Читать книгу The American Girl: A disturbing and twisty psychological thriller - - Страница 23

JULY 31, 2015

I sipped my Jack Daniel’s, my reflection vanishing by degrees as I eked out the last drops. I needed every last drop after my phone call to Quinn’s father, the great Professor Perkins. I’d called him to head off someone else telling him that there was an aunt type hanging around his daughter. To cover my ass, I’d pretended to be one Mademoiselle le Mesurier, the local contact for Quinn’s study abroad program, crossing my fingers that no one from the program had been in touch with him already.

“Bonjour, Professor Perkins,” I began in my best impression of a French accent. I explained my “role” and expressed my condolences for what had happened as well as my assurance that we were providing all the support we could.

“While I thank you for your call, I must inquire as to what it pertains?” he asked, his voice charmingly polite and yet so unconcerned it sent a chill through me.

Surely he must be devastated about all this, I thought; even if Quinn wasn’t a daddy’s girl, she was his daughter.

“And what day do you plan to come for Quinn, monsieur? I ask because, of course, we shall send someone to ze aéroport.”

Huffy silence on the other end of the line. Then—

“Well, of course … ahem … I’m grateful for the offer. So helpful of you. I just don’t know when I can be there, because, you see, my wife is very pregnant, so not until after the baby’s born at the least and even then …”

I put him out of his misery by thanking him for his time and expressing my hope that he would contact the program if he needed anything. I even gave him Mademoiselle le Mesurier’s real phone number, because by now I was sure he wouldn’t bother. I’d been worried about Leo flying to his daughter’s side and blowing my cover in the process, but I needn’t have been. He was a cold fish, that much was clear—one that wouldn’t swim over here anytime soon. But instead of being relieved, I just felt sad for Quinn, so lonely in her hospital bed. I wished I could go back to the hospital to sit with her.

I comforted myself with the company of Mr. Daniel’s and the contents of Quinn’s blog. There I read about the ups and downs you might expect on a teenager’s first stay far from home: tension with her host; a rocky relationship with her French exchange; unwelcome advances from the local lothario, a kid named Freddie. And then there was something darker: threatening messages from an anonymous stranger, apparently including footage of someone being suffocated.

I’d taken a look at her Snapchat app and found zip, just as she said. The messages erased themselves, hence the appeal to teens. Reading further on in the blog, it was clear she’d had her own suspicions about whoever might be stalking her. These seemed to circle around Freddie, beginning on a day at the pool. As I looked through the comments section, her online friends seemed to agree:

Update: Just looked at my blog and saw that all you guys came to the rescue on the stalking front!

loserguy38: That guy Freddie has got to be the stalker. Sounds like a loser. Avoid.

gothgurl: Maybe he did send you that snuff text, Q, then try to snuff you, too, but fight back: refuse to be scared.

malady_g: Just checked this, the law can’t help with stalkers. Unless he threatens you explicitly, police can’t do jack. Sorry, Q

dr_kennedy: Noémie’s brother sounds supercute. Pics please!

Qriosity_cat: Thank you, wonderful people . I’ll do my best.

Qriosity_cat was Quinn apparently. Her reply to the comments made me sad. She’d put so much trust in these virtual acquaintances and not one of them had thought to call the police or do much of anything when she vanished.

Her story—what I’d read of it so far—gave me an uneasy sense that there was an awful lot going on under the surface of life in the Blavette household, and none of it had made it into the papers. Reading the description of the girl being smothered in the video, I remembered what Marlene had told me about why the school shut down. The poor girl suffocated. They said it was some sort of game that went wrong. It was too much of a coincidence. I had to go talk to Marlene again, and find this Freddie, too.

The chair next to me screeched. “How’s the aunt?” Aurelia Perla asked sweetly as she sat down and handed me her business card. Up close, I could see that she was very pretty in a put-together sort of way, her beige suit crisply dry-cleaned, the outline of her lipstick so neatly applied it looked machine-tooled.

“Holding up.” I smiled awkwardly.

I looked around the bar for a companion, but saw only the same journalists as when I came in, slouching on tables in groups of fours, smoking e-cigarettes and blending into the surroundings like oil blends into water. One table held a couple of hacks and a photographer. Judging from the amount of gear the cameraman was carrying, he was one of those mercenary mutant paparazzi that feed off of stories like this. I wondered if I’d missed a press release or something, if new details were about to emerge. Else why would the meat flies be swarming around me? It freaked me out.

“Excuse me.” Pushing my chair back, I started to get up.

“How are you coping?” Aurelia asked, the American word coping sounding labored in her accent. “It must be so hard.”

“Do you want something?” I asked, trying to sound naive and bewildered.

“It must be a very hard time waiting for your niece to be well again, not knowing …” She frowned sadly. “But the sisters say she has every chance of being well. If she … when she wakes, what will be your first words to her?” She smiled expectantly.

I sat half on, half off the chair. I couldn’t believe I was so slow to see what was going on—she had an audio recorder hidden on her somewhere and she was baiting me for a quote. Once I knew that, looking sideways at her was like looking at some weird, ghoulish, really well-dressed reflection of myself. This is what I did, sneaking up on people, asking sympathetic questions designed to pry revelations from them. Being on the other side of the questions made me realize how icky it felt to be soft-soaped. Jeez, I thought, I hope I’m more convincing than this woman.

“Look …” I began in a firmer voice.

“Stop that!” A man stepped between us. He was beautifully dressed, in a dark suit and fedora. Inspector Valentin. He glared at our reflections in the mirror. “Get out.”

“Sorry,” I said, stumbling up. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be rumbled. And here it was, flung from the hotel, never to be allowed back in the hospital.

“No, not you, Mademoiselle Perkins,” said Valentin. He turned to the journalist, glowering, and said something angry in French.

She retorted just as angrily, her glossy red lips spread in a defiant grin. Valentin took out a piece of paper and flashed it at her. Whatever it said made Aurelia get up and move at speed from the bar. She hurried back to the table where the other hacks slumped with their beers, almost breaking a kitten heel. When she was out of earshot, Valentin climbed into the chair she’d vacated.

He took off his hat and laid it on the bar. “I am sorry about that.” He smiled apologetically.

“Don’t worry, I’m getting used to it,” I said, gulping down the last few drops of whiskey, suspicious that he had changed his tune so much since we met in the café.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Journalists in the case are behaving reprehensibly—sneaking into the hospital, telling lies to the nuns to get information, and worse, sneaking in here to bother the girl’s relatives. I have told this woman she will face jail time if she pushes this further. Terrible, n’est-ce pas?”

“The worst,” I said, gulping. There was something about him that made me nervous. I didn’t know if it was my justified fear that he was onto me, or his annoying gallantry.

As if to underscore that point, he summoned the barman and ordered two more whiskeys.

“Is one of those for me?” I asked.

“It’s the least I can do,” he said, patting my arm.

Back to that again. I just wanted to go up to my room and take a shower and dream up my next move on the case, but I remembered Bill saying I should press my advantage wherever I could. When the Jack Daniel’s came, I chinked my glass on his.

“To … this place,” I said, for want of a better toast.

He stopped midchink. “The Napoléon? St. Roch? Be more specific.”

“To St. Roch, your beautiful town.”

He rolled his eyes and downed the whiskey in one. “Mon Dieu. If you only knew the reality. This town is nothing but trouble.”