A dozen official vehicles were in the small clearing, lights flashing and sirens muted. Boschung sent climbers down the cliff to find the body, and Agnes shared the details of her exchange with Patel. She had finished when a bright red Ferrari drove up. The front bumper was crushed and the side panel destroyed. Vallotton leaped from the impossibly low seat, then stopped when he saw her standing among the uniformed officers.
She felt her heart flutter and excused herself to walk toward him.
“What were you thinking?” She gestured toward the smashed bumper and side panel. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
She pressed her hand to her throat as if to contain her fears. Her pulse beat beneath her fingers; it was comforting.
“I know the roads around here and knew I could cut across on the farm lane. I thought I’d block him. I thought he would stop. Never considered he’d bash his way past.” Vallotton ran a hand along the crumpled fender. “I’ll tell my brother you were driving.”
“I thought it was your car?”
“Technically, legally, it is, but it’s Daniel who bought it. He sent the bill to me.”
Agnes laughed with relief at so many things. She slipped her hands into her pockets.
“You’re not hurt?” He took a step nearer, then stopped as if remembering himself and where they were. He looked her up and down. She shook her head and explained what had happened after she left him on the roadside.
“Tommy’s off to the hospital,” he said. Agnes nodded. Boschung had told her.
“Broken arm, cuts and bruises, but in good spirits.” Vallotton glanced at the officials milling around. “You don’t need me. With my stunt, I’ve already created more trouble than help—”
She reached for his arm. “You did help. You slowed Patel and stopped the other traffic. I was afraid he’d disappear on a small road and we’d end up with a hostage situation.”
“I was afraid for the boy. Afraid for you, Agnes.”
Boschung called for her, and she said she needed another minute. A few of the police cars pulled out, but there was still a crowd. The body was carried away.
“When did you know it was Patel?” Vallotton asked.
“I think it was the phone call. When Chavanon entered the reception, Patel left to take a call. But when Aubry called me the other day, his call went to voice mail. It only came through when I left the basement. That, and Patel had a background in pharmaceuticals, which meant he understood how the EpiPen worked and how to dose the candies with peanut. Guy Chavanon’s candies were the missing link.”
“Why didn’t Marie or Christine think of them?”
“Those candies were so ubiquitous that no one who knew him well thought about them. Plus, Marie Chavanon didn’t want to go through her husband’s belongings. She hadn’t realized the silver box wasn’t with his personal effects.”
“We still don’t know if there was any legitimacy to Chavanon’s big invention.”
“Certainly both Marie and Christine stopped believing in a real invention years ago.” Agnes remembered the notebook Christine brought her. It was part of the series but it didn’t seem like Guy Chavanon. It was a pale imitation of him.
“If there was a great discovery it would be a shame to think that Chavanon gave his life for something that was then lost.”
“He was a paranoid man,” Agnes said. “He liked hiding things.” Her thoughts drifted to the absence of a computer and to the cybercafé. Was Chavanon using one of the café’s public computers? His work would be completely anonymous if the data was stored on a flash drive. Maybe he took photographs of notes and transferred them to a drive? Burn the notes and keep the drive safe? Complicated, but for a man who liked complications, possible. But where would he have stored the flash drive?
“Did Patel also kill Mercier?” Vallotton asked.
“Yes. I think they’ll find that the murder weapon is an antique from Patel’s showroom. He had tribal pieces there, and among them several daggers. Mercier was killed because Patel thought he was Chavanon’s new partner for his invention.”
“That’s unlikely. Mercier was a bureaucrat, not a watchmaker.”
“Patel didn’t know that. Mercier spoke with him about Swiss Made, and Patel thought he was delivering a message. A reminder of why Chavanon backed out of a partnership with the Patel Group. The other federation members are with watch companies; Mercier is probably the only one who retired from active manufacturing and took on a purely advisory role. Patel didn’t know them well enough to understand that Mercier was the last person who could have partnered with Chavanon.” Just as Mercier didn’t know how his warning to her about Copernicus would prove true. In some ways, he was killed by his fear of a radical idea.
“Marie and Christine will be grateful to know what really happened,” Vallotton said.
“I’m not sure.”
“Christine, at least, wanted the truth.”
“Everyone wants the truth until they hear it. Guy backed out of an agreement with a friend. It doesn’t justify what happened, but it wasn’t the most honorable action.”
Boschung called out to her again.
Vallotton gave her the smile she remembered from the first time she met him, when they’d stood on the top of his château and looked out across the frozen lake. It was a smile that held promise.
“Please tell your aunt that honor is as powerful as the seven deadly sins and that pride and honor aren’t easily separated. She will know what I mean.”
Boschung called out again.
Vallotton straightened her coat collar. “I’ll let you get to work now that I know you’re okay.” He slipped into his car and lowered the window. Despite the cosmetic damage, the car roared to life. He backed up slowly.
“Call me for dinner,” she said. But it was too late for him to hear.