Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
When Baxter woke, the morning sun was softening the corners of his room. There was no hissing sound, no distant thuds, just the gentle sound of birdsong across the hillside. He was clammy with sweat, and his pulse was hammering before he’d even lifted his head from the pillow.
But I’m alive.
The thought pushed him out of bed, trepidation building as he pulled on a T-shirt, straightened his pajama bottoms, and slid his feet into leather moccasins.
It was decidedly improper to roam about one’s place of work in one’s pajamas, but Baxter needed to assess the damage before anyone else woke up.
If they wake up …
“Stop that right now,” he said to himself in the bathroom mirror as he quickly brushed his teeth.
(It was one thing to encounter a client in one’s night attire and quite another to do so with morning breath).
“The gas is harmless—the gendarme said so.” He was relieved to find himself clearer headed than he had been after the previous attack; opening the window before bed had proved to be a prescient decision.
He walked slowly down the corridor toward the main accommodation. Miriam and Thierry’s door was closed, and when he put his ear to it, he heard the soft sounds of someone snoring. He exhaled. This was a good start.
In the kitchen, everything was exactly as he’d left it. Glasses rinsed and lined up beside the sink. The port decanter drying on its stand. A basket of dirty linen in the laundry, waiting to be washed. Baxter picked up his now charged phone and continued to check the house.
Nothing seemed out of place. No open drawers, no missing objets d’art. No stolen paintings, ransacked cupboards, or wantonly damaged furniture. The state-of-the-art sound system was untouched. Baxter checked the sliding doors on the upper floor and found them securely locked.
He stood for a moment, trying to make sense of what he’d heard.
Or thought he’d heard.
Had he imagined the noises? He didn’t have the dull, heavy headache he’d had the morning after the attempted break-in, so either the open window had saved him from the worst of the gas, or last night’s attack had been less potent.
Or … Baxter frowned: Could he have been dreaming?
A nightmare brought on by the arguments and tension of the previous day?
Baxter felt suddenly foolish standing in Villa Sérénité’s opulent drawing room in a pair of Marks & Spencer plaid pajamas. Satisfied there was nothing out of place, he
hurried to shower and dress, stopping only to put on a pot of coffee.
He was just smoothing a little pomade through his hair when a piercing scream rang out.
Baxter ran toward the sound, his bedroom door slamming behind him.
There was a shout from the guest corridor—keep it down out there!
—but Baxter kept going. The scream had come from outside.
He threw open the front door, but the drive was empty except for a scrawny tabby cat, mewing for scraps.
“Help!” It was a woman, frightened and borderline hysterical. Kaitlyn?
“I’m coming!” Baxter ran around the side of the house toward the main terrace with its neat line of sun loungers. Sylvie stood at the far end of the swimming pool, one hand clamped to her mouth, the other extended, a trembling finger pointing into the water.
Baxter didn’t hesitate. He saw the blurred shape at the bottom of the pool, and he sprinted the remaining few paces before diving long and low into the cool blue water.
He heard voices above him, muffled and urgent, as he struck out toward the motionless body at the deep end.
He grabbed an arm, pushed the dead weight onto his chest and kicked back, cupping the man’s chin with his free hand, pulling them both backward into shallower waters.
Baxter stood, shaky with the effort and with the adrenaline flooding his veins.
He lugged the body to the side and summoned all his strength to roll it onto the terrace, Sylvie sobbing as she dragged from the side.
As Baxter hauled himself out, water flooding from his clothes, he realized Thierry and Miriam were there too.
He shouted at them to call for an ambulance, but as he rolled the body over and looked at the man’s pale, bloated face, he knew it was too late.
Alec Prescott was dead.