Chapter 31
From the look on Tiphaine’s face, Gérard knew he hadn’t come for nothing.
She turned pale, and her eyes flickered with unease.
But then, in no more than a second or two, he witnessed an extraordinary metamorphosis.
Barely had he time to enjoy the effect he’d anticipated than Tiphaine grew stony-faced: her expression became entirely blank apart, perhaps, from a vague hint of physical awkwardness.
“Sure, come on in,” she said in a measured tone. “But just so you know, I don’t have a great deal of time. It’s already late and I haven’t even started on dinner.”
Her mind was racing, but despite her impulse to slam the door in his face, she knew that refusing to let him in would only raise his suspicions.
“Don’t you worry, Madame Geniot. I’ll be the soul of discretion.”
She looked at him as if trying to figure out if what he’d said held some kind of double meaning.
By way of an answer, Gérard walked past her into the house, flashing a disingenuous grin whose sole purpose was to erase any other facial expression.
Taking advantage of the fact that he had his back to her, Tiphaine let out her alarm with a horrified glance at the ceiling and then pulled herself together and once more put on her expressionless mask.
She showed him into the dining room, gestured for him to take a seat at the table, apologized that she couldn’t keep him company, and offered him something to drink. Gérard asked for a glass of water.
Alone in the kitchen, she tried to gather her thoughts and figure out how to deal with this cataclysm.
First things first. She thought she’d managed to pull off the ghastly few minutes of conversation with the attorney, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to control her nerves if she and Sylvain weren’t prepared.
Buying time had to be her priority now. They would have to go back over the scenario they had come up with eight years earlier, just after the “events.”
But first she had to warn Sylvain.
Where was her phone? Time seemed to expand as she desperately scoured her memory: where had she seen it last?
In her purse. Where was her purse? Her ability to concentrate seemed to be running out like sand through an hourglass.
She usually left it in the entryway; she looked through the doorway from the kitchen and there it was, beneath the coatrack.
She went to get it, but rather than taking the purse with her into the kitchen she stuck her hand inside to find what she was looking for.
She felt its cold, hard form and drew it out.
She tiptoed back into the kitchen like a thief and ran straight into the attorney. She let out a shrill little cry and hurriedly pushed the phone into the sleeve of her sweater.
“Did I scare you?” Gérard said, overplaying his concern. Tiphaine looked daggers at him: he was clearly playing mind games with her and taking great pleasure from it.
“You took me by surprise. I didn’t realize you were in here.”
“I was wondering if Milo Brunelle is home.”
Tiphaine looked at him cagily.
“No, he’s not back yet.”
“That’s a shame.”
A pregnant silence hung over them for a few moments, which the attorney eventually broke. “May I use the bathroom?” he asked, with a polite smile.
“It’s upstairs. Facing you when you get to the top of the stairs.”
He nodded his head in thanks and went up the stairs. Tiphaine shut the door of the kitchen and pulled out her phone to call Sylvain, praying he’d answer quickly. She cursed as it went to voice mail.
“Sylvain, it’s me!” she whispered into the phone, not even trying to hide the panic in her voice.
“There’s trouble here. Don’t come home, some attorney’s showed up to talk to you.
Stay at the office till you hear from me.
I don’t know what he wants, but you mustn’t come home. I’ll call you when he’s gone.”
She heard Gérard coming down the stairs and slipped the phone into her pocket. As he reappeared in the kitchen, she heard the sound of a key in the lock.
She held her breath.
From where she stood, she could see the front door opening.
Gérard was about to go back into the dining room when he saw her standing there, frozen.
Curious, he turned to see the door swing open and Sylvain appear in the entryway.
Sylvain went straight over to the coatrack, dropping two file folders and his keys on the bench.
As he began taking off his jacket he saw them both staring at him, one with a look of dismay, one of satisfaction.
The man looked vaguely familiar—something about his face triggered an alarm, which corresponded to Tiphaine’s expression.
Yes, he had seen this man before. He didn’t know why, but his heart began to beat faster.
He had the feeling something dreadful was happening, and he was about to find out what it was.
A defense mechanism made him root around in his memory.
He absolutely had to remember the circumstances in which he had last seen the man who was now standing in the doorway of his kitchen.
When he finally recognized Gérard Depardieu, the blood drained from his face, and he thought he might be about to have a heart attack. His face grew ashen, and in a fog of incomprehension he turned and looked at Tiphaine. Seeing her appalled expression, his last particle of composure melted away.
“Tiphaine!” he cried out urgently. “I can explain.” He rushed to her, and as he brushed past the attorney, he caught the man’s eye and felt a burst of fury in his chest that compressed his rib cage so hard it hurt.
“You bastard!” he muttered through clenched teeth as he grabbed Gérard by the collar and pushed him against the wall. “What have you been telling my wife?”
Surprised by this ambush, Gérard’s only thought was how to get out of Sylvain’s grasp. He didn’t understand the question. The words went around in his mind. What had he told Tiphaine? Sylvain let go of him as suddenly as he had grabbed him and turned to Tiphaine.
“Tiphaine, it’s not what you think. We need to talk. It was a mistake.”
Tiphaine witnessed this strange scene with a mix of alarm and incomprehension.
First there was the horror of witnessing skeletons emerging from the closet, armed with shovels and pickaxes to dig up sensitive stories about Sylvain and her.
And now Sylvain was talking about a mistake that wasn’t what she thought it was.
Was that what the attorney had come to tell her about?
She didn’t understand what was going on.
Before she had time to ask Sylvain what he was talking about, and what on earth had made him manhandle this guy who had come to talk to them about David Brunelle, Gérard threw himself at Sylvain, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and yelled, “What should I not have told your wife? That you’ve been sleeping with mine?
Is that it? Is that what you don’t want her to know?
” He was behaving like a madman. Sylvain’s instinctive reaction had furnished him with the proof of what he had dearly been wishing wasn’t true.
The asshole had betrayed himself all on his own.
He must have realized Gérard was Nora’s husband, and when he’d come in and seen the two of them in his house, thought that Gérard had shown up as the jealous husband seeking revenge against the guilty party, who was, of course, Sylvain.
Gérard glared at Sylvain, his eyes gleaming with sadistic pleasure.
“Well, the funny thing is, I haven’t told your wife anything, you goddamn fool,” he said, his tone softened by vindictive pleasure. “You just told her yourself. All on your own. What a clever boy you are.”