Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (42 page)

All sound left the world: the wind stopped blowing in the olive trees, the waves froze against the sea wall, water quit pattering in the fountain. Then the noises rushed back at once and I was coming again and he was coming, and it was all starting over.

Later, we walked back to the villa, still flushed and breathless. Beppe and La Rochenoire were in the game room, watching Sky News on the widescreen TV. Arrapato leaped between them and tucked his nose under the Frenchman’s arm.

The television screen showed a picture of Nick Parnell. It was an old photograph—his hair was shorter, and he
had a mustache. The image changed to a stock photo of Heathrow Airport.

“Last night, a passenger discovered the body of Dr. Nicholas Parnell in the restroom of a lounge at Heathrow,” the announcer was saying. “Police have not ruled out a ritualistic murder at this time.”

“Ritualistic?” I said.

Light from the television played over Beppe’s glossy head. “The victim’s heart was removed,” he said.

Raphael looked stunned. “The news reported this?”

“No,” Beppe said. “It’s all over the Internet. A Guinea-Bissau drug lord ordered the hit.”

The hairs on my arms lifted, and I sat down hard on a love seat. Raphael strode toward me, his eyes rounded. I couldn’t shake the feeling that time had reversed, and he was moving away from me, walking backward across the lawn, his legs scissoring through the shadowy garden, moving back into the gazebo, stepping through a tear in the fabric of the night, into a realm without clocks. And I could not follow him, no matter how hard I tried.

VALBONNE, FRANCE

Sabine’s house was perched on a hill, next to a vineyard, and down in the valley, the lights of Valbonne were starting to shine. The sun had just gone down, but Vivi wasn’t ready to go inside. She sat in the grass, watching Marie-Therese chase a purple butterfly. Its wings were the exact color of the lavender clouds that wafted across the sky.

In just a few days it would be August, her last month in Provence. Then she would return to Sabine’s penthouse. She sighed, picturing the noisy, all-white rooms. But at least she’d get to see her mom.

“Come help me set the table, child,” Lena called from the pergola.

Vivi turned. Lena stood by the old wooden table, arranging dishes and flatware. She’d made escargot
risotto, fava beans, marinated olives, tiny radish sandwiches, and a salad with red and yellow cherry tomatoes.

“Be right there,” Vivi called. She got up, dusted grass off her shorts, and ran to the pergola. Marie-Therese raced ahead of her and leaped onto a wooden sideboard, watching Vivi grab a pile of napkins.

Lena set down a plate and glanced toward the stone house, where lamps were glowing in the windows. “I’ll whip Sabine’s ass if she lets her food get cold again.”

“I heard that,” Sabine said, walking into the pergola. She set down a basket that was crammed with small baguettes, then turned to the sideboard and scratched Marie-Therese’s ear. The cat began to purr.

Vivi placed a napkin beside each plate. She and Sabine had spent the whole morning in Grasse, strolling past the pale tangerine-colored houses and poking around the Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-Puy. They ended up in a crowded square where people were walking their dogs. Vivi sat on a bench, Inducing a group of middle-aged tourists to stay away from the pastry shop. Sabine had given her an A-plus.

“You have saved these people from ingesting too many calories,” Sabine had told her.

Now, Sabine pulled out a chair and sat down. “Tomorrow we’re going to the Fête du Jasmin.”

“What’s that?” Vivi asked.

“A festival.” Sabine winked at Lena. “You should come with us.”

“Only if you go to the fruit market,” Lena said. She sat down and shook out her napkin.

Marie-Therese leaped off the sideboard, ran under the
table, and began weaving around Vivi’s feet. Halfway through the meal, Sabine put down her fork and grimaced, as if she’d swallowed a bone.

“Drink you some water,” Lena said.

Sabine ignored her and stared down at the road. Vivi looked, too. Shadows fell over the empty road. Way off in the distance, the lights of Valbonne cast a glow.

Lena frowned. “What you looking at, Sabine? You expecting somebody?”

“No.” Sabine turned to Vivi. “Something just occurred to me. I haven’t taught you how to kill.”

Vivi spat out a tomato. “You’re supposed to teach me how to avoid that.”

“She better be.” Lena shook her finger at Sabine. “I can’t be having that kind of talk at my supper table. You hear?”

Sabine was still looking at Vivi. “Hemakinesis can be a defense. But you can also use it to cause exsanguination.”

Vivi screwed her up nose. “What’s that?”

“The victim bleeds to death.” Sabine spoke in an offhand tone, as if she were asking Vivi to pass the salt. “Do you remember the breathing exercises?”

“Yes,” Vivi said warily.

“When you want to kill, you hold your breath. But you also have to use your stomach muscles. You tighten them as hard as you can. You may feel the energy pass out of you, as if you’d exhaled. Remember to focus—look at the target, imagine his name, visualize what you want him to do.”

“I ain’t listening to this.” Lena put her hand over her mouth as if she had a sour stomach. She pushed away from the table and walked back to the house.

