part0034

T he shrieking and clopping from the next room subsided. Thierry again touched Havilah to make sure she was still in back of him, as if he could never be too sure with her. She didn’t shrink from his touch this time. He looked over to Simone. The shooting had stopped only seconds before. He whispered again in the earpiece.

“One person down! Agents have secured the doors! The police are en route!” Thierry signaled to Simone.

Havilah made a move to push past Thierry. She was in a panic. “My aunt…”

“Attends !” He yelled as if to penetrate her fog of dread.

Simone flitted about nervously, moving towards the door.

Before Thierry could finish his warning, Hervé Simone had carelessly thrown open the door to the reception area. A number of guests were still lifting themselves up off the floor. They were sniffling and shaking and then they heard an unbearably loud scream. It seemed to shake and bounce off the walls and latch onto their bodies, causing a collective convulsing.

Havilah took off running with Thierry Gasquet at her heels.

“Aunt Neet! Aunt Neet!” she shouted, pushing through the crowd that had formed a circle of moans, wails, and disbelieving tears.

Thierry caught up to her. They both looked between the gaps of the circle.

Thierry nodded. The elegantly attired politician lay dead, shot in the head and chest.

“She needs protection.” Havilah could overhear Thierry talking again into his earpiece. “We’re leaving now!”

Her head began to throb. “Were they after me?” She was trying to keep up with his long strides. He moved quickly through the crowd.

He didn’t respond immediately, and when he did he ignored the question altogether. “We need to find your aunt.”

“If Carpentier has been murdered that means…” She didn’t finish her sentence.

“We have to leave Paris,” he informed her soberly, pointing to his watch. “And soon. I honestly don’t know who is after whom at this point, which makes securing you, and far from the city, all the more important. If someone can have Carpentier murdered in a room full of people, then they can certainly pick you or your aunt off even in protective custody here in Paris.”

Her eyes watered. She leaned her head into Thierry’s shoulder as if to keep herself from collapsing. He seemed to drag her along in his search for her aunt. Then Havilah saw Lucian approaching from another room with Aunt Neet. She dashed towards them both, blinking back her tears and putting on a calm face.

“There!” She pointed Thierry in their direction.

“You’re okay? Good. We have to leave.” Havilah grabbed her aunt’s hand and moved a step towards Thierry.

“Rattled but not shot,” she responded. “Lucian grabbed me and pushed me into a side room until the screaming stopped. What’s going on here? I had no idea the French did drive-bys.” Her head moved to and fro as if she was trying to scan the room swiftly, like an eagle surveying the situation.

“And Misty?” Havilah yelled out over the shrieks and squeals, as they were jostled back by the crowd. She couldn’t believe she’d asked. She had wanted the woman stone cold dead on several occasions in the past but not on this one.

“I’m fine, Havilah. Thank you for asking. I followed Juanita and Lucian.”

Havilah turned to see Misty Gilligan nearly wobbling in her heels from the shock of it all. They were all commanded to stand back away from the body.

“They need to leave here now,” Simone was shouting, as he squeezed through the clutch of bodies to approach them.

“What kind of trouble are you in, Havilah?” Aunt Neet was staring at her, waiting for a response.

Havilah felt like they were simultaneously in a huddle but on a wave of bodies with all the jostling to exit. “It’s too complicated to explain now. But you have to come with me.”

“Where are you going?” Lucian asked impatiently over the din of voices.

Before she could respond, Simone piped up. “You are the fiancé?” Simone looked as if he was flipping through an ever-growing mental rolodex he’d kept on Professor Havilah Paige Gaie.

“Ex,” Havilah and Misty said at the same time.

Havilah noticed Lucian Patrick frowned at both women for clearly different reasons. And Havilah wasn’t so sure now she wouldn’t have minded a stray bullet entering and exiting Misty’s presumptuous backside. Misty Gilligan was out of her lane and into Havilah’s, going 100 miles an hour on the German Autobahn. You need to play your second-string position! That’s what she almost snarled aloud.

“Allez vite ,” the judge barked again, with an eyebrow raised at Misty. “Go quickly. This is a crime scene. You aren’t safe, professor.”

The small man pushed Havilah and her aunt towards Thierry’s extended hand and then shushed Lucian with an authority in his voice that made him seem taller than the 6-foot-2-inch American. “Where they are going is on a need to know basis. And you don’t have that right or the need to know as an ‘ex-fiancé’.”

“He’s right. We need to get out of here now,” Thierry interrupted the petty back and forth. “We can discuss the ‘where to’ in the car. As it stands, we don’t know who is involved here .”

Havilah looked from Thierry to Lucian. She decided she had to say a halfway proper goodbye to him after all he’d done to assist her today and Aunt Neet this evening. Moreover, she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again. That it would unnerve Misty was an added bonus.

“I promise I’ll call once things are settled.”

“Where are your cellphones?” Simone Hervé gingerly asked Juanita Gaie and Havilah.

When they showed them to him, he snatched up both phones. “We can’t have criminals tracking you via cellphone towers. They are that clever these days. So, she won’t be calling you once she’s settled either.” He looked at Lucian.

Havilah was mortified, and Aunt Neet looked like she was about to wail on him, but before she could Thierry told them once more they had to leave. He moved them through the crowd, waving Havilah and Aunt Neet through a series of doors until they reached an underground tunnel at the back of the domed chateau that led to a concealed car park.

“My purse and clothes. I left them with the driver,” she said, turning to Thierry.