by S. Cedric
He sat up quickly, yanking the sheet with him. His hands shot to his eyes. He felt the rough texture of his skin, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, and his crooked nose. There was no pain, no flame. Just sweat.
A dream.
For a minute, though, he had the sensation of being in a huge oven, swallowed up by red howling flames—that was the end of his nightmare.
It’s just a fucking dream.
He heart was pounding.
“Shit,” he said. And then, as if to reassure himself with the sound of his own voice or just because he was alone, he added, “Holy mother fucking shit.”
His apartment was dark. The central heating was as oppressive as ever, but nothing at all like an actual fire.
So why was he smelling gas?
He breathed in. The smell was strong—an odor of gas and burning flesh.
“What exactly is happening to me?”
He got up and checked his apartment. Everything was in order, as much as it would ever be in his apartment. Nothing here was causing the smell. He stood still for a moment, and the odor became weaker.
Then it went away. Totally. Another hallucination.
“What the fuck?”
He sat down on the couch, dug out a cigarette, and turned on the news channel—a frequent balm for his sleepless nights. It offered the standard collection of political scandals and advertising. A cabinet member was accused of having work done on his lavish home on the government’s dime. Gay and lesbian groups were getting ready for a big rights march. There was a brief mention about the transsexual’s suicide.
And flames.
They were tall, voracious flames that crackled under the black sky. A large house surrounded by vast snow-covered grounds was burning. Strangely, there was no commentary to accompany the pictures.
Alexandre Vauvert leaned forward, trying to understand. There had to be a problem with the broadcast, because no one was reporting. All he could hear was crackling and explosions, along with police radios and orders given from a distance.
On the bottom of the screen, the words “Live from Neuilly-sur-Seine” appeared.
A coincidence. It was just a coincidence, wasn’t it? This fire and Neuilly-sur-Seine. He had done a quick check on the mysterious Madeleine Reich before going to bed. It was enough to learn that she headed a huge industrial concern—the Gaia Corporation—and that she lived in Neuilly-sur-Seine, as did a number of other business tycoons.
Was that her house? Could it be possible?
Vauvert lit another cigarette and took a long drag. His dream kept coming back to him, like a ghost hanging around the edges of his mind. Okay. There was a house in flames. There are fires every day. There had even been a big one just the night before in some housing projects outside Paris. He heard about it on the radio. So what? He was still waiting for the sound to return.
“I am reporting to you live from Neuilly-sur-Seine,” the reporter finally said. “Some fifty firefighters are combating a blaze that started just after midnight in this large home near the Parc de la Folie Saint-James. It has been confirmed that it belongs to the president of the Gaia Corporation, but we still don’t know if the owners were inside. It is too early to tell, but a source close to the police has informed us that it looks like arson.
“No kidding,” Vauvert said.
The flames on the screen were hypnotic.
The president of Gaia Corporation.
It was her house.
Madeleine Reich.
It was as if the woman in the fur coat were teasing him.
You have the dreams, too, don’t you?
He took another drag of his cigarette.
This is no coincidence. You’ve got to accept that.
He thought about Eva, of course. He knew that Madeleine Reich was not in the house that night, but there would be an investigation. This would be a case for Eva. Perhaps she was already at the scene. Perhaps at this instant she was watching the flames climb into the sky. He saw the time at the bottom of the screen. It was already three in the morning.
He looked at his telephone on the coffee table.
He looked at the time again and then at his phone.
He finished his cigarette, leaned over, and picked up the phone.
Eva, however, was not at the fire. She was home, in bed and still awake when her telephone vibrated on the bedside table. She saw Alexandre’s number on the screen.
She wondered what he wanted. Why in the world was he calling her at three in the morning? She was tempted to answer and hear—even soak up—his voice. But she was afraid of what he would say, what questions he would ask that she could not answer.
She waited until the phone stopped vibrating.
“Alexandre,” she whispered as she stared at a shadow on the wall. “I’m sorry.”
His attempts to call her had become less frequent. It was better this way. She did not want to hurt him. There was too much darkness in her and too much darkness in him. There were too many incompatible obsessions.
The telephone vibrated once and lit up. He had left a message.
She connected, and a voice confirmed that she had new voice mail.
“Delete,” she said, without listening to what Alexandre had to say.
“Voice mail deleted,” the synthetic voice answered.
She dropped the cell phone and tried to straighten the sheets. Her mind was overflowing. Her body was antsy. She tossed and turned and scratched the bandage on her neck. Finally, she took it off. The wound caused by Amina Constantin was healing. She dropped the blood-stained strips on the floor and rolled over again.
She felt the sleeping pill take effect.
She lifted her hips, lowered her panties, and slipped her hand between her legs. She closed her eyes and imagined Alexandre’s body under her. She stroked herself in silence for a long time.
She had two orgasms before falling into a deep sleep.
