The tears oozed out from under her sunglasses and were running down her cheeks. Damn it, she loved him! She had fallen in love when he first began paying attention to her, consummating her feelings on their honeymoon. But he didn’t love her, at least not in the same way. Now it seemed completely plausible that he would go to any length to keep her from stumbling onto his secret.
The door opened again, this time to a stylish young woman wearing a scarf over her head that touched the rims of her sunglasses. She seemed to be the right age and height. She was tall, well proportioned, and spirited. She stepped into the street and walked in the opposite direction, away from the Place de l’Opéra. There was a sensual sway to her hips that turned a few heads moving in the opposite direction.
Jane threw money on the table and jumped up to follow. She kept the woman in sight from the other side of the street and crossed at her first opportunity. Then she walked, no more than thirty yards behind, watching as Selina negotiated the frantic pedestrian traffic. She couldn’t help but notice her regal stride, tall and erect, head held high, as if she were the only one on the boulevard. Jane felt as if she were chasing breathlessly, an athlete in walking shoes after royalty in high heels. For a second she wished she were Selina Royce, fresh out of bed with her lover and strolling down the most fashionable street in Paris.
The woman turned into a bank office, and Jane followed as far as the lobby. Selina strode past the tellers’ windows with supreme confidence, up to one of the officers’ desks. While she waited for the man to come around and position her chair, she looked up and seemed to come eye-to-eye with Jane. For a second each was reflected in the other’s sunglasses. But then Selina turned back to her banker. He seemed delighted to see her, an old friend who made large deposits.
Jane found that she couldn’t take it anymore. She had seen all she could stand of her husband’s other life. It was time to go back to the hotel and confront him. But how? What would she say to the man she truly loved?
“I know where you were this afternoon,” and then watch him squirm to find an appropriate explanation? Or maybe something more specific: “How did you enjoy making love to Selina Royce? I’ll bet she’s a real tiger in bed!” But she hesitated. Confronting him would be a declaration that she was leaving him. If she had any pride left at all, she couldn’t go on living with him once his affair was out in the open. She still hoped against all odds that there was some other explanation.
He was seated at the bar when she entered the hotel, and she sat down beside him. “Busy day?” he asked as he signaled to the waiter.
“It was,” she answered. “Lots of walking.”
She ordered an iced tea. She was still feeling the wine she had at the sidewalk café. “How about you? Did your meetings go well?”
He shrugged. “Okay, I suppose. You never get everything you want.”
“I thought you always got everything you wanted,” Jane said. Her tone wasn’t teasing. She was making an accusation.
Andrews shook his head.
“Oh, by the way,” Jane went on, as if the thought had just struck her, “were you over near the opera house today?”
His eyes widened. “No, why?” he asked, and then busied himself with his drink.
“I thought I saw you,” she said cheerily. “I was walking on Boulevard Haussmann toward the opera, and I thought I saw you getting out of a taxi. I tried to catch up with you, but I lost you in the crowd.”
He recovered from his shock. “Good thing you didn’t catch up. You would have bagged the wrong man. I was at the ministry all day, near the Trocadéro.”
You lying bastard, she thought. But she managed a credible smile. “Well, I must be thinking about you all the time if strangers are starting to look like you.”
He touched her hand as if he was pleased by her comment. But his look was back to business almost immediately. “What were you doing near the opera?”
Now she began lying. “Well, I started the day at the Picasso, and then I remembered that they give tours of the opera house. So I had a bite at a café and walked over for the tour.”
“How was it?”
“How was what?
“The tour.”
“Great,” she said with feigned enthusiasm. “The backstage is enormous. And you should see some of the chandeliers.”
“Do they still take you down into the sewers where the phantom used to live?” The question was innocent enough, but she sensed a trap.
“No, they didn’t,” she said. “Come to think of it, they never even mentioned it.”
He nodded, and sipped at his drink. Jane wondered whether she had given herself away.
He was quiet during dinner, letting her do most of the talking. She filled the void by babbling about the wonders of the city and how she might like to live there someday. “Maybe when you own all the cable in the world, we could have an apartment here.” He nodded as if it might be a good idea, giving no indication that he already had one. Over dessert, he delivered his news. “I’m going to have to stay here for another day or two.”
“Something wrong?” she wondered.
“Like I said, today’s dealings didn’t go all that well.”
“I’ll stay with you,” she offered.
He shook his head. “No need to. I can get you a flight back in the morning.”
“Back to what?” she asked. “The apartment smells of paint and plaster. I’d just as soon stay here. There’s lots more that I have to see. I can spend the whole day on the Left Bank.”
When they returned to their suite, he surprised her by suddenly becoming romantic. He climbed into their bed naked and watched while she took a nightgown from her drawer. “I’d hate to see that get all wrinkled,” he teased.
She took the nightgown with her to the bathroom. “Don’t you have a busy day tomorrow?” she said over her shoulder.
“You know what?” he said before she could close the door. “I’d like to see you just the way you were when we first met. Remember? The only thing you were wearing was a towel wrapped around your head.”
