The Paris Mysteries Read online

  We deplaned at the private airport in Teterboro, New Jersey. A sleek white limo was waiting for us on the tarmac, with a surprise inside.

  Our old family friend and attorney, the sophisticated, funny, and very smart Philippe Montaigne, was in the back. Even though Philippe was also Peter’s attorney, I trusted and loved him. We all did.

  We shouted his name, swarming over him, competing to be heard. And as the car raced toward Manhattan, he said, “If I may just get in a few words.”

  We all stopped talking, but there was a whole lot of giggling.

  “I have big news. Through your estate managers and with the authority vested in me, you three have purchased a four-bedroom apartment in the San Remo Apartments. As you know, it’s right on Central Park, and I’m pretty sure you’re going to like it.”

  Like it?

  The San Remo, like the Dakota, is an amazing building. The San Remo was built in 1930. It has turrets and dormers and towers, grande dame stature, and tight security. We were going to love it.

  A half hour later, when Philippe opened the front door to our new home, I was overwhelmed with happy memories. Our old UFO chandelier was hanging in the foyer, and I hoped it was connected to the doorbell, as it had been in the past.

  I could see through the foyer to the living room. Our red leather sofa was there, as were the Pork Chair and Robert, a life-sized sculpture of a man watching TV and drinking a beer. Robert had been with us forever. He was like an old friend.

  Hugo asked, “Our stuff was sold, Phil. How did you get it back?”

  “Well, you little ruffians are back in the money,” he said. “I tracked down the purchaser, overpaid, and voilà.”

  “Robert! Yo,” said Hugo. “Voi-freaking-là.”

  Hugo trotted off in search of his new room, and Harry sat down at his white-winged piano, which we called Pegasus, and played his brilliant “Montmartre” for Philippe.

  Jacob made a list and then ordered in from our favorite restaurant, Shun Lee West. I called C.P. several times, and each time, my call went to voice mail.

  “C.P., it’s me! We’re home. All of us. Please call me. Or better yet, come over.”

  I gave her the address, and when the UFO chandelier tootled out the theme song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I was sure C.P. had arrived. But Matty came through the door.

  Oh my God. It was so great to see him.

  Our big brother looked fantastic—in fact, better than ever. He hugged and kissed all of us, even Philippe, who wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said to our mountainous big brother, “Please, don’t ever do that again.”

  We all cracked up.

  I had a few sober minutes with Matty before Hugo inserted himself with football questions. Hugo continued to glue himself to his hero as we partied on exotic Chinese dishes. Then, as the festivities continued, Jacob and I carried plates into the kitchen.

  “Tandy, at my request, Philippe has hired an investigator. I’ve used this firm before.”

  “An investigator? What for?”

  “His name is Kenny Chang, and he is the best in the city. He’s coming here in the morning with a report for us on a ‘person of interest.’ I gave him the assignment a week ago.”

  And that was all Jacob would say. I prayed it wasn’t about Katherine. Her secret had to stay safely hidden.

  When I went to my bedroom, I saw that the view was a lot like the one from my old room in the Dakota. I stood by myself and watched the sun slide down behind the tall trees of Central Park’s Ramble.

  We were home. And, of course, I had questions.

  First one: Who was this “person of interest”? And what was the private detective going to tell us?

  I was dressed in new clothes and ready to meet the private investigator at nine the next morning. I fretted. I hurried slowpokes along. And when the UFO chandelier rang out, I went to the door.

  Mr. Chang was about six feet tall and had slicked-back hair. He was dressed in a good gray suit, wore pricey shoes, and had a strong handshake. Along with all that cool appearance, he had a surprisingly warm smile.

  I offered coffee, which he turned down, and a few minutes later, Hugo, Harry, Uncle Jacob, Mr. Chang, and I were assembled in the living room.

  Mr. Chang wasn’t carrying a briefcase, and he had no notes. That was because his report was brief.

  He said, “Our assignment was to locate Mr. James Rampling. We found him not far from here, enrolled and living on the campus of the Jefferson School in Clayton, New York.”

