Читать книгу In Their Footsteps / Stolen: In Their Footsteps / Stolen - Тесс Герритсен, Tess Gerritsen - Страница 9

AT 8:45, AS WAS HER HABIT, Marie St. Pierre patted on her bee pollen face cream, ran a brush through her stiff gray hair, and then slipped under the covers of her bed. She flicked on the TV remote control and awaited her favorite program of the week—“Dynasty.” Though the voices were obviously dubbed and the settings garishly American, the stories were close to her heart. Love and power. Pain and retribution. Yes, Marie knew all about love and pain. It was the retribution part she hadn’t quite mastered. Every time the anger bubbled up inside her and those old fantasies of revenge began to play out in her mind, she had only to consider the consequences of such action, and all thoughts of vengeance died. No, she loved Philippe too much. And they had come so far together! From finance minister to prime minister would be such a short, short climb…

She suddenly focused on the TV as a brief news item flashed on the screen—the London economic summit. Would Philippe’s face appear? No, just a pan of the conference table, a five-second view of two dozen men in suits and ties. No Philippe. She sat back in disappointment and wondered, for the hundredth time, if she should have accompanied her husband to London. She hated to fly, and he’d warned her the trip would be tiresome. Better to stay home, he’d told her; she would hate London.

Still, it might have been nice to go away with him for a few days. Just the two of them in a hotel room. A change of scenery, a new bed. It might have been the spark their marriage so terribly needed—

A thought suddenly crossed her mind. A thought so painful that it twisted her heart in knots. Here I am. And there is Philippe, alone in London…

Or was he alone?

She sat trembling for a moment, considering the possibilities. The images. At last she could resist the impulse no longer. She reached for the telephone and dialed Nina Sutherland’s Paris apartment.

The phone rang and rang. She hung up and dialed again. Still it rang unanswered. She stared at the receiver. So Nina has gone to London, too, she thought. And there they would be together, in his hotel room. While I wait at home in Paris.

She rose from the bed. “Dynasty” had just come on the TV; she ignored it. Instead she got dressed. Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, she thought. Perhaps Nina is really home and refuses to answer her telephone.

She would drive past Nina’s apartment in Neuilly. Check the windows to see if her lights were on inside.

And if they were not?

No, she wouldn’t think about that, not yet.

Fully dressed now, she hurried downstairs, picked up her purse and keys in the darkened living room, and opened the front door. Just as she felt the night air against her face, her ears were blasted by a deafening roar.

The explosion threw her off her feet, flinging her forward down the front steps. Only her outstretched arms beneath her prevented her head from slamming against the concrete. She was vaguely aware of glass raining down around her and then of the soft crackle of flames. Slowly she managed to roll over onto her back. There she lay, staring upward at the fingers of fire shooting through her bedroom window.

It was meant for her, she thought. The bomb was meant for her.

As fire sirens wailed closer, she lay on her back in the broken glass and thought, Is this what it’s come to, my love?

And she watched her bedroom burn above her.