Suspects(34)
He woke up before she did the next morning. It was a sunny day and the rioters had vanished in the night. He had heard sirens in the distance, until three a.m.—fire trucks and police cars and the riot police going back to their barracks, he assumed.
He looked out the window and there was burnt debris in the street. Cars were smashed and blackened, empty hulls, and there was a carpet of glass in the street. It looked like snow. It would cost millions or even billions to repair the damage that had been done. He saw the graffiti on the buildings. It seemed like a sacrilege to him in a city like Paris. When he turned, he saw that Theo was awake and watching him. He smiled and came to sit next to her on the bed.
“They’re gone, but they left a hell of a mess,” he reported to her.
“That’s what they do,” she said, and stretched, smiling up at him. “Did I dream yesterday, or did it really happen?”
“Something tells me this is for real,” he said with a serious expression.
“I think so too. What do you want to do today?” she asked him. He was going home the next day, and she wanted their last day together to be memorable. She didn’t know when she’d see him again. He was about to disappear like a mirage, back to his life in New York.
“Can we take a walk? I love this city, although it looks badly beaten up today.”
“We can go for a walk in the Bois de Boulogne, but I have to take one of the guards with me.” He was relieved to see that she was good about it and accepted it as a necessity in her life.
They were both shocked by the damage they saw when they went out a little while later. There were already cleaning crews picking things up and throwing them into garbage trucks. They were driven to the Bois de Boulogne and had lunch at a neighborhood bistro afterwards, where they sat in the sun on the terrace. The air was cool, but the sun felt good on their faces, and then they went back to her apartment and made love again.
He checked out of his hotel late that afternoon, brought his things to her apartment, and spent his last night with her there. He had to leave for the airport at five to be there at six o’clock the next morning. She got up with him at four, made breakfast for him while he showered, and then sat with him while he ate it.
“What am I going to do without you now? I won’t be able to sleep without you,” she said wistfully. Having him there had begun to seem normal, in a surprisingly short time.
“I’ll come back and see you soon, Theo,” he promised. He could see the sadness of loss in her eyes again and it pained him for her. She had no one now, and was so alone. But it was the reality of their lives. She lived and worked in Paris, and he had a job in New York. Neither of them could give up their careers at this point, and they didn’t want to. They would have to find a way to make it work, living in two cities three thousand miles apart. Others did it, and they could too. But he hated to leave her when he kissed her goodbye. What if she came to her senses after he left and never wanted to see him again? He didn’t even dare voice the thought to her, for fear it might come true.
“You won’t forget me?” she asked as he kissed her in the doorway, and he laughed.
“I was just thinking the same thing. And no, I won’t forget you. I’ve never even seen a movie this good. I’ll need two weeks to recover from my three days in Paris, but it was worth every minute of it.” He kissed her again with his arms around her, and didn’t want to leave.
“If you miss your flight, come back,” she said hopefully, and he smiled and gave her one last kiss. The magic was still there. It had only gotten better after the discoveries they’d made and the secrets they’d shared. He had to stop at the embassy on his way out of town to return the gun he’d borrowed. He had removed the bullets first, and they would give it all back to the CIA duty officer later in the morning when he came in.
She waved as he walked down the stairs, and then gently closed the door and rushed to the window to wave to him again. He waved back and got into the car. She was sending him to the airport in a car driven by one of her guards, although Mike insisted she didn’t have to, but he finally gave in.
She watched the car pull away and climbed back into the bed she had shared with him for two days and two whole nights. A page had turned, another chapter in her life had begun. She had no idea where it would lead them, but she hoped to a better place than she’d been for over a year, after the worst moments of her life. But Mike was here now, a different person, a different life. It all seemed unreal once he was gone, and she fell asleep. She found a note from him on her bathroom mirror when she woke up again.
It said only “See you soon. I love you, Mike.” It was enough, more than enough. He had put balm on her severely wounded heart, and if it worked, they had much to look forward to. It was something to hold on to. She folded the note and put it in her pocket. His plane had taken off by then, and she had her own life to get back to, until she saw him again. She hoped it would be soon, just as his note said. It sounded like a promise.
* * *
—
She was in her office when Pierre de Vaumont called her that afternoon. She remembered seeing him on the plane, and knew he had gone to the opening party in New York, but she couldn’t imagine why he was calling her. They weren’t friends and never had been. She avoided people like him. She no longer moved in the circles he did, and had no desire to. She had given up her entire social life since Matthieu’s death, and didn’t miss it. They were all Matthieu’s friends anyway. He dictated their social life, and most of the time she followed, to please him and keep him happy. Although she wondered if she would have been quite so willing to follow his lead after the girl in Moscow. That last escapade of his would have had an inevitable impact on their marriage, if the worst hadn’t happened. It had subtly changed her feelings for him even after his death.