  I gasped, and my jaw dropped open. I was entirely shocked. There were so many layers to this statement, I couldn’t grasp it at first. James was here? Not in a mysterious school in Europe, but here in New York?

  Does he still love me?

  “I want to see him,” I said.

  Jacob said, “You only wanted to know what happened to him, Tandy. And now you know.”

  “Okay, and now that I know, I want to see him.”

  Mr. Chang was saying, “I have a man downstairs. If you want, he can drive you to Mr. Rampling’s address.”

  I turned to Jacob, who said, “Let’s just keep some surveillance on him. That would be wise, Tandy.”

  I nodded. It would be wise. If James wanted to find me, there were ways. Jacob was right, but when had the wise thing ever won out over the reckless pursuit of the one you love?

  And I did still love James. I hadn’t stopped.

  My brothers were asking to come along for the drive, but I wasn’t having it.

  “I’m going,” I said, “alone. Clayton is an hour away. I’ll keep my phone on and I’ll be back by lunchtime.”

  I got my phone and my keys and then said to Mr. Chang, “I’m ready to go.”

  Against Jacob’s wishes but with his permission, the driver from Private drove us north in a slick blue Lincoln Town Car. Anton was a man of about thirty, crisply turned out, almost military style. He asked me only two questions: Did I want music and did I have a preferred route?

  “No music, thank you, and the fastest route there is.”

  I turned my face to the window and watched as we took the Henry Hudson, glided past the George Washington Bridge, crossed the Harlem River into Riverdale, and headed for the Saw Mill River Parkway.

  I thought about James, and so many questions resurfaced. Why hadn’t James talked to me about his decision to leave me? Was his father so powerful that we didn’t even stand a chance against him?

  And most important, what would James’s reaction be when he saw me? Anger or love?

  I wanted to be with him so much my heart hurt.

  I was staring out the window, picturing my run toward James, seeing him grab me up and kiss me as he’d done only weeks ago when I met him on the Place du Carrousel after our long separation.

  I was so deeply inside my head that it took me a while to realize that a black Escalade in the left lane had dropped behind us. And actually, it had been in and out of my field of vision since we’d left Central Park West.

  “Anton, have you noticed that Caddy? Now it’s two or three cars back.”

  “Yes, miss. He’s been on us since we started out. I don’t expect any trouble. Also, so that you know, I’m armed.”

  Whoa. But I wasn’t reassured. In fact, I was now on high alert. I turned my head to watch the Escalade through the rear window. After about a mile, it drifted away and got off the highway at the Hawthorne exit.

  I checked around for other cars that might be drafting along behind us, perhaps picking up where the Escalade had left off. I also watched for fuel trucks and anything else that looked dead wrong on the Saw Mill.

  I saw nothing suspicious, and then we turned off the parkway. We must be getting close.

  The countryside was wooded, high-end exurban, with graceful hills and long stretches of cropped green lawns. As we approached the school, I saw a soccer field and a steepled white chapel directly ahead, and signs listing the names of some of the Jefferson School’s buildings
: THEATER, ARTS, MATH AND SCIENCE, LIBRARY.

  As we cruised through an intersection, I saw a black Cadillac Escalade parked in front of the library. Paranoia hit me hard. Was that the same car that had been trailing us from the city?

  Were we really being followed?

  But no. The Caddy remained in place when we passed it.

  Anton turned right off the school’s main road onto a small unpaved lane flanked with grassy playing fields. A sign read BOYS’ RESIDENCES, and then I saw two large white buildings that looked like dormitories. Just past the dorms were a dozen small white clapboard houses.

  Anton said, “Ms. Angel, the third house on the right is James Rampling’s address.”

  My pulse pounded in my ears.

  I pulled my makeup kit out of my bag, and as the Town Car slowed, I slicked on lip gloss and fluffed my newly extremely short, curly hair. It looked good. Once you got used to it.

