Swiss Vendetta (Agnes Luthi Mysteries #1)(81)

Agnes watched the transformation. Thomason slipped his gentlemanly fa?ade back on like it was a shirt. There would be no more outbursts tonight.

“I thought the Swiss police would have solved this overnight,” he said politely. “Have you learned more about Felicity?” He stumbled over her name.

“It’s okay,” said Agnes. “We all knew her as Felicity and should respect her choice.”

She wished Thomason had taken the sleeping pills Doctor Blanchard suggested. He would have avoided the fight with Graves and, more important, she could ignore him for a few more hours. She needed to sleep and then think. She indicated a grouping of chairs in an alcove.

“Let’s go back to when you arrived in Switzerland. This might give me some insight into Felicity’s mind-set. How did she sound before she left London? And while she was here, could you sense she was concerned? Or troubled?”

Thomason paced, and for a moment Agnes thought he was going to run to a door and leave. Instead, he walked the ten meters to the end of the corridor and drew back a heavy curtain. The gray-on-black silhouette of the French Alps dominated the landscape under the sliver of moon.

“She left London earlier than planned and I tried to call her and got voicemail. Not unusual. If she was working she wouldn’t have answered her phone.”

“Probably endeared her to your employers,” Agnes said. “A serious young woman. Hardworking. She didn’t know you were in Switzerland?”

Thomason twisted the drapery in his hand and let it sling loose. “Yes, she knew I was here.”

“At the Beau-Rivage. Nice hotel.”

“Like I said, it’s where my family … and the firm always stay.”

“Would you have expected Felicity to stay there? It’s what, an easy half hour by automobile? A beautiful drive.” Met with silence, Agnes persisted. “This is one of the most important unanswered questions and I know you were asked before. Wouldn’t you have expected her to stay there?”

“Yes, until I thought that she was staying at the chateau. Who wouldn’t choose to stay here? But I couldn’t come and knock on the door after—” he paused. “She was working and we hadn’t spoken since she arrived. We were both busy.”

Thomason returned to the table and Vallotton refilled the other man’s glass.

“You were in a state of great distress when you arrived yesterday,” Agnes said gently.

“I was worried, I hadn’t spoken with her in days.”

“But you said it wasn’t unusual for her to ignore phone calls when she was working. Did you have a reason to be worried for her? Here, in Switzerland?”

Thomason looked astounded, a flash of total honesty. He laughed. “No, I wasn’t worried about her, although I should have been. I was worried that she might forget me, not need me. And I was right. She did need me, here with her, protecting her.”

“You called her Wednesday? The day she died?”

“Of course I did. No, I called Tuesday night, by Wednesday my phone battery had died. That’s when I realized I hadn’t packed my charger. I meant to get one, but I was so upset and she hadn’t answered any of my other calls, so it didn’t matter. Then the power went out.”

“Why were you upset? Had you fought?”

“No,” Thomason sounded weary. “No fight. It was just her way. She had a way of keeping me unsettled. She could have married anyone; I know that she had boyfriends before we met. People more successful than me. What if she decided she had made the wrong decision? What if she changed her mind?” He turned to them suddenly. “She said she didn’t have a family. Why did she lie to me?”

He closed his eyes and for a moment Agnes thought he was praying. Then Thomason gripped his hands into fists. “I wanted to marry her. She was perfect. The most beautiful, smartest, funniest person I knew and we were going to have a great life together.”

Vallotton spoke, “She promised you a decision at the end of this trip, didn’t she? It would either be yes or no.”

The look of devastation on Thomason’s face was genuine. “She wasn’t like most girls. When they hear your voice and learn your name and who your people are and where you live, they are ready to marry you no matter if you have a chimpanzee for a brother. Felicity was different; she didn’t care. She loved me, but she wanted to give it consideration. I gave her a bloody book with our house in it, I was so desperate to impress her. She just laughed and said, ‘Who lives in places like this?’ She didn’t care about any of that; she had her own ideas.” He lowered his head to his hands. “She said she would answer when she returned from the trip. Then I ended up in Switzerland at the same time and had to know. I knew that she wasn’t answering her phone, because we had agreed on a timeline: I was going to her flat to have dinner when I returned. She was a stickler for keeping to arrangements. But we were just a few kilometers apart and that changed everything. I had to know.”

Agnes wanted to turn away from the pain on the young man’s face while at the same time she wondered if Felicity had turned him down and he had killed her.

“I think now I know why I hadn’t met her family. I think you know why.” Thomason buried his face in his hands for a moment, then he turned to Vallotton. “Are you married?”