Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
There was no sign of him the next morning.
Only Luc, the one she’d thought of as a possible friend, was eating breakfast in the salon, and the dishes were still in the sink.
She made herself some toast and carried it into the salon, looking out over the sparkling lake.
How could something bad happen in such a beautiful place?
“Where’s Jean-Marc?” she said airily.
“He’s busy,” Luc said repressively. In French. Bastien must have told him of her deception.
“Oh? Off to kill LaDonna?” It wasn’t the smartest thing to say—they didn’t know exactly what she’d overheard.
Luc scowled. “You know everything, then?”
“Including that you’d happily kill me if necessary.”
“It’s nothing personal, Chloe. You don’t know the man we work for—he’s very unforgiving. For some reason, Jean-Marc wanted to let you go after we’re done, which, from a practical point, is foolish. You know too much.”
“I know very little. I doubt Luc and Jean-Marc are your real names.”
“They aren’t. But you can give them descriptions, and then there’s Jean-Marc leaving his DNA all over you.”
“Is that what they call it?” she murmured. Luc stared at her as if she’d grown a second head, and she said, “What?”
He shrugged. “Jean-Marc made the same joke.”
Of course he did. Bastien was very open about sexual matters, and they shared the same slightly twisted sense of humor. She managed a wry smile. “Great minds think alike. What’s Jean-Marc doing?”
“Gardening,” he said flippantly, and Chloe went back to her coffee.
She should stop asking questions—the less she knew, the more likely they wouldn’t decide to kill her.
But she could hardly stand by and watch as he assassinated a living saint, a woman revered around the world, even if it meant her own life.
“Did he take the car?” she asked casually. She hadn’t given up on her hope of escape. This was out of her control—she should have tried to escape days ago so she could go to Peter Madsen. He could stop Bastien. He could fix things. He fixed everything.
“What do you think he did, walk?” Luc shot back in a grumpy voice. “Stop asking me questions. The less you know the better.”
She could hardly argue with him since she’d come up with the same conclusion. “Very well,” she said amiably. “Doesn’t the lake look lovely today?”
Luc snorted.
Bastien didn’t return until after she retired to her room, and she was relieved she didn’t have to face him. He had a hypnotic effect on her whenever she was near him. Stockholm Syndrome, she thought with a bitter laugh. But then, she’d succumbed years ago—this was nothing new.
He was gone the next day as well, and she would have counted her blessings, but tomorrow night was the night of the gala, and the very thought terrified her. It was too late to escape—the car was home every night, but she knew he would catch her if he tried. He still slept far too lightly.
At least there was no more sign of Maddelena.
Could he really have married her? In that short a time?
They were hardly behaving as newlyweds, but then, Jean-Marc wasn’t the sentimental type.
He knew she would wait for him, he knew any damned woman would wait for him, even if he was going to kill her.
She was sound asleep in bed when he woke her on the third day, and she pulled the covers tight around her in instinctive protection. He would have made a snarky comment if he’d bothered to notice, but he had other things on his mind. “Time to get up,” he said. “Your clothes are here.”
“Clothes?”
“You’re on call tonight,” he said. “But I expect you already knew that.”
“The gala,” she said glumly.
“Exactly. And you know what I’m going to do there.” It wasn’t a question.
“You’re going to murder LaDonna.”
“It’s a job.”
“Find a new one,” she snapped.
“Why?” he said with a bone-chilling smile, “when I’m so good at this one?”
She sat up in bed, keeping the heavy sheet wrapped around her chest. “And what do you expect me to do? Hand you the gun?”
“The gun is already there. I expect you to enjoy yourself. Drink champagne, dance, and flirt. If you say a word, I’ll shoot you first.”
“I’m getting tired of being threatened,” she said.
“It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”
And he meant it.
The garment bag and the boxes were in the living room, waiting for her, and her déjà vu hit her hard. Fifteen years ago, he’d dressed her in elegant clothes for another formal event that had turned into a bloodbath. Would this be the same?
She hadn’t behaved herself that night, and she had no intention of behaving herself tonight. She would stop him from killing LaDonna, and she would stop him from killing her. Somehow, she would pull a rabbit out of a hat and keep disaster from raining down. She had to.
