The Day After Tomorrow

“Is that so?” McVey said.

Vera stared at him a moment, then got up and went to a table near the doorway. As she did, Lebrun came back. Glancing at McVey, he shook his head. Pulling open a drawer, Vera took something from it, closed the drawer and came back.

“I took this out of him,” she said, and laid the spent bullet she’d recovered from Osborn’s thigh in McVey’s hand.

McVey rolled it around in his palm and then held it up between his thumb and forefinger. “Soft point. Could be nine millimeter—” he said to Lebrun.

Lebrun said nothing, only nodded slightly. The nod was enough to tell McVey he agreed, that it could be the same kind of slug they’d taken out of Merriman.

McVey looked at Vera. “Where did you do the surgery?”

Say whatever comes into your head, she thought. Don’t flinch. Make it simple. “By the side of the road, on the way back to Paris.”

“Which road?”

“I don’t remember. He was bleeding and almost delirious.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know that, either. . . . You seem to not know more than you know.”

Vera looked at him but didn’t back down. “I wanted to bring him here. More truthfully, I wanted him to go to a hospital. But he wouldn’t. He was afraid whoever tried to kill him would come after him again if they knew he was alive. It would be easy enough in a hospital, and if he was here, he was afraid I might get hurt. That’s why he insisted we do what we did. The wound wasn’t deep. It was a relatively simple operation. As a doctor, he knew that. . . .”

“What did you use for water? You know, to keep everything clean?”

“Bottled water. I carry it with me in the car almost all the time. These days many people do. Even in America, I think.”

McVey stared at her but said nothing. Lebrun did the same. They were waiting for her to continue.

“I left him at the Gare Montparnasse about four this afternoon. I shouldn’t have, but he would have it no other way.”

“Where was he going?” McVey asked.

Vera shook her head.

“You don’t know that, either.”

“I’m sorry. I told you he was concerned about me. He didn’t want me involved any more than I already was.”

“He could walk?”

“He had a cane, an old one that was in the car. It wasn’t much, but it kept the pressure off his leg. He’s healthy. That kind of wound will heal quickly.”

Vera watched McVey get up and cross the room to look out the window.

“Where were you this evening? From the time you went out until now?” he said with his back to her, then turned to face her.

To this point, McVey had been direct, but for the most part he’d kept it friendly. But with this question his tone changed. It was hard, even ugly, and decidedly accusatory. It was something Vera had never encountered. This was no Hollywood movie cop he was the real thing, and he scared the hell out of her.

McVey didn’t have to look at Lebrun to know what his reaction would be. Horror.

And he was right. Lebrun was horrified. McVey was asking her