Vivi put down her fork. “Sabine? Are you okay?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. Because I’m not killing anybody. Even if I could, and I won’t, how will I practice?”

Sabine squinted at the road. “You never know when an opportunity will turn up.”

Vivi’s chest felt tight. If her mom knew about this, she’d freak out. “I don’t want to blow up someone’s chest.”

“Don’t be silly.” Sabine’s face tightened. “Chests can’t explode. If you aim at the ribcage, you’ll rupture the aorta—but even I can’t do that. At least, I don’t think I can. It’s much easier to cause a cerebral hemorrhage. Just focus on the target’s eyes or nose.”

“I can’t believe you’re teaching me how to murder people.”

“Self-defense is part of your training. What if someone attacks you?”

Vivi drew back.

Sabine’s face softened. “I’m speaking of hypotheticals, of course.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Because it’s creepy how you keep looking at the road. Like you’re afraid a vampire might drive up.”

“I’ve had a bad feeling all day.”

“Then why are we still here? When Mom gets paranoid, we pack our bags and move.”

“Flight is a perfectly acceptable reaction to fear. As long as it isn’t your only response. One day you might not be able to run. You will have to fight.”

“Fight who?”

“Anyone who wishes to harm you. Don’t let moral
turpitude get in the way of survival. Your opponent certainly won’t be concerned with ethics.”

Vivi’s mouth opened. She’d never heard Sabine talk this way. “Maybe I accidentally made a vessel burst in your head today. Because you’re acting like you’ve had a stroke.”

“I hope not.” Sabine darted another look at the road. Headlights cut two cones of light on the dark pavement. The car snaked around a curve, then sped past Sabine’s gated driveway and disappeared over a hill.

“Stop it,” Vivi said. “Cars come down this road all the time.”

“True.”

A twisty feeling moved in Vivi’s chest. “Should I pack my suitcase?”

“No. I don’t want you to worry.” Sabine reached under the table and lifted the cat. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. We won’t need to leave Valbonne for a while. We’ll be safe.”

But they weren’t.

VALBONNE, FRANCE

A nightmare awoke Sabine at two
A.M.
She sat on the side of the bed, her heart pounding, pajamas stuck to her back. It was the same horrid nightmare. The same confusing images. A shattered balcony door. Blood in a public restroom. More blood in a driveway. A blond woman standing outside a house.

But the house looked eerily like this one, Sabine thought. The Valbonne manse had a distinct look, with arched windows, periwinkle shutters, and vines running up the stone walls. The weathervane atop the pergola was adorned with a copper gargoyle. And the driveway curved down to a tall, scrolled iron gate.

Sabine rubbed her eyes. How did these violent images mesh with the peace in this household? She needed
to look for patterns, to think with a physician’s cool detachment.

Marie-Therese was curled up at the foot of the bed, so Sabine eased off the mattress and opened the balcony door. The night air smelled of lavender, cypress, and overripe plums. She stiffened as a car drove slowly past the house. The vehicle backed up, red taillights blinking, then pulled into the driveway. The head-beams shone against the iron security gate. Sabine’s pulse slammed in her ears, and she gripped the terrace railing.

GO AWAY.
She held her breath, then slowly released it.

The headlights retreated. The car backed into the road and drove in the opposite direction. The taillights glided down the road and dipped behind a hill.

The smell of plums vanished, too.

Think, Sabine.
She tapped her index finger against her lips. Should she wake Lena? Vivi was a seasoned traveler and would not ask questions. In an hour, the three of them could pack the car, drive to the Nice airport, and wait for the first available flight to Paris. No, the shattered door had felt like Paris, and the bloody restroom had felt like London. Where could they go? Some place she hadn’t dreamed about.

Vivi’s training had gone well, but the self-defense aspects couldn’t be completed in good conscience. Not with living beings. It was one thing to Induce portly tourists to eat a salad rather than palmiers or an apricot tart—Sabine had been right there with Vivi, monitoring her pulse and respiration, making sure the tourists were safe. It was another to make an innocent person have a nosebleed, or worse.

Teaching the theory of advanced hemakinesis was akin to reading about brain surgery in a textbook and then trying to drill through the skull of a breathing patient. Last night, she’d given Vivi a crash course, but she’d only frightened the child. And scared students seldom retained information.

The headlights returned, moving crookedly down the road. Was it the same car or a different one? A drunk driver, perhaps? She began to breathe slowly. Then she cast an imaginary net over the car and tried to pull in the thoughts of its occupants.

A black tangle spun up, raw and sexual. Sabine’s head jerked back. She counted four men and one woman. The woman was pleasuring the driver. The other men were aroused and impatient.

Sabine jerked the net away. She had no way of knowing if the people in the car were college students, tourists, or murderers. Most likely, they’d drunk too much wine and weren’t dangerous.

The car lights swerved to the right, straightened for a moment, then swung left. A screech of tires echoed, and the car stopped. The headlight beams glowed like a predator’s eyes. Finally the car did a U-turn and drove north, moving faster and faster, the taillights skimming over a hill. Then the road went dark and still as a painting.