Kiss Kill Vanish (14 page)

I stare at my phone. Emilio is waiting.

The last time I called him a murderer he spun it around so he was the wounded one, a victim trapped in a drug king's world, and I'd been the monster daring to judge him for protecting his family.

A mess of possibilities tangle themselves together, but none of them make sense. I squeeze a handful of damp hair in my fist, and water dribbles down my forearm. It's time to pick my king.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

T
he
Montreal Gazette
is not kind to Lucien.

I read about the suicide of the heir to the LeBlanc soap fortune in Monday's paper while sipping scalding black tea. A mangled pastry sits on a prim white plate, pushed to the far edge of the table.

Buying the pastry was stupid and rash, considering I'm back to being a jobless, destitute runaway, but it was practically sighing at me from behind the patisserie window, all flaky and delicate and wistful. It seemed like such a hopeful thing to do. Buy pastry for breakfast. Drink tea from a real cup. Sit at a corner table in this café with its heavy golden light and quaint European ambiance, and close my eyes and—no. Not close my eyes. Keep my eyes open and not remember.

With all that hope I was going to finally call Emilio, but before I could make the call, Lucien's eyes found me. I felt them gazing up at me from the front of the abandoned newspaper at the next table as my teeth sank into that first bite.

The rest of the pastry is still waiting, twisted and smushed by my teeth and my grip before I pushed it away and snatched up the
Gazette
. Now I can't stop reading. And sipping. The tea is burning a path down my throat, but I'm too engrossed to stop swallowing.

Lucien LeBlanc died of a drug overdose. The reporter throws in a trivial “toxicology reports still pending” after the damning list of empty prescription bottles found in his room—sleeping pills, anxiety pills, depression pills, pain pills. It's made to sound like a typical medicine-cabinet-of-the-rich-and-famous cleanout.

The reporter doesn't give Lucien a profession. He doesn't get hobbies or passions or personality either. He's just a rich boy, a miserable man acting like a child. Of course, the deceased's younger brother's DUI and drug possession arrest from last year are mentioned, thrown in at the very end as a cherry on top. Marcel adds festive color to the tragedy, no doubt buys a few extra eye rolls from the paper's readership.
Rich people.

The tea doesn't feel right in my stomach. It feels like sadness. It's a bad way to find out I'm emotionally attached to idiots I loathe. Loathed. The urge to go back to my apartment and wallow in misery and indecision for another twenty-four hours is strong, but I stifle it.

I force myself to finish the pastry, pretending I can taste it. I read over the list of drugs one more time, bottles and bottles of deadly things, fatal dosages and lethal combinations. I actively convince myself. This killed him. This. Not anything or anybody else.

I stare at the photo of Lucien. It's one of those staged-but-pretending-to-be-candid shots on the beach in rolled-up sleeves and khakis. His hair is perfect, but his smile is a little too wide, making his eyes all but disappear.

I take the cell phone out of my pocket and dial the numbers again. One last sip of tea and I'm completely singed from the inside out. Ready. I push the paper away, but Lucien still stares up at me, so I flip it over and press call.

It rings. Again. And again.

Between the third and fourth rings my eyes settle on the picture. The other picture. I was too lost in the words to see it before, plus it's smaller than Lucien's portrait. It's black-and-white, tucked beneath the memorial service information. In it, Lucien and Marcel stand together in front of a stone archway. They're younger. It must be from their British boarding school days, based on the jackets and ties. It's certainly more candid. Lucien looks like someone just called his name, not smiling but expectant, and Marcel is turned slightly toward his brother, arms crossed, grinning like he's waiting for a prank to play out. I've never seen him look at Lucien with anything but contempt. What happened to them?

“Valentina.”

Emilio's whisper is like ice.

“Valentina, are you there?”

I squeeze the phone tighter, focusing my thoughts.
I
called
him
. “Yes.”

“I've been worried sick. Didn't you see I tried to call?”

