The TGV, or Train à Grande Vitesse, lived up to its name: The trip from Paris to Avignon took only three hours, which, to a Californian like Cady, was stunning. She had traveled across much of France in less time than it would have taken her to drive from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada.
But the true shock was how easy it was to rent a car. All she needed was her California driver’s license and a credit card.
Why would a French car rental company allow an American, with no knowledge of the road signs or regulations, to take off in a shiny new Renault? At least the French drove on the same side of the road as the Americans; otherwise she’d have been toast. Once she got the knack of zooming through the roundabouts, however, she started to relax.
As she traversed France, first on the train and then by car, Cady took note of the changing landscape: Outside Paris, thick forests gave way to grassy fields, where cows and lambs grazed, which in turn yielded to softly rolling hills hosting acres of vineyards, and lavender fields backed by jagged cliffs. As she drew closer to the town of Saint-Véran, olive orchards, ancient sycamore trees, and twisty Italian cypresses lined the country highways.
Luckily Cady had written down the address and directions to the room she was renting in Saint-Véran, because the last few miles her cell phone worked only sporadically. “Another perk of country life,” she muttered to herself. “Bad cell reception.” But before going into the village, she wanted to drive past Château Clement, which she had located on a map before leaving Paris. She couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of the place that had started to take shape in her imagination.
It was only seven thirty, but as it was early April, the sun had set. There were no streetlamps, but the nearly full moon cast silvery light over the landscape. Tall trees and bushes were inky shapes against the deep purple sky.
Cady pulled off the road and parked along a stone wall where a set of lopsided metal gates hung slightly open. Straight ahead, beyond the gates, a long gravel drive lined with overgrown Italian cypress trees led to the château. The drive was pockmarked with ruts and dotted with patches of healthy-looking weeds. The entrance to Château Clement was not just run-down—it looked abandoned.
She climbed out of the car and stretched.
From what she could make out at this distance, Château Clement was a strange amalgam of styles. The main façade was flat and symmetrical, at least three stories, made of a pale stone. Chalky shutters flanked the many windows. A pair of symmetrical curved staircases led up to a main door on the second level. Massive chimneys and pipes of unknown utility rose high above the red-tiled roof.
Cady hesitated, then stepped inside the gates. Gravel crunched under the heels of her boots. The air was chill and damp, and the wind began to pick up, tugging at her hair. She hardly noticed.
There were no lights visible in the building. What if she just walked right up to the house and knocked on the door? Would that be okay, or too pushy? This was the sort of thing she wasn’t good at predicting.
To the right of the château was a pond, encircled with reeds andstudded with what looked like statuary and lily pads, just like in a storybook. Several outbuildings formed a large U around what might have been a courtyard. Thick stone walls to the other side of the house appeared to be cruder, perhaps remnants from a different century.
Maybe the château really had been abandoned. Fabrice Clement had been writing in the 1950s, which would make him pretty old by now. Perhaps advanced age or declining health had led him to give up his reclusive ways, and he was being cared for somewhere else.
Crash!
Cady jumped at the sound of glass breaking. She saw a wavering light, like the beam of a flashlight, over by the clutch of outbuildings. She thought she heard a man’s voice calling out.
“Allo?”she replied in a loud voice. “Is everything all right? Monsieur Clement?”
Spooked, she turned to leave.
But stopped. What if the old man had gone outside to gather firewood or something and tripped in the dark? What if he were lying prone, injured? She couldn’t shake the memory of Maxine collapsing in front of her. She hadn’t been able to help Maxine, but if Fabrice Clement was a frail, elderly man...
Finally, she opened the gates, jumped back into her car, and drove down the driveway, stopping near the outbuildings, where she thought the sound had originated.
“Allo?”she called out again, standing next to the open car door in case she needed to make a quick getaway. “Is everything all right?”
Silence. Slowly, Cady walked toward the closest building. It was an old stone structure, with grimy multipaned windows on the door. She tried to peek inside, but the interior was pitch-black. But... for a moment she thought she heard music, and in her mind’s eye she saw a carousel turning majestically, with a woman dressed in white perched atop an ornate, whimsically carved horse.
She heard a footstep behind her and without thinking whirled around, crouched, and held her fists up, ready to punch or kicksomeone, as she had been trained to do in the self-defense class she had taken with Olivia.
“Cady?C’est toi?”
“Jean-Paul!You scared me!” Cady said, straightening.
“You didn’t hear my car pull up?” Jean-Paul Mirassou asked.
“I guess I was a little focused. I thought I saw... Never mind. What in the world are you doing here?”
“I told you I was coming to see my family in Saint-Véran.”
“You said you were coming next week.”
“My cousin hurt his ankle, so I moved my trip up.”
“But you said you weren’t welcome at the château.”
