by Helena Maeve
He seized my hands in his before I could tear my hair out by the roots. “Calm down. We’ll figure something out—”
“Figure what out?” I retorted, vaguely aware that I was becoming hysterical.
The cab driver glanced at us in the rear-view. I had to bite my tongue not to cuss him out. The last thing we needed was to be thrown out where there were reporters to catch a glimpse of me—and shoot tomorrow’s front-page scoop.
“What about your grandparents’ place?” Ashley suggested “We could go there…”
I shook my head. “No way. If they’re here, then they’ve already scoped out the town house.” Where else could we go? I’d spent my cash on three flights in and out of the US, plus two hotels. “Melanie!”
“What?”
“My friend—let me call her.” I groped for my phone with shaking hands.
She picked up on the second ring. “God fucking damn it, Laure, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you—”
“Can I come over?” I interjected.
“What?”
“There’s a pack of reporters outside my apartment, I’m freaking out—”
Mel swore long and harsh, stringing French and English slurs together in a truly transatlantic ode to vulgarity. “Have the cab drop you off a block away. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“You’re not at home?” I asked, heart sinking.
“I’ll be there,” Mel assured me in a voice that brooked no opposition. I hung up and told Ashley the plan. He looked dubious, but didn’t offer any other ideas.
I bit my nails to the quick in the time it took for the cabbie to find his way to the Trocadero. I did as Melanie suggested and had him drop us off a long way from her apartment—something I regretted as soon as we started trudging down the street with our suitcases in tow. I was tired, my nerves frayed like rope, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up and choke on my fist for a while. Instead, I made myself press on.
The Huitième Arrondissement was chockfull of big buildings with all-white frontage and artfully crowded window boxes. I could never have afforded to live in this area on a shop girl’s salary.
Ashley whistled as I rang the doorbell. “You have friends in high places.”
“How did you know Melanie lives on the top floor?” I quipped, my wit coming and going like a bad rash.
The concierge wasn’t at her post, so there was no one to let us in.
I cast a wary glance down the street, half expecting to see a horde of reporters hurtling toward us, cameras and microphones brandished like weapons over their heads. Naturally, there was nothing—no sign that anyone recognized us, no reason to believe we would attract attention. Paris as a whole didn’t give a shit that somewhere far across the ocean, I’d pulled a dead rabbit out of a very old hat.
I leaned against the metal gate. “She said she’d be here.”
“And here she fucking is,” Mel growled under her breath as she came stomping down the sidewalk, her hair a riotous crown around her head.
I jumped when I heard her voice, then fell into her arms, hugging her like I would a life raft.
“Hey, hey… It’s okay,” Melanie breathed into my ear. “You’re kinda choking me here, squirt.”
Shit, the baby! I pulled away quickly. “Sorry, fuck—I’m not having the best day.”
“So I hear.” Mel held out a hand to Ashley. “You must be the boyfriend.”
He didn’t contradict her. They shook on it as Mel badged us into the gangway that led to the inner courtyard of her building. The entrance itself was nestled at the other end like a well-kept secret.
“They’re saying you dug up a body. I didn’t even know you were in the States, never mind playing archeologist…” Mel’s voice echoed around the vast and empty hallway. No peeling plaster here, no crumbling mortar or exposed brick. No graffiti, either. Melanie lived in one of the few parts of Paris where anti-burglar alarms were the norm rather than the exception.
We took the elevator up to the seventh floor, where Melanie fiddled with the triple latch for a good twenty seconds. “Home sweet home. Come on in…”
The last time I’d visited must have been when she bought the place. Neither of us had time for house calls during the work week and on the weekends we preferred to meet someplace in town—anything to avoid having to do dishes. I’d forgotten how big her place was, especially for an apartment in the heart of Paris. Sunlight traversed the expanse of the white-painted walls and spilled across the hardwood floors in golden slashes. Melanie didn’t believe in artwork or baubles, so the walls and shelves were mostly empty. The furniture was all dark wood, chrome and glass, as austere as it was sleek and modern.
If I didn’t know Mel lived here, I would’ve said this was a bachelor pad.
All the same, it made for one hell of a safe house.
“Sit,” Mel ordered. “Both of you. I’ll get the booze.”
I started to say I didn’t feel like drinking, but the truth was I didn’t think I could get up from the white leather couch without some liquid courage.
“Sorry to state the obvious,” Ashley said upon her return, “but this place is incredible. Must’ve cost you a fortune…”
“Yeah, I had to rob a bank.”
“Seriously?” Ashley’s eyebrows met his hairline.
Mel snorted under her breath. “Your sarcasm detector needs tweaking.”
“Eight hours on a plane,” I pointed out. “Give him a break.”
“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on, babe… Your grandma called. She was frantic, said the FBI wanted to talk to you…”
Melanie pressed a glass of something liquid and amber into my hands, and I downed it with a grimace. She shook her head and refilled it while I got my breath back.
“They did. They won’t call again.”
“What did they want?”
