Finally, Gen spoke up, “Yes, yes, they’re all weaselheaded fucknuggets, but how are we going to find Maxence?”
The shock of that very British profanity, uttered by the starched and Honorable Lady Severn who was currently with child, startled Casimir, and he cracked up.
Roxanne joined him in laughing, and they got a good belly-laugh in before they needed to hash out what the hell they were going to do about Max.
“First of all,” Arthur said, settling his teacup of steaming Earl Grey on the dining table, “it’s obvious that he has not been captured by either his brother Pierre or Simone’s husband, Estebe Fournier.”
“What?” Casimir asked him. “How can you know that?”
“Those two surveillance teams are still following us because they believe we will lead them to Maxence. If he had been kidnapped, at least one of them would have dropped out. Their own investigations must not be going well.”
“Dammit, Arthur! We have people following us? Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Casimir demanded.
Arthur shrugged. “Didn’t seem relevant.”
“It’s alwaysrelevantif spies are following us around!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call them spies,” Arthur said. “Their tradecraft is abominable. I’m embarrassed for them.”
Casimir lifted his hands and let them fall. “People were following us. They might have killed us or something!”
Arthur’s shoulders bobbed as he suppressed a chuckle. “I wasn’t worried about it. I was rather worried that they’d end up killing each other by accident and we’d get blamed for eight murders.”
“Eight!”Roxanne yelled at him. “We hadeightpeople following us, and you didn’t frickin’mentionit?”
Gen sipped her preggo tea and set down her cup. “If Arthur says there was no reason to worry, there wasn’t.”
“Geez, Gen!” Roxanne bellowed, ready to continue the battle, but Casimir put his hand over hers to calm her down. He had a bad feeling Rox had plans to corner him at the next available opportunity and demand answers about Arthur’s odd skillset. Concealing information from her just pissed her off, even when it was for her own good.
Gen continued, “And since they are still following us, it also stands to reason that Maxence, and assumedly Simone Maina, are not in Monaco.”
“But those guys are followingus,”Casimir said.
Gen flipped her fingers dismissively. “Monaco is a throw rug of a country. Besides the fact that Pierre could have dispatched goons to check every cupboard and beat every shrubbery for him, Maxence wouldn’t be hiding in a cubby or behind a bush. The Monte Carlo casino is literally right outside our window and past the fountain, and three more casinos are within a mile of us. If Maxence were here, he would be dressed in something debonair and drinking scotch while he flirts with every woman in the house, especially the married ones. He can’t help himself.”
Arthur checked his watch. “It is nearly eleven in the morning. Were he in a casino or a bar, he would be comfortably numb by now. As Pierre surely has people in the casinos watching for a pile of women writhing atop a drunk, we must assume that he has fled Monaco for friendlier shores.”
Casimir said, “I find it hard to believe that Maxence would run off with Fournier’s wife. He’s not the home-wrecking type.”
Distaste as the thought of running off with a married woman soured in Casimir’s mouth. His parents had problems with infidelity to the point where the two of them grinned icily for cameras but had not spoken directly to each other in years. If they’d had a solid marriage, it’s possible that they wouldn’t have dumped him in boarding school at the age of six, though extenuating circumstances had contributed to that decision.
He must have gone quiet, because Roxanne took his hand and squeezed it. He smiled down at his wife.
Arthur nodded. “Simone didn’t seem like the type to stray when we were in school, either. She was serious. I thought she might become a doctor before she got married and seemed to give everything up. Also, as I was watching the surveillance video, Simone wasn’t skipping through the crowd to meet a long-lost friend. She sprinted across the room toward Maxence with desperation, trying to reach him before she was caught or stopped. It may have been genuine or feigned. I couldn’t tell.”
Roxanne settled back in her chair. “Maxence has always been happy to be anyone’s knight in shining armor.”
“Indeed,” Arthur said, picking up his cup to sip his tea again.
“Where’s she from again?” Roxanne asked, picking up her phone.
“Mauritius,” Casimir supplied, and then he asked, “Remember that gray field mouse that came into the dorms at Le Rosey? It took Maxence a month to tame it, and then he kept it as a pet. It was the only pet at school, and people wanted to hold it. We were so starved for anything warm and furry.”
Arthur nodded, doubtlessly thinking of his dog, Ruckus, at home, a gift from Maxence.
Casimir remembered, “It got fat on the cafeteria scraps and lived in that shoebox, and it came when he called it.”
“She,” Arthur said, smiling. “Her name was Violet.”