“Sorry.”
I thought you might have murdered Lucien and wasn't sure I wanted to ever speak to you again, but now I've decided to pretend I'm not wondering if it's true
.

“I have news,” he continues, talking louder now so I can hear the pitch of his voice, the faint Columbian lilt with blood and skin and muscle behind it. He must've found somewhere more private. “Something happened.”

Something?
Unbidden, Lucien's glassy, bloodshot eyes flash in my thoughts. “What happened?”

“Lucien killed himself.”

I bite my lip and stay appropriately silent. People are silent when they're shocked. But for how long? I try counting breaths, but I lose track after three.

“Valentina? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. I'm just . . .”

“I know you were . . . friends, and I'm sorry. They're saying he did it the night of the LaFleur show. Pills. Are you okay?”

He sounds so sincere.

“Your father is the one who told me,” he says, and I fight to listen to his words and not get lost in the melody of his voice. “He's acting cautious. I can tell he thinks something is up, but he's not going to admit that Lucien was on his payroll. At least not to me.”

“What did you tell him about the show?”

“I told him about the paintings, said I talked to LaFleur. I didn't say anything about Lucien at first, but then he asked me, and I told him I didn't run into him.”

“He believed you?”

“I think so. And I was telling the truth—I didn't actually run into him.”

“Right. But Marcel?” I ask, and my eyes find the grainy black-and-white face on the newspaper in front of me. It doesn't look like he's wearing eyeliner. And his expression—it doesn't looks like he hates himself yet.

“What do you mean?”

“He saw us together,” I say. “I haven't talked to him.”

“I still don't think Marcel works for your father. I think we're in the clear.”

I swallow. The clear means a fresh start. It means no past, no suspicions, no memories of closets and gunshots or naked, bloated bodies and empty pill bottles. The clear sounds like paradise. “So you're coming?”

“Not yet. This is going to take time.”

“Getting the money,” I say.

“That first and then getting my family out of Bogotá.”

“Your family,” I repeat, because it makes me feel better. Everything that he's done has been for them. I need to remember that the next time I picture Lucien's body or the gray slump of the man from the docks.

“I can't tell them until I have everything lined up, and then it all has to happen simultaneously. You'll need to be ready to leave, since we may not have a lot of notice.”

“How are you getting the money?”

“Don't worry about it.”

Irony burns away at my insides, hotter than the tea. Money was meaningless when I was swimming in it—expendable and constantly renewing itself—and it's everything now that I don't have it. It's freedom.

“I might need longer than a week,” he adds. “Two weeks is probably more realistic.”

“But should I just wait here?”

“For now.”

I don't want to tell him how close that's cutting it. Lucien owed me for the last few sittings, but there's no way I'll see that money now, and rent is due in two days. My lips are still slick from the pastry splurge. No more wasting. No more treats.

“Once things are ready here, I'll come and get you,” he says.

“Where will we go?”

“Somewhere beautiful.” I hear a smile in his voice, and it's almost enough to make the fear and doubt float away.

“Like where?”

“How about Tahiti?”

“I'm over
le français
.”

“Sweden?”

“I'm over the snow.”

“New Zealand, then.”

I know less about New Zealand than I know about nuclear physics. Sheep. Green hills.
Lord of the Rings.
That's it. “Maybe.”

“I'm glad you called,” he says, his voice low and gentle. “Talking to you reminds me of why I'm doing this. I miss you already.”

“Then I'll call more often.”

“Don't,” he says abruptly. “It's not safe for me to carry this phone on me. This Lucien thing is making your father skittish. Text me, and I'll check it at night.”

“What would he do if he found it?” I ask, wanting to know and not wanting to know.

“He's not going to. After today, I'm storing the phone somewhere else. I can't go ducking into the garage every time you decide to call me.”

Decide to call me
? I'm not sure if I'm imagining the irritation or not. “Are you really in the garage?”

“Crouched between the Porsche and the motorcycle.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm picking a piece of gravel out of a tire tread as we speak.”