I gave Mel a condensed recap of my trip to the States, sparing her most of the troubling details—up to and including dinner with Ashley’s ex-wife and daughter. I was down to the last two inches of dignity I possessed, so some creative editing was in order.
“You need a lawyer,” Melanie told me as she played with a pleat in her skirt. Her work outfits were always sensible, but I could tell she’d had to let out her clothes. The baby bump was becoming harder and harder to conceal. It nearly made me ask how she was coping, if she’d made up her mind about what she was going to do.
I bit my tongue. I was in no position to nose around other people’s business.
“What can a lawyer do other than take my money? I’m not being accused of any crime…” And I doubted that the FBI would want to question me again. I’d already told them everything and I’d left the country.
Mel glanced from Ashley to me and back. “You’re a journalist, right?”
Ashley confirmed it with a nod.
“Then you know the right to privacy is enshrined in the French constitution. They’ve started hounding you for sound bites and snapshots,” she added, gesturing toward me with a bottle of Evian. “You have to nip their interest in the bud. Threaten legal action and they’ll pipe down.”
“You think so?” The thought of doing anything more than hiding in this apartment for the next, oh, five decades or so—until I turned into some Ameri-French version of Miss Havisham—appealed far more than a protracted legal battle against the tabloid press. “I just want them to go away,” I groused, tipping forward to refill my glass for a third time.
Ashley stroked a warm palm up my spine. “We should look into it. I know a few people—”
“Or you could try my friend Marc.”
“Your friend…” I frowned. “I thought you two weren’t in touch since…” Since the baby, I meant but didn’t say. Melanie had as disastrous a romantic track record as I did. I recognized the name, but until today I had no idea her one-time lover was a lawyer. She didn’t talk about him.
Melanie rolled her shoulders. “We’re trying. It’s… It’s a thin
g. But he’s pretty good. Our firm works with him a lot.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, we can talk about the mess I’m in some other time,” she said, waving a hand. “Should I give him a call or not?”
“On my behalf?” I glanced to Ashley, who kept his expression studiously blank. The whiskey was already filling me with heat, blurring out the edges of panic. “Sure, why not? What’s the worst that can happen?” I was already hounded by paparazzi looking for a scoop. The next logical step was the arrival of the crime-watch crazies, both the ones who believed all along that Kane had been set up—then coerced into a confession—and the ones who thought I was the spawn of the devil and should burn in hell.
I couldn’t bring myself to take another sip of liquor, so I set the glass back on the table. “Are you okay if we stay here tonight? I haven’t had the chance to go to the bank—”
Melanie stopped me with a scoff. “Yeah, like I’m going to throw you out. Spare room’s through there. You think you’ll make it?”
“I’ll help,” Ashley said, holding his hand out to me. I took it without objection and let him pull me to my feet. I staggered drunkenly, alcohol swirling in my bloodstream like oil in a puddle.
“Thanks, Mel. You’re the best…” If I could’ve told her as much without slurring, it would’ve been even better.
I landed in crisp, dark gray sheets on my front, too dizzy to pry off my clothes. I had a vague notion of Ashley tugging my shoes off and covering me with the comforter, but I might have imagined it, just like I might have imagined the touch of his fingertips carding through my hair. Or the sound of his voice as he lingered on the threshold.
“We won’t impose for long,” he was saying. “I’ll figure something out.”
Melanie hummed dubiously. “You have no idea what you’re up against here, do you? Laure… She’s put up with this crap her whole life. Even when we were girls, she’d get all kinds of messages online, burnt Barbies in the mail. Scary stuff. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that all this is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Even if we get an injunction against the press, it might not do any good…”
“So it gets worse,” Ashley retorted boldly. I recognized the thread of mulishness in his voice. We were alike in that respect—once we dug our heels in, there was no way around us.
“You say that now, but what happens when they drag you into this? Or your family?”
A beat passed, silence slotting into place between Ashley and Mel. I thought of Marissa back in New York, of Carmen looking at her with more affection than I ever knew a child could receive from a parent. I didn’t want to see them hurt because of me.
“It’s not a zero-sum game,” Ashley said. “And I’m not leaving Laure to go through this alone. You said it yourself, she’s put up with it long enough.”
Melanie sighed. I pictured her shaking her head in dismay. “You men and your desire to fix everything… Well, have fun trying. If you’re still around in six months, I’ll buy you a drink. I need to head back to work before they send out a search party,” she added ruefully. “You’ll be all right on your own?”
“Yeah,” Ashley replied, oozing confidence I knew he didn’t feel. “Look, Melanie—”
She cut him short before he could finish. “Relax, cowboy. I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page here. We both want what’s best for Laure, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Make sure she doesn’t throw up all over my sheets.”
The receding click-clack of Melanie’s heels was followed by the clang of the front door. Ashley’s footfalls announced him long before the mattress dipped as he lay down beside me. I wanted to turn around and wrap myself around him like a vine, but I was worn out and tanked up, and without their conversation to keep me alert, I could feel myself beginning to slip under.
Oblivion rushed to meet me to the tune of Wedding Bell Blues scratching along on an old turntable, twenty-some years ago.