The dress was a far cry from Maddelena’s deliberately frumpy one. It was silver and black, shimmery and beautiful, and she suspected she would stand out in a crowd. Making it easier for him to shoot her.
He wasn’t going to, she reminded herself with more determination than belief. Something would stop him at the last minute.
The dress fit perfectly, but the narrow skirt made walking difficult. There was a slit up the back to help, but she still had to hobble slightly, particularly in the four-inch heels that went with it. She would have a hard time running if she had to, and tonight was a night for running.
The dress was her size, but she didn’t take that as any proof that he was remembering her. Years ago, he’d guessed her size perfectly. He’d make a fortune as a carnival barker.
She hung the dress up again and dressed in her jeans and cotton sweater, heading out into the salon. Bastien was standing in the French door, looking out over the azure lake, but he turned when she walked in.
“I told you to try on the dress!” He frowned at her.
“I did. It fits. If you think I’m going to prance around expecting you to admire me, you can forget it. I’ll put it on tonight.”
“What about the shoes?”
“I’ll have a hard time running in them.”
“So you will,” he said evenly. “Let’s hope you don’t have to.”
It was an endless day. It would be too much to say that Bastien was edgy, but he spent most of his time staring out at the water. She doubted it was anything like second thoughts—he’d done this before.
The Bastien she knew didn’t have a conscience.
He did what was needed, quickly and efficiently, with the minimum of fuss.
If people needed to die in order to keep them safe, he would take care of it, and she suspected it had happened more times than she’d been aware of in the last fifteen years.
He would hardly regret the killing of one unknown woman.
He ignored her, and she wasn’t encouraged about her chances to survive the evening, but she simply ignored him right back, concentrating on the Elena Ferrante novel she found.
The sun was setting earlier as summer moved forward, and long shadows were enveloping the old villa when he finally noticed her.
“You speak Italian too?” he said in that language, eyeing her book, and mentally she swore.
“I’m good at languages,” she said, an understatement.
“Which ones?”
She rattled them off, no longer caring that he knew. He nodded, thoughtful. “We’ll be speaking German tonight,” he said in that language. “There will be others who speak it, but they’ll be in the minority.”
“You don’t look German,” she pointed out. He looked French, tall and slim and lethal.
“I can look any way I please,” he answered, and she believed him. “Time to get dressed.”
“Already?” she looked out the window into the afternoon light, surprised.
“The gala starts early. There’s a reception line, dinner, speeches, and dancing.”
“And when will you kill her?”
He didn’t answer her. “Go change. I expect you to look beautiful.”
She almost made a caustic comment, but she held back. This wasn’t the man from a few nights ago, feeding her lasagne and promising not to kill her. This was a man on a job, laser focused.
And he didn’t promise not to kill her, she reminded herself. He merely said he didn’t want to. He was a man who would do what he needed to do.
She’d washed her hair, pinned it into an updo, then opened the package of makeup Bastien had provided.
It had clearly been curated for her coloring, and for a moment, she had the absurd vision of Bastien picking them out.
More likely, Luc would have told some saleslady, and she would have gathered the stuff.
She applied it with a sparing hand—she’d learned early on that less was more, though she gave herself some appropriately smoky eyes and a soft rose mouth.
Then she slipped on the high heels and surveyed herself in the mirror.
It would be a shame to kill anyone who looked so glorious, she thought bitterly.
She could only hope Bastien felt the same.
Luc whistled appreciatively when she came out of the bedroom, but Bastien merely glanced at her, as if she were dressed in her usual clothes. “It will do,” he said. “Take off your wedding ring.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Take it off or I’ll cut it off,” he said evenly.
“Then you’d get blood all over this dress and people would notice. I’m not taking off my wedding ring. You can’t make me.”
She was mistaken. He was already dressed in his formal clothes, but they hindered his actions not one whit.
He caught her, holding her squirming body as she fought against him, and pulled off the ring.
It was loose since she’d lost weight, and it came off easily enough, and she tried to scratch at him, a useless battle.
He was so much bigger than she was that the effort was fruitless.
And then he released her. “Fix your hair,” he said shortly. “You’ve messed it up.”
“You’ve messed it up,” she shot back furiously. “What are you going to do with my ring?”
“You don’t need it.” And to her absolute horror, he went to the window and tossed the simple gold band into the deep waters of the lake.
“I hate you!”