It would be funny if the various outcomes I can imagine weren't so terrifying. “Who is he afraid of?”

“What?”

“You said Papi's skittish. Who is he afraid of?”

“He has enemies. Powerful people always have enemies.”

I have to roll that idea around in my mind before it makes any sense. Enemies. The concept of being afraid
for
my father is so foreign. You don't worry that the lion is about to be attacked. “And he thinks you're working for his enemies.”

“Not necessarily me. He's suspicious of everyone right now, which means you have to be patient. Can you do that?”

I pick up a tiny flake of pastry with my index finger and put it on my tongue. Buttery snow. Outside the window it's snowing real flakes.

“Valentina?”

Can I do it? Do I have a choice? “What do I do if I don't hear from you?”

His voice is gentle again, intimate, like he's stroking my hair with the sound of it. “You will. If I was there and I could kiss you and say ‘I promise,' you'd believe me. Right?”

I imagine it. If he was holding me, and if his lips were breathing those words in my ear, any words in my ear, he's right, I would believe him. “But what if something happens to you?”

“Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm being careful.”

“You're hiding in the garage crouched beside my father's car.”

“Checking the tire pressure. See? I think fast. Nothing's going to happen to me.”

What if you change your mind? What if you tell him I'm here? What if you disappear without me?

“Nothing's going to happen to me,” he repeats.

“Okay.”

“And I won't disappear or change my mind,” he says. “I don't want to be stuck in this anymore. I don't want anything but you.”

I slump over, rest my forehead on the table. It's chilling. I don't remember letting him read my mind. I'm not sure I like it.

“Besides,” he says, and I can hear the edge of a grin slipping into his voice. He's trying to charm me. “You have something I'd do anything for.”

Kill for?
I swallow the thought. It's gone. I match the flirting in his voice with my own. “And what would that be?”

“My mandolin.”

I take the newspaper with me, but I don't go back to my little hole. Too depressing. I'm meeting Jacques at Soupe au Chocolat tonight, so sleeping now would be smart, but when I left this morning, Xiang was roasting something that looked like cabbage and smelled like rot.

Instead I sit on a bench in the Sherbrooke Metro station, the folded
Gazette
clenched between my body and my arm, the dusty mandolin case at my feet, and think about money. Gobs versus none. Then versus now. Valentina versus Jane. Now that Lucien's gone, my lifeline has been cut, and I'm officially destitute. There's survival money, which I could theoretically scrounge up busking for change in the cold, and then there's fly far, far away money, buy a cottage by a forgotten sea money, rescue Emilio's family money. That's the kind that Emilio's scrounging up.

I shouldn't let my mind wade so deep into the impossible, but I do: I think about going to Miami. Ten minutes in my house is all it would take. It's a useless exercise, but I give my imagination those ten minutes to run through the rooms and collect the right valuables, the untraceables. One or two of my father's watches or my sisters' necklaces would go a long way. Nothing is as valuable as the art, but I don't know how to find a buyer without getting caught.

I know where the safe with my mother's jewelry is. Rings, bracelets, and pendants, all too gaudy to be wearable but not old enough to be vintage—the stones would be worth something, and nobody would miss them right away.

I'm heartless. I must be, wanting to steal and sell the only pieces of her I have. But the woman owes me, and so what if I am heartless? Maybe heart is one of those luxuries you give up for the greater good. Freedom. Emilio.

The paper slips a little and I clamp my arm to my body, trapping it. If I'd never run away and I'd died unexpectedly, like Lucien but not like Lucien, an accident maybe, would a newspaper describe me any differently? I'd be a spoiled little rich girl.

I take the paper from beneath my arm and exa.mine the photo facing out. Marcel's got a punch line stored up that he's about to deliver, something irreverent and teenage-boy hilarious, so probably not hilarious at all. I see it in his eyes. He's only a slightly different version of who I was last year. Sassy. Untouchable. Which makes me wonder: Would the old Marcel have been friends with the old Valentina? Maybe.