Chapter Fourteen
Staying at Melanie’s was in many ways like being sixteen again and having sleepovers while her mom was out of town—which happened more than was probably recommended by the parenting books that had once filled the shelves of their den. It was only made better by Ashley’s presence in the apartment. He was in bed with me when I woke up in the morning after a ten-hour nap. He was in the kitchen, while Mel and I drank coffee on her balcony.
I’d forgotten all about the unimpeded view of the river and the phallic javelin of the Eiffel Tower beyond it. The Seine snaked like a silver ribbon in the middle distance, the first tourist-logged Bateaux Mouches already blinking in and out of sight between Pont de l’Alma and Les Invalides. Despite the crisp late February wind and the goosebumps creeping over my exposed arms, the sudden respite felt like a fragment of paradise. I could hardly bear to look away but I knew I couldn’t hide forever.
Melanie’s gaze on me was gaze a watchful, anticipatory reminder of where I stood. “You gonna call them?”
“Might as well by the bullet,” I reasoned. “It won’t get any easier if I wait.”
She didn’t contradict or urge me. We both had difficult relationships with our families.
I speed-dialed my grandmother’s number before I could talk myself out of it.
She picked up on the third ring, a scowl in her voice from the first crisp volley. “We had almost given you up for dead.”
Oh, I was in trouble, all right.
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“I assume you were busy,” Grandmother interjected, making short work of my apology. “So much travel must take up your time.”
I leaned against the cast-iron railing, letting my head tip back into a chilly gust. If I squinted against the sunlight reflecting on the bay windows I could just about make out Ashley’s form in the kitchen. He was working a skillet like it was going out of style. He looked happy.
Losing him would be hard.
“Laure? Are you still there?” My grandmother’s impatience took on a touch of worry. I told myself it wasn’t artifice.
“Still here… Look, I don’t really know what to tell you. I thought I was doing the right thing. Turns out it backfired and now my apartment is being staked out by paparazzi.”
“They’re here, too,” Grandmother admitted mournfully.
“I’m sorry.”
She made a sound halfway between indifference and aggravation. “Where are you now?”
“At Mel’s.” Safely out of the way, in hiding. I hoped no intrepid journalist had taken to tapping my phone. I told myself I wasn’t that important, unfortunate parentage or not.
Grandmother had never thought much of my friends, but she tolerated Melanie better than most. Her silence lulled me into a false sense of security. I was unprepared for her next volley. “Is he there with you?”
I knew whom she meant. I was looking right at him. “Yes.”
“Laure, did he put you up to this?”
“What? No!” I ignored Melanie’s crinkling brow, a flush of heat gaining my cheeks. “He’s got nothing to do with what I did.” If anything, Ashley had done his best to temper my enthusiasm and keep me out of trouble. And it had cost him.
But Grandmother had always liked a scapegoat. “How can you be sure? He’s a reporter. Do you think he doesn’t know a story when he has one in his grasp?” And by story, she meant me.
I’d doubted Ashley once before at her behest. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“I trust him,” I replied, sidestepping her needling questions. “I love him.”
Melanie choked on her orange juice.
“You okay?” I asked as I hung up.
She waved me off. “Are you serious? I mean he’s cute and everything, but… How can you live with that accent?”
I rolled my eyes. As if ours weren’t routinely picked up by taxi drivers, busybody waiters and casual hook-ups. I submitted to Mel’s sigh-and-headshake routine, sure that she was i
n my corner despite her misgivings.
“What did Anne-France have to say for herself?” she quipped, spooning a hefty dollop of cherry marmalade onto a chocolate croissant.
Cravings, I thought, and filled her in on the interrogation.
Mel snickered. “Such a ray of sunshine… Well, for what it’s worth I think she’s wrong. I’ve been watching your boyfriend since you got here. He’s disgustingly cookie-cutter.”
“I could tell you a thing or two to disprove that.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, really? Go on. I need details. You know, no one told me pregnancy makes you so fucking hor—”
“Breakfast is served,” Ashley announced in a sing-song. He emerged onto the terrace with arms laden.
I took one of the plates, smirking when Melanie groaned at the sight of omelet and bacon. “Americans,” she muttered under her breath. “Ashley, we were just talking about you—”
“No, we weren’t,” I said quickly.
Ashley glanced between us, smiling bemusedly. “Okay… I hope it was good things. Talk to your folks yet?”
I waved my phone. “Done.”
“Anne-France was as charming as always,” Mel supplied, coming to my rescue. “You know, if she didn’t make it such a taboo for you to talk about what happened, maybe you wouldn’t have felt the need to go behind her back all the time.”
“Maybe,” I answered dubiously. More and more I was beginning to wonder if the fault didn’t so much lie with those who’d tried to restrict my freedom as it did with me for ignoring their otherwise sensible advice. Maybe the die had been cast in those nine months I’d spent in my mother’s womb.
Fatalistic, much? I cleared my throat, banishing the thought. “When is your friend supposed to get here?”
Melanie tapped a finger to my phone to light up the screen. “He said nine, so another twenty minutes or so? Oh, who’s Harry Pruitt?”