  Anton braked, got out of the car, and opened the door for me. He asked, “Do you want me to come in with you, Ms. Angel?”

  “No, thanks, Anton. I’ve got this.”

  He gave me his card with his phone number, telling me he’d have to move the car but he’d be close by. “Call me when you’re ready to go.”

  I hardly heard him. I touched Katherine’s diamond lying against my chest.

  But all my attention was on the small house where James Rampling lived.

  As I struck out for the porch of the white house, the front door opened and a blond boy about my age bounded out.

  I stopped him, saying, “Hi, I’m looking for James.”

  “Rampling? His room’s on the second floor.”

  The boy loped off, and I went through the door. The sitting and dining rooms to the right and left of the staircase were unoccupied, so of course, I took the stairs.

  There were two open bedroom doors on the second floor and one closed door with a hand-lettered sign reading RAMPLING at eye level. I put my ear to the door. It was dead quiet inside, and I prepared myself for a letdown. What if I’d made the trip for nothing?

  Come on, Tandy. Do it now.

  I took a shaky breath—and knocked.

  I heard soft footsteps and then the door swung open. A girl stood there. She was slim, wearing black lace panties and bra, but that wasn’t the biggest shock. When I looked at her face, I almost had a heart attack.

  I swear, my heart locked up and my brain froze.

  With enormous, superhuman effort, I managed to say, “C.P.?”

  She said, “Tandy?”

  We both said, “What are you doing here?”

  But my voice was louder, more shocked, more outraged.

  My best friend was in scanties in James’s room. There was only one way to interpret that.

  “I’m back,” I said. “I came to see James.”

  “You should probably leave before this gets awkward,” said Claudia Portman, my former best friend. “You shouldn’t just drop in on people, you know.”

  “Screw you,” I spat at her. “What the hell are you doing with James?”

  “Geez, Tandy. I’ve got to spell this out for you? I was writing to him, you know, as a friend, and we fell in love. Sorry.”

  She didn’t look sorry. She looked triumphant. She looked like someone who had robbed a bank and gotten away clean. She looked like a fanged, first-class, made-for-daytime-TV bitch.

  “Fuck you, C.P.”

  “Well, fuck you, too, Tandy.”

  I have to admit it. Fury burned through me like a flash fire, and I lost control over myself. I pulled back my hand and slapped C.P. hard across the face. Her skin went pink around my fingerprints. She reeled and cried out, “James! She hit me.”

  She turned her head, and looking past her, I saw a body in the bed, sheets draped over his midsection.

  The body moved, sat up.

  My heart unlocked and started galloping in place. It was more like a giant jackrabbit thumping against my rib cage, desperately trying to get out. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, or if I was going to be able to handle it.

  “Hi, Tandy,” James said, lazily getting out of bed and pulling a pair of jeans on over his naked hips. When he got to the doorway, he looked at me, flicking his eyes over my hair, back to my fire-reddened skin.

  He said, “Whoa. What happened to you?”

  “Tell her, James,” said C.P. “Tell her she’s not welcome here.”

  James stepped between us, before I had a chance to smack C.P. again.

  James stood between C.P. and me, using his outstretched arms to keep us apart.

  He looked like the boy I loved entirely. And at the same time, he was so unbelievably detached I didn’t recognize him at all. He was the perfect stranger: handsome, cool, unknowable.

  And this did not compute. It was like finding a sign on your closet door reading FOURTH DIMENSION. ENTER HERE.

  “You okay, C.P.?” he asked.

  Was C.P. okay? I was the one who’d been betrayed. I was the one who’d been wronged. And so I just lost it—again.

  “You owe me an explanation, James. Because I don’t get any of this, at all.”

  He grunted, “Hunh.” Then said, “What do you want, Tandy? Romance or the truth?”

  That stung. Much worse than a slap across the face.

  James clearly meant that romance and the truth were at opposite poles. That our relationship was a pretty story but a lie. And that the truth was going to crush me.

