Page 29 of Dagger’s Shield

I stepped away from Bertrand and put my arm around her. “Are you okay, mon feu?” I asked quietly enough that only she could hear me.

“There are times when I want to kill him,” she mumbled under her breath.

While I wouldn’t go as far as murder, I could envision myself punching him for disparaging his daughter. I’d enjoy every minute of taking him down on her behalf.

Except, for now, keeping Bertrand happy was part of our job. That he was also the man in the photographs with Géraud made it easy to smile at him without any warmth behind it.

As we were headed inside for lunch, Marthe passed us in the courtyard, looked once at our joined hands, and muttered something in French that made Maëlle bite back a laugh.

“What did she say?”

“That you’re too big for the house and I should have chosen a smaller one.”

“Tell her I’ll duck.”

“So, Rourke,” Rémy asked during the meal, “how did the two of you meet?”

I told him the version Maëlle and I had crafted, about a client I couldn’t name, a detail I couldn’t describe, and a week in a city I wasn’t at liberty to mention.

Rémy waved his fork at me. “The fertilizer invoices are more interesting. Try again.”

I gave him the story he asked for.

“Maëlle’s client booked a week at a villa in Provence. I had the security set up before the party arrived—gates, staff, the drive. On day three, I retrurned to my room, which was locked, and found a bottle of Meursault on my pillow with a card.”

“A card?” Rémy asked.

“It said, ‘Your east gate closes but does not lock. Cordially, the concierge.’”

Rémy laughed and turned to Maëlle. “You broke into his room?”

“The gardener did,” she said. “I do not climb walls in linen.”

“I rehung the gate,” I said, “and told myself that was the end of it.”

“It was not the end of it,” Maëlle said. “The next morning, he canceled the hot-air balloon ride I’d scheduled.”

“Only because it was the kind of thing that would announce to the entire valley exactly where my client was.”

“It was sunrise over the vineyards, and it was beautiful. I alerted the client⁠—”

“In writing.”

“They agreed with me, because I’m always right.” She smirked. “He spent the entire flight in the chase car, watching us float.”

“With binoculars,” I added. “Somebody had to take the job seriously.”

Rémy laughed hard enough that it made him cough, which in turn made Marthe come out to see if he was all right. Even Bertrand chuckled into his glass. Across the table, Chantal had her hand pressed over her heart.

Of course, none of it was true. I’d invented it on the fly, and Maëlle had added to it like we’d rehearsed it for weeks. She sold the story with her chin up, like a woman airing a grievance she’d waited years to get off her chest.

Bertrand listened but without much of a reaction apart from laughing occasionally. If he knew what his daughter did for a living, then he’d known the story was a lie from the first word. So either he believed us, or he was a better actor than I’d given him credit for.

There was a harder question, and I hadn’t let myself think about it too much. If he was Géraud’s man, had he known what was coming in Lausanne? Had he known his daughter would be inside the building? It was the ugliest thought I’d had in years.

When we finished eating, I made an excuse that I had to check in with my team and went up to Maëlle’s bedroom. Part of me hoped she’d follow. The other part was relieved when she didn’t.

The truth was, I was struggling with how to feel about what had happened last night. I’d crossed a line. No, we’d crossed a line, and I had no idea what would happen next. Or what Maëlle thought would.