Jane couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He had just spent the afternoon with another woman. Now he was coming on to her as if they were still on their honeymoon. The bastard has chutzpah, she thought, not to mention boundless energy. She thought of locking herself in the bathroom, but the invitation was too exciting to resist. She undressed, hung the gown on the back of the door, and carefully wrapped a towel around her head.
When she awoke, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed and ready to leave. “Just wanted to say good-bye,” he said, and he pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her cheek.
“Was I that uninspiring?” she asked. “It looks as if you can’t wait to get out of here.”
“I’ll be back for lunch,” he promised, “maybe even sooner.”
“I’ll wait for you. I’ll go down to the spa for a massage. We can go over to the Left Bank together.”
She showered slowly and dressed casually, then went down to the dining room for juice and coffee. At the spa, she spent half an hour in the gym running on a treadmill, then stretched out on a table and put herself in the hands of a masseuse. Her mind wandered back over the events of the day before.
Her husband loved her. Either that or he was a brilliant actor. His tenderness in their lovemaking had taken her back to the sailboat and moments of bliss in his arms. His affection was real and his need for her obvious. She never for a moment felt that she was being used.
Yet he was involved with another woman and had been for many years. Selina Royce was exquisite, and though Jane had no doubt that she, too, was attractive in her own way, she knew she wasn’t an international beauty. Bill would be much more interesting to the paparazzi with the woman she had followed yesterday on his arm. Maybe, after all these years, he still needed her. Probably he still loved her. But then why hadn’t he married her? There was nothing to stop him. As far as the public was concerned, all he would have to do was rediscover an old associate and ease Selina into his public life. There was no reason he would have to go on loving her from a distance.
It was more likely that he was buying her loyalty. She knew things about Kay Parker’s final moments that he had to keep secret. Jane had assumed that was the reason for the monthly payments, but maybe the blackmail involved more. Maybe Selina also needed to believe that she was important in his life. She might never have mentioned the damage she could do to him and spelled out the price of her silence. It could be that he kept her as an intimate part of his life to ensure her loyalty, and the money was just to maintain her in a style befitting their relationship.
But either way, he was a liar. He was lying to her and maybe lying to Selina as well. There had been many opportunities for him to explain. He could have told her when Leavitt first revealed that she was asking about Selina Royce. He could have told her on the boat when he found out that Roscoe Taylor was digging around. The truth was that he should have told her when he asked her to marry him.
What should she do? Try to ignore it and accept the part of his life he shared with her? Be content to be queen of the castle even though he made regular trips to the harem? And just hope that sometime in the future he would be able to break free from the other woman, maybe even tell her what Selina’s hold on him had been?
Or confront him? Tell him exactly what she knew and explain that they couldn’t go on together until he filled in all the blanks she didn’t know? Would he tell her the truth in order to keep her? Or was his secret so dark that he would give her up rather than reveal it?
If only Roscoe had stayed on the case! Given more time, he probably would have uncovered the story, and then she would know what she was dealing with. Had he killed his wife? Did his mistress kill her? Or was there actually an intruder who killed Kay? What part had Robert Leavitt played in the whole affair? Clearly, he had helped cover it up, but had he also participated in the crime?
The masseuse draped a bath sheet over her shoulders and helped Jane climb down from the table. She went to the shower and washed off the lotion. Then she wrapped the towel around herself and walked into the sauna. The rush of dry heat nearly drove her back out through the door. But she forged ahead and stretched out on the lower bench. Within a few seconds, she adjusted to the temperature and felt herself fall into a deeper level of relaxation.
She rewound the events of the past few days and played them back again, searching for the clue she was missing. The evidence kept directing her back to the day eight years ago when Kay Parker died. The unanswered question was, who could have been there? Kay, Robert Leavitt, and William Andrews were certain. Selina was a possibility. And then there was the business meeting the previous night. Who had attended? Who else was up in the mountains who might have had a strong business or personal tie to her husband and his society wife? Bill knew, as did Leavitt. Probably some of the secretaries as well. It had been a long time ago, but people probably remembered the events surrounding Kay’s murder the same way they remembered where they were and who they were talking with when President Kennedy was shot. Who could she talk to? Who might give her a clue as to what happened up on the mountain in the ski lodge? She took the corner of the towel and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. The towel was hot, as if it had been steamed. So was her skin. She felt as if she were in an oven being slowly roasted. Jane glanced up at the thermometer, wiped the beads of sweat from her eyelashes, and found the arrow pointing to 180 degrees. She sat up, leaned near the coal scuttle, and poured a dipper of water onto the rocks. The water hissed into a cloud of steam. She lay back on her towel. Another few minutes, she told herself. She enjoyed the near pain of the intense heat, although she wondered about plunging directly into a cold shower. The shock, she thought, might be deadly. Maybe a warm shower gradually turning to cold. But after hesitating momentarily, the needle resumed its climb. She wrapped the towel around her and stepped to the door in order to get out. The door wouldn’t budge.