  C.P. smirked, then stepped away from the doorway. She was out of my direct view, but I saw her put on James’s shirt. Like she owned him.

  I shouted at James, “What do you know about the truth? You lied to me from the start. You came to Paris to see me. Why did you tell me you loved me? Why would you do that? Why did you lead me on?”

  James looked uncomfortable, maybe even flustered.

  He said, “You might be crediting me with more forethought than I have, Tandy. I was glad to see you. I was with you when I was with you. And I do care about you. That’s all true.

  “You don’t know how powerful my father is. He said he’d hurt you and the rest of your family. I believe what my father says. You should, too. And by the way, your uncle Peter is a hundred times worse than my father.”

  I listened intently, but nothing James said connected with the feelings I’d thought we had shared. What he seemed to be telling me was that he was done. That I was dispensable. Disposable.

  That I was history.

  That should have been enough answer for me, but I had to ask the most wrenching question of all.

  “How could you hook up with C.P.? She was my best friend.”

  James turned to watch C.P. put on a pair of jeans, then turned back and said softly, “What we had was good, Tandy. Right? So why does it have to be more than that?”

  C.P. came out of the shadows and stood behind James. She looped an arm around his waist, pressed her cheek to his shoulder. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  I spat, “C.P., you’re dead to me. James, obviously, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Then James said the strangest, nastiest thing of all. “Try to understand, Tandy. I have to live at a certain level. My father was going to cut me off and disinherit me if I didn’t stop seeing you.”

  I understood. He chose money over me. What could possibly be colder or clearer than that?

  I turned away from them and walked down the stairs with some of my dignity intact. No tears. No tears at all. At least those two didn’t see me cry. My parents’ training had finally come in handy.

  I strong-armed the front door and marched down the steps to the narrow little road. And although I didn’t turn around, I was pretty sure James and C.P. were watching me through the upstairs dormer window.

  But the car wasn’t there.

  About then, I remembered to phone Anton. It took a few minutes for the Lincoln to round the corner, but then it was coming for me like a great blue chariot sent by the forces of good.

>   Anton opened the door and I got in.

  “Please take me home, Anton,” I said.

  “You bet, Ms. Angel.”

  I looked at my phone. I’d been inside that house for a total of twelve soul-searing minutes. But as horrific as those minutes had been, it was a cure for that lying, cheating snake, James Rampling.

  Who, by the way, was nothing to me.

  My mind was resolved, but my heart was shredded.

  I put my hands over my face and wept, and I didn’t even care that Anton could hear me. I pretended the car was driving itself and wrapped myself in my shattered illusions.

  How had I been so blinded by James? How had C.P. been able to betray me with no remorse at all? How could I ever trust anyone again, ever?

  The parkway wound through a wide cut in a woodland. As the leafy miles breezed by, I dried my eyes and gathered my strength. I began to analyze both the facts and the holes in the story in the hope that I would arrive at some giant breakthrough.

  To start with, Royal Rampling and Peter Angel were our sworn enemies.

  Rampling’s motive was revenge. He’d lost a fifty-million-dollar fortune by investing in Angel Pharma before it went bankrupt. He was vindictive and had proven that he’d do whatever it took to keep me away from his son. He had hurt me. But he hadn’t murdered anyone.

  James was right when he said Peter was more evil than his father. Peter’s motive was financial, and he had no conscience. He had hurt people for sure, been responsible for the deaths of children, and he was desperate to eliminate the remains of his experiments, good, bad, and ugly.

  Katherine had said not to be surprised if a bad phoenix arose from the ashes of Angel Pharma, and I wondered if Peter and Royal Rampling could be in a partnership to bring the company back. Reinvent it. Recover the lost millions.

  And then I had my big idea.

  Every time an Angel sneezed, the press assembled.

  What if we gave the press the whole story? That children had been dosed with untested pills to give them superpowers. But wait—there’s more. Many subjects aged fast and died young. Yes. The pills were often lethal. I could see the media going crazy over this irresistible tale of greed, cruelty, and murder.