Suspects(56)

“Thank you. She’ll be relieved to have your men for a while, and I certainly am, for her.”

“I knew months ago that you had a personal interest in the case, it wasn’t even your case. And I was right.” Guy laughed knowingly, and Mike smiled.

“I didn’t even know I had a personal interest in it then. But I do now. She doesn’t deserve any of what’s happened to her, especially the boy.”

Guy’s face grew serious at that. “No, she doesn’t. I hope she can find her peace about it someday. And she has you to protect her now.”

“Your man did a fine job of it at the chateau. I’m not sure I’m as good a shot as he is,” Mike said seriously. “I’d have been afraid to risk it with the kidnapper standing right next to her.”

“He’s a good shot and a good agent. Enjoy your holiday in France. I’ll let you know when we find our man. Don’t worry, we will. And Richmond is turning England upside down to find him. So are we here, in case he’s back in France.”

Mike thanked him and they hung up, then he reported the conversation to Theo, who looked somewhat relieved. There was only one kidnapper left to find, and it sounded like he was in England, not nearby. She was still trying to adjust to the idea that someone might try to kill her. It made Matthieu’s fortune and her success more of a curse than a blessing. She had no one to leave it to now anyway. If something happened to her, she had designated half a dozen charities for children to be the benefactors. She had no one else, with Axel gone. And at least the money would do someone some good when she was gone.



* * *



—

For Mike, it got harder and harder to leave her every time. Mike spent New Year’s Eve with her, and they had a lavish meal at Alain Ducasse. Mike liked treating her to special evenings, there was so little else he could do for her. He couldn’t even buy clothes for her, since she sold them on her website and had whatever she wanted. He had bought her a gold bracelet with a large gold heart on it and had had their initials and the date engraved on the back, to commemorate their first Christmas. She had bought him a warm, fur-lined black leather jacket, which fit him perfectly, and he could wear in New York too.

On New Year’s Day, he flew home to New York. He hated to leave her, but it was the life they led, with their respective jobs in different cities. It made their meetings more exciting, and the sex seemed new every time, but they were both lonely in between, no matter how busy they were in their work lives. He had hinted to her that he was going to have a lot to do when he got back. They had finally been alerted that the drug shipment they’d been waiting for, due in from Bolivia, had been moved and was coming from Ecuador now, in a week. Theo knew nothing about it.



* * *



—

The week after New Year’s Day was busy for Theo. She was already working on their buy for the following fall and she had meetings in each of Matthieu’s companies. She was essentially the fashion director of each of his brands, checking the orders for each product and each season. It was a huge job, and his brands were different from hers. His were more established with a design history and a look that had to be respected when they brought a new designer in, which she had just done in three of them, and the new designers had to be carefully supervised until they hit their stride.

Her own brand kept her busy, making sure that the combination of the brands they offered were different enough but still worked well together to tell a unique fashion story that made women feel they had to have what she was selling. It was a constant marketing challenge, something that she was good at. She had a sixth sense for what look would be next in fashion and what styles and colors her customers would want to wear. That sixth sense and her flawless sense of style were what had made her business successful and had helped Matthieu with his too. When she was definite about something, he never questioned it. He followed what she said. He had enormous respect for her talent.

She was so busy the week Mike left that she never had time to call him at the right time, with the time difference between Paris and New York. Some days it was just always wrong. People came back with renewed energy after the holidays, and she had dozens of meetings to take advantage of that. She knew he was busy too—he had warned her he would be. On Friday, she realized she hadn’t talked to him in three days, since Tuesday, which was unusual for them. They always spoke at least once or twice a day.

She waited to hear from him that night, and when he didn’t call, she tried him on his cell and it went straight to voicemail. It seemed odd to her for a minute, and then she told herself that he must have been on some secret operation. She never questioned him about his work now since she knew he couldn’t tell her anyway. She sent him a text to tell him she loved him, and went to bed, sure that she’d hear from him in the morning.

On Saturday, when she woke up, there was no return text, and for an instant she was annoyed, and thought how long could it take to write a quick text. By the end of another day of silence, she had a gnawing feeling in her gut that something might be wrong, and told herself she was being neurotic. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry at him or scared, or if he was just being thoughtless or had the flu. She was sure it was something as simple as that. And maybe it was just some male side of him she hadn’t seen yet, and he was starting to take her for granted or was tired of a long-distance relationship where they only saw each other every three or four weeks. She thought of a million reasons why he hadn’t called, ranging from the banal and selfish, maybe he was out getting drunk with friends, to the truly terrifying, he’d been run over by a bus and killed, which seemed the least likely. She knew he was in a potentially dangerous line of work, but he played it down so she wouldn’t worry. She was more inclined to be angry at him by Sunday, when she still hadn’t heard from him in five days.