9:56 A.M.
Jac and Griffin stepped out of the mansion on Rue des Saints-Pères together. A soft rain was falling. Each opened an umbrella. Then they turned left toward the Seine. Nothing about their pace suggested they were in a hurry.
They walked along the river. Raindrops troubled the river’s surface-sluggish green-brown without the reflection of a blue sky. The vehicular traffic was heavy, but because of the rain, there weren’t many people strolling on the wide boulevard.
“Do you see the police?” she asked Griffin.
“Yes.”
But it wasn’t the police that they cared about this morning. “Anyone else?”
“I’m just not sure.”
They’d talked about it with Malachai the night before and again early this morning. When Ani and the man with her hadn’t reported back to whomever they were working for, other plans must have kicked into effect. They all needed to assume they were being stalked, listened to, and spied on.
As they continued to walk, Jac pictured the map Robbie had shown them. By now he should have emerged from the manhole in the sixth arrondissement and be on his way.
At seven that morning, she and Griffin had snuck outside, descended down the tunnel, and met Robbie in the first chamber. It was still one of the safest places he could hide. They brought him clean clothes and instructions from the lama at the Buddhist center.
When she asked him how the night had been, he just shrugged.
“Did you talk to Ani?” Griffin asked.
“Not for long.”
“Did you learn anything?”
He shook his head. Jac’s heart hurt for her brother. She could see the betrayal in the dark shadows under his eyes. In lines around his mouth that seemed to have deepened overnight.
Jac and Griffin reached the Pont de la Concorde, the bridge that connected the Left Bank to the Place de la Concorde. They’d mapped this route the night before. Halfway across, Griffin took Jac’s arm and pulled her over to the balustrade. They stood and looked down at the river.
“We could be tourists,” she said.
“Or lovers,” he said and kissed her.
For show? To confuse anyone following them?
“I don’t want to let you go,” he said when he finally pulled back.
Griffin had said he and his wife were separated. But a separation isn’t a divorce. And whenever he spoke about Therese and Elsie, something in his voice made Jac wonder if a divorce would really be the result of their time apart.
“We have things to talk about, Jac. Once Robbie’s safe and back at home.”
On the other side of the bridge, they strolled down the Rue de Rivoli, protected from the rain by the arcade. When they reached the Hotel de Crillion, Jac pointed to the building. “Why don’t we have some coffee?” she said as if she’d just thought about it. Not as if she and Griffin and Malachai had stayed up past two in the morning planning how to get to the Orangerie without being followed.
A half hour later, finished with their petit déjeuner, Griffin paid the bill, and they sauntered into the lobby and onto the elevator.
Inside, Jac pressed the button for the lower level.
The doors opened onto a hub of activity. Waiters, chambermaids, carpenters, painters and a variety of other service personnel hurried back and forth, carrying food trays, laundry carts and piles of sheets and towels.
“Which way?” Griffin asked.
There hadn’t been any blueprints on the internet. And Jac had been here only once when she was thirteen years old. She remembered the day but not where the exit was.
A famous musician and his wife had ordered a vast array of perfumed items from the shop-everything from soaps to candles-and asked for it all to be delivered. L’Etoile knew his daughter loved the British rock star. So he made the delivery himself and brought Jac with him.
Father and daughter had entered via the lobby’s main doors-the only entrance Louis knew. But the concierge refused the delivery. He didn’t even let Louis finish explaining. He showed them to the door and told her father where the service entrance was.
Louis was furious. Cursing under his breath, he stormed out of the hotel, Jac struggling to keep up with her father. By the time they were around the corner at the hotel’s back entrance, he had calmed down.
He knocked on the door of the celebrity’s suite. Jac was mesmerized by the tall, craggy-looking man whose music she adored. His autograph-scrawled on the House of L’Etoile bill of sale-was framed and still hanging in her bedroom in the mansion.
“To Jac-never stop listening. You never know what you’ll hear.”
The memory was interrupted by a portly woman in a housekeeper’s uniform who asked, “Can I help you?” Her voice was on the edge of gruff. She seemed to be holding back just in case they were lost guests.
“We just made a delivery,” Jac improvised, “and got turned around. Which way is out?”
Following the housekeeper’s directions, they exited the hotel on the Rue Boissy d’Anglas, a quiet street around the corner from the busier Place de la Concorde.
Even though they were fairly certain no one had anticipated their coming out here, they proceeded cautiously to Rue St.-Honoré. Maintaining a window-shopping pace, they went to the next corner, took a right onto Rue Royale, and from there circled back to the Rue de Rivoli. In front of WHSmith bookstore, they crossed the intersection and entered the Jardin des Tuileries. From there it was only a couple of minutes walk to the Orangerie, where they got in a short line outside the museum. Neither Robbie nor Malachai was there. Yet. Or else they were already inside.
The plan was for all of them to arrive by eleven-thirty. It was only eleven-fifteen.
The queue moved slowly. Museums were crowded on Saturdays. Seven minutes later, they were inside on another line-this one to buy tickets.
Jac had often come to this museum with her mother, who loved the Monets. But it had been renovated since she’d last been here. Instead of the dark and slightly dingy interior, the entryway was flooded with morning light. The unfamiliarity was disconcerting. Jac’s heart banged against her rib cage. She buried her face in the white scarf she’d wound around her neck that morning. She’d sprayed it with her mother’s perfume. Wanted her with her on this very difficult day.
This line moved slowly, too. Jac looked around. Still no sign of Robbie or Malachai. “Where are they?” she asked.
Griffin put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”
But she couldn’t stop worrying. “What if Robbie’s recognized before he gets here?”
“Everything is going to go smoothly.”
“You can’t know that.”
Griffin shook his head. “I can. Your brother has proved he’s resourceful. He’s managed to arrange all this from a hundred feet underground.”
They were finally next in line. In front of them was a woman with her two teenage daughters. They were speaking to one another in Dutch. Jac bent her head. Inhaled the scent impregnated in her scarf.
Maybe it would be better if the police did find Robbie first and put him in custody. At least then he’d be safe.
“There’s nothing going on here-wouldn’t there be more guards on duty if the Dalai Lama was expected? Some indication a VIP was visiting?”
“I’m assuming there’s some serious undercover security.”
They bought their tickets, walked through the cursory and not very thorough security post, and into the first gallery.
She looked around, scanning the crowd for Robbie and Malachai.
“They aren’t here,” she said.
“I know, Jac. Don’t worry.”
“Funny,” she said. “Impossible and funny.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Don’t,” he said.
“What?”
“We’re at a museum. People at museums aren’t usually nervous. Slow down. Look at the paintings.”
She bristled and started to argue.
“Take a deep breath.” He took her arm. “Look at the paintings. The beautiful paintings. Everything is going to be fine.”
Slowly they circled the room. She tried to do what he said. Really examine the murals. Monet’s colors did, in fact, have a calming effect.
Jac and Griffin stopped beside a group of schoolgirls looking at the last painting before the exit. Their conversation was about shoes, not the swirls of blues and greens highlighted with violet.
A guard, rocking on his soles, watched the teenagers with a small smile playing on his lips.
Griffin led Jac around the girls and through the door. She didn’t mean to, but Jac glanced at the guard as they walked out. He noticed and followed her with his eyes.