The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(14)

“I don’t know why Jacob was kept as a big dark secret,” I said slowly. “Why didn’t Malcolm ever tell us he had an older brother?”

“We have to think of Jacob with a big question mark over his head from now on,” said Harry.

I suddenly felt faint and nauseous. I stood so that my back was against the wall, the flats of my hands pressing the cold, rough stone. I saw flickering lights that weren’t really there and felt like an ice pick was pushing through my brain toward the back of my right eye.

I’d only had a migraine once before, and I quickly realized I’d been exposed to a bunch of triggers that could set one off: extreme stress, lack of sleep, change of diet, even change of environment, like the dry air in this basement room.

My vision was narrowing. Harry’s voice was way too loud, and yet I knew he was talking very softly. Was there time to stop this head-bomb with a pill?

I moved toward the monastery table like I was walking underwater. I slid the paid bill from Private along with Jacob Perlman’s authorizations back into the dirty brown envelope. I grabbed the contact sheet picturing Kath and the boy who might have been her lover, and slid that into the envelope, too.

Then I tucked the envelope into the waistband of my skirt and hid it under my blouse.

Meanwhile, Harry was stacking unread reports back inside the boxes. The sound of him pulling tape off the roll was like the roar of a tornado coming at me down a highway.

“You okay?” Harry asked.

“No.”

Harry taped the boxes closed, and when the room looked tidy enough to pass military inspection, he took my hands. “I’m right here, Tandy. Let’s go.”

He turned off the lights and locked up behind us, and we got the hell out of Dodge before the migraine could knock me to the floor.





I was in Gram Hilda’s bed with the lights out when Jacob came into the room again to check on me.

“Feeling better?” he whispered.

I told him my migraine was about the same size but with less intensity behind my eyes.

“Try to sleep. I’ll bring you another ibuprofen in an hour.”

He very gently adjusted the goose-down blankets and curtains, squeezed my hand, and then quietly closed the door.

I did some relaxation exercises, especially the one where you imagine yourself in a place where you were once happy.

I remembered being happy whenever I jumped into Kath’s bed at night after dinner. I’d snuggle up to her while she read histories of Western civilization and philosophy, and she would sometimes say, “Listen to this, Tandy.”

She had told me secrets about boys and her dreams of a life beyond school. And I remembered the way she smelled: Se Souvenir de Moi.

But just before dozing off to pleasant memories, I jumped awake with memories of my mother’s screams the day we found out Katherine was dead. Images followed: Malcolm and Maud, their faces gray as they told their four remaining children what little they knew about our sister’s death. I remembered Matty smashing chairs and glassware as Hugo howled.

I remembered sitting on the floor with my shocked and terrified twin outside the master bedroom door, seeing Maud in bed with a migraine, and Malcolm silently stuffing clothing into a duffel bag, rushing past us with a phone to his face, calling our driver to come around with the Bentley.

The next thing I remembered was Katherine’s funeral. The coffin was closed, of course. I didn’t like to think about that. I spoke at my sister’s graveside, or maybe it would be more accurate to say I stood at my sister’s graveside and, although I had things I wanted to say, I just sobbed. I didn’t remember what anyone said, exactly, but there were dozens of heartfelt good-byes.

But now, in the present, I was awake, and I wanted to know everything about my sister from my current perspective.

Before I opened the cardboard boxes, I’d never thought the story of Katherine’s death was the slightest bit questionable.

Now questions had been raised.

I thought about Katherine in Paris and the boy named Dominick who had never been found dead or alive in Cape Town. I thought of my uncle Peter, the head of Angel Pharmaceuticals. And I pictured Katherine taking the many, many pills that the adults in our family had conspired to give her—for reasons of their own.

Malcolm and Maud held many principles—but honesty wasn’t one of them. They had lied to us about the drugs. They had lied about Maud’s business so that it was an utter surprise of the holy crap kind when we found out that her company was under siege, and the same could be said for Angel Pharmaceuticals.

Now I felt certain we hadn’t been told the whole truth of Katherine’s death. Maybe everything we knew about that was a lie.





The next morning, my head was clear and pain free, but my hands still shook and my legs wobbled. I clutched the banister and hobbled down a flight of stairs to Harry’s room. He’d obviously been working all night. I pushed sheet music off his bed and tickled him awake.

“You said you wanted in on this,” I told him, waving the dirty brown envelope in his face.

“What’s the plan?”

It took about a minute and ten seconds to reach the number listed as belonging to D. Tremaine. Harry’s ear and mine were both pressed hard to a side of my phone when the call was answered.

I asked, “Est-ce Dominick Tremaine?”