In his living room, half-lit by the television, Vauvert waited, holding the telephone. He wondered what would have happened if he were younger, or not a cop, or more handsome, or simply not who he was.
“Eva,” he whispered.
She did not want to talk to him now, just as she had not wanted to talk with him over the past two months.
He would have to accept that.
So he stayed on the couch and listened to the news for the length of time that it took to smoke three cigarettes and drink as many beers. He knew he would not be able to sleep.
Because the news channel did not give any more information about the fire, he got his laptop from the other side of the room. Then he settled back into the couch, with his laptop on his knees.
He had research to do.
He made himself comfortable.
The rest of the night would not be too long.
III
Convergence
Madeleine focuses hard.
She has been staring at the sink across the room for some time.
The faucet is on. Hot water is flowing from it. Steam curls upward.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
She sits cross-legged on the bed. Ismael is supporting her from behind. They have not even started, and she is already excited. The line of cocaine makes her more lucid. Her mind is crystal clear.
“It’s all about pronunciation and intention,” Ismael says. “Say it at the same time as I do, and don’t stop.”
She nods, her eyes wide open, and he begins to chant into her ear.
“Atah...malkuth... ve-geburah... ve-gedulah... le-olam.”
She was sure she would never remember the spell, but there she is, saying it with Ismael as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She follows the pace of his words, repeating them with him, again and again.
“Atah...malkuth... ve-geburah... ve-gedulah... le-olam.”
She feels dizzy. It is pleasant. She holds on to his arms, in the middle of a shifting world.
They repeat the words, again and
again. The more she says them, the more heat she feels on her tongue and palate. Her breath becomes burning hot, like the water flowing in front of them. Steam comes out of her mouth with the words, and she feels the same coming from Ismael.
While their melded breath snakes its way toward the sink, she feels a sun rise from deep inside her.
She can see.
The water is escaping from the faucet.
It is deflected, in pace with their incantation.
They continue, whispering. The sounds become limpid.
The water splits.
Madeleine cannot believe her eyes.
There are twin rivers of flowing water. And more and more steam.
She blinks, blinded, and forgets about chanting.
The spell is broken. She feels like she is returning to her body, and her muscles are slipping back inside her skin.
She is panting.
“You see. You can do it,” Ismael says. “That’s the oldest magic trick known to mankind.”
She stares at the water, which is flowing normally again.
“Was it real?” she asks. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”
“Do you want it to be real?”
“Well, of course,” Madeleine says.
“So why do you ask the question?”
He gets up, and his joints crack. He is not wearing a shirt, just a pair of pale green cotton pants. His ebony body shines in the half-light.
“Now you are ready to meet the others.”
Madeleine turns to him in surprise.
“The others?”
He tilts his head and looks amused.
“Did you think we were the only ones?”
“I, um, I hadn’t thought about that.”
She feels a flash of pain and massages her shoulder. The cramp spreads to her back, and her ribs contract in tiny, stinging pinpricks.
“I think I pulled something. Maybe it was the position we were in.”
“It’s nothing,” Ismael says with a strange smile. “That happens at first. It will go away.”
Madeleine doesn’t understand but decides that it is not important. He would tell her if there were some danger.
Certainly, he would tell her.
She contemplates the water for a moment before deciding to turn it off. Then she massages her shoulder to unknot the damned cramp.
28
January 22
By dawn, Vauvert had learned a lot but had many more questions. While doing his research on his laptop, he had kept the television on. He periodically switched from one news channel to another to learn the latest developments regarding the blaze. The reporters were talking about Madeleine Reich, whom many viewers had never heard of. Vauvert, of course, knew who she was.
Reich.
Madeleine Reich, president of Gaia Corporation.
The woman he had seen at the Beaumont’s house.
Internet held a wealth of information about her. Vauvert had downloaded dozens of articles that covered her unusual career. She was born Madeleine Ferrand in Rodez, in Aveyron, which was in southern France. She was fifty years old. Her company, Gaia Corporation, specialized in buying out failing businesses, restructuring them, and selling them to investors. She was a real success story, the kind the media love.
Nothing could have foretold the event that occurred the previous night.
Those two decaying bodies in the Beaumonts’ house. That terrifying woman, whose voice was enough to cut into him, creating wounds that would close up without leaving a mark.
Every time he thought about it, he relived the scene, and the hair on his arms bristled. What was the explanation?
Digging deeper, Vauvert found that Madeleine had married Jonathan Reich fifteen years earlier. He found pictures of their wedding and of their magnificent home in Neuilly-sur-Seine—the same property that was now burned to cinders.
So? His mind kept screaming. What was the grain of sand, the shadow that led to this disaster?
To that mutilated face?
On the web, all the information read like a fairy tale, a reflection of the tight control most businesses exercised over the release of information to the public.
