough, a second guy leaped out of the bushes, clapped one hand over my mouth and wrapped his other arm around my neck from behind. I twisted and squirmed, lifting my hips off the ground as I fought their grips. I was not going down without a fight! I bit at the guy’s hand and managed to get a little flesh between my teeth. More swearing in Italian erupted.