Murder in the Latin Quarter (35 page)

After the children were down, having been fed, bathed and read to—and before his
femme
came home—he would email Roger to extend the invitation. Maggie's jokes of strippers aside, it would be interesting indeed to see who it was Roger had chosen after all these years. While Roger had told Laurent that he'd married, he'd told him very little else about his bride.

Perhaps that is the way of people like us who once made our living in the shadows
, Laurent thought as he turned on the front burner to the stove.

But still it was strange.

“Monsieur Dernier?”

Laurent washed his hands in the kitchen and looked over his shoulder. Little Mimi—surely barely seventeen years old and small for her age—stood in the doorway to the kitchen with Mila in her arms.

“
Oui
?”

“A phone call for you, Monsieur Dernier.”

Laurent frowned and dried his hands. Nobody called the landline. He wasn't even sure why they still had one. He touched his jeans pocket for his cellphone but it wasn't there. He must've left it upstairs in the bedroom. Perhaps someone had tried reaching him there first.

“
Merci
, Mimi,” he said, going into the living room and shooing Jemmy upstairs to watch cartoons in the playroom there. “Dinner in thirty minutes. Baths first,
oui
?”

Jemmy, Mila and Mimi all three nodded and then turned and ran upstairs while Laurent picked up the receiver from where Mimi had left it on the couch.

“
Allo
?” he said.

“Laurent?” a female voice asked breathlessly.

Laurent was positive he knew the voice and a thread of unease stung behind his eyes.

“Jill?” he said.

“I am so sorry to have to call you under these circumstances, Laurent,” she said, her voice wobbly with emotion.

“What has happened? Is Roger there?”

“That's just it, Laurent, he's not,” Jill said, sobbing now. “I can't believe I have to make this phone call to you. I am so sorry, but Roger's dead.”

I
hope
you'll join me for the rest of
Murder in the Abbey
to see what happens to Laurent and Maggie and their sure to be ill fated trip to England to find out who killed Roger Bentley!

S
usan Kiernan-Lewis
lives in Ponte Vedra, Florida. She has been an equestrienne, advertising copywriter, playwright, and video editor as well as a mother, wife, and novelist.   As a writer, she takes her passions–horses, France, cooking, travel, and writing–and puts them in her novels, which always involve an adventurous protagonist faced with the challenge of new and often dangerous situations.   Her popular fiction series include the Maggie Newberry Mysteries set in France, the dystopian Irish End Games series, the Mia Kazmaroff romantic suspense series, and a historical romance time travel series.  Like many authors, Susan depends on reviews and word of mouth referrals of her readers. If you enjoyed
Murder in the Latin Quarter
, please consider leaving a review saying so on your purchase site.

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