Madeleine Ferrand, now Mrs. Reich, had started from nothing. Her family did not have the kind of money that would enable her to start her own business. Her father worked for the railroad, and her mother was a housekeeper. Both had died of liver cancer. The Ferrands were a frugal couple and Madeleine had to fend for herself to go to college. She studied history and quit without getting a degree and then went through a long period of hard times. She temped as an executive assistant in small businesses in Millau, Brive, and then Reims.
Apparently, the universe had other plans for her.
Her life changed seemingly overnight. This had happened fifteen years earlier, just before she met her husband, Jonathan.
In just one year, she had a crazy idea to start a company, a bank gave her a huge loan, and several opportunities fell right in her lap. Gaia saw its capital skyrocket a hundred percent in its first ten months. It was as if Madeleine Ferrand had received manna from heaven. Over the years, her luck had not run dry. Gaia was still growing.
Vauvert considered her company’s good fortune. This kind of success did not happen without a network of people high up, and without skill in playing the system. Unfortunately, success like that often had innocent blood in its shadows. His work in homicide had taught him this much.
He continued to read the blogs and magazine archives, knowing he would end up finding the blood somewhere.
But the articles only mentioned weekends in luxury hotels, Gaia stock prices that kept going up, and the beautiful love story between Madeleine and her husband, Jonathan, whom she had met at an industry meeting and with whom she quickly shared her life.
All that he found was the shiny official version.
Vauvert studied the pictures of the luxurious home and its grounds bathed in sunlight. Then he looked up and contemplated the television screen, where the vengeful flames swirled in the night, haloing thoughtful statues and devouring the dream. It was a complete rebuttal of a perfect world.
He went back to his research, all the more curious.
His instinct told him to focus on the pictures of Madeleine Reich. He found a few dozen of them taken during business meetings and speeches. There was an article in a celebrity magazine. In every single photo, a bright smile illuminated her face. In none of the photos did she have the horrible gashes that he had seen. But even more disturbing, in all of the pictures, her face looked gentle and kind. It was not the look that Vauvert recognized. He could not get the woman in the photos to match the one he had met.
In the media, Madeleine lived the happiest of lives. She never experienced any pain. And she was not at all capable of any cruelty.
The woman he met at the Beaumonts’ house was something else altogether. She had the same features but was not the same woman.
He could not forget that cold smile and threatening look—as sharp as a scalpel.
Where was that woman in these pictures? Under a mask, makeup, and digital enhancement?
Why?
Around six in the morning, when he realized he had finished his last pack of cigarettes, he turned to the news on the television again. There was more coverage of the fire. The firefighters had finally put it out, but everything was gone. That fine home was nothing but a memory. Vauvert turned up the sound.
“The police have just informed us that they have discovered a body in the bedroom. It is reported to be the owner, Jonathan Reich. There is a lot of emotion here, as no one knows where his wife is. The search continues through the burned ruins of this home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where everyone is expecting the worst.”
Vauvert gave a thoughtful smile. They could search all they wanted. They would not find Madeleine Reich in the ashes.
He knew where she was. She was driving a rented Chevrolet somewhere in the south. Like him, she was looking for Pierre Loisel a
nd leaving a wake of blood.
Vauvert thought that he should inform his superiors, and fast. This kind of information was toxic, and he could not keep it under wraps. There was too much at stake. He might not understand everything yet, but the fire on the other side of the country had something to do with his case. He wondered if Damien Mira, who had been on duty the previous night, had already made the connection.
At six fifteen, he got off the couch. He ached all over. He made some strong coffee. He could handle the lack of sleep, but could not imagine a single day without coffee. Then he took a shower.
His mind was brimming with possible leads and connections.
There was not just a connection between this woman and the disappearance of Pierre Loisel, but a connection between this woman and Pierre Loisel.
They knew each other.
He had to find out how.
He already saw the similarities between the two. Like Madeleine Reich, Pierre Loisel was a successful entrepreneur. He had also made his way on his own without any help from family, any high-up connections, or any political conniving. Theirs were two strangely similar fairy tales.
Now he had disappeared, and his family had been tortured.
Why? the inspector asked himself.
So they would reveal where Loisel was hiding?
He remembered what the woman in the fur had said.
I arrived too late, she had said.
This sentence kept coming back to him. Arrived too late.
Too late for what? To save the Beaumonts? Or to save Loisel himself?
Vauvert let his thoughts play out as he stood under the shower.
Loisel had been missing for two weeks.
And now her, Madeleine Reich.
It was unlikely that she would reappear after what had happened. She was going to be considered a missing person. Inexplicably gone missing.
Vauvert went over the timeline. Loisel had disappeared two weeks earlier. Almost immediately, his former in-laws, the Beaumonts, were tied up, tortured, and then killed. Clearly, someone was looking for Loisel. And that person was ready to assault innocent people to find him. So Loisel was very important to the murderer. But why? Did he have some information worth killing over? Did he hold some key industrial secret?
