“We will see,” he replied. “We will see.”
Albert Marchand might be eighty-five years old, but he was a sharp, cunning old fox. But almost two hours later and several moves, and she had almost had him.
She concentrated on the board. The move was clear, but she hesitated, then moved a different piece. He made his move and easily took her bishop. He eyed her across the board, taking a pull on his pipe.
“Your brother is a good teacher.”
She pushed back from the table.
“Yes, he was.”
She stretched against sitting the past two hours as she went into the kitchen and joined Valentine, who leaned against the edge of the porcelain sink.
“I saw that last move,” Valentine commented. “You let him win.”
Kris shrugged. “It's only a game.”
“Not to him. He plays to win. There are times I think he considers me the enemy when we play. He does not like to lose.”
Kris glanced back into the main room, at the old man with thinning white hair who sat hunched over the chess board, studying it as if he would find something there, a ring of tobacco smoke circling his head.
What did she see? An old man, time etched in the lines on his face, with a trace of the boy peeking out at her every once in a while, suddenly looked up, that expression in his eyes.
Did he guess that she'd thrown the match?
“What is this?” Valentine said, staring out the kitchen window.
Kris glanced over her shoulder, down the dirt track that led through the main orchard to the roadway.
A white service van had pulled onto the dirt track. It stopped, then slowly backed out. Ju-Ju shot across the yard toward the end of the track, barking furiously.
Valentine shrugged and turned away from the window. “It is probably turning around after discovering they are lost. Tourists, the weather,” she shrugged again. “They probably missed the turn-off to the village.”
Kris only had a glimpse before the van backed out, but it triggered a memory of the van that had plunged across the patio of the Blue Oyster in London, scattering tables, chairs, and bodies...the same white van, the same crumpled right front fender!
The roadway was icy, the rental car breaking loose as he took the turn too fast, eased off, turned into the slide then brought it back, and pressed the pedal down again.
His fist tightened over the steering wheel. Over two hours! But he had what he needed.
Faridani was gone, cleared out of Paris sometime over the past two days, right after the explosion, right after he and Kris had left the city. But where?
That was the question; a question that had several possible answers, or only one answer, an answer he didn't want.
He eased off the pedal as he approached the familiar roadway sign that advertised fresh apples in season. He slowed the rental car, then stopped just short of the dirt track. Tire tracks carved through snow that had fallen overnight, over the ones he had made earlier when he left the farmhouse. He got out andexamined the tracks. The newer ones were wide and deeper, made by a vehicle heavier than the rental car, and cut down the length of the track toward the farmhouse.
At that distance everything looked the same, like it was when he left earlier; smoke curling from the pipe on the roof, the ancient Volvo parked in the side yard. Except for those new tracks.
The muscles tightened at the back of his neck. The only weapon he had was his knife. He slipped the blade from the sheath on his belt. He left the car and slipped into the orchard beside that dirt track, then made his way to the farmhouse.
The deeper tire marks led all the way to the farmhouse, then stopped just behind Valentine's car. There was a light at the kitchen, but no sounds came from inside, no conversation, no Ju-Ju barking as he approached. Only silence, the sort of silence that made his gut tighten. As he approached the door to the kitchen, Ju-Ju shot around the corner of the farmhouse.
The dog went straight to the door and started pawing at it, barking frantically. James quieted him with a hand on his head, then tried the latch on the kitchen door. It swung open freely. Ju-Ju shot past him.
He followed slowly, cautiously, easing the door open farther, then stepping inside the kitchen. It was quiet, too quiet, except for Ju-Ju. The dog whimpered from the adjoining room, then a voice in French, weak, then heavily accented English.
He found Albert on the floor in front of the woodstove in the big room. James gently turned him over while Ju-Ju pawed at the old man's shoulder.
“Tout est bien, viell ami,” Albert whispered to the dog. “C'est bien, old friend,” he told Ju-Ju. He been struck alongside the head, the wound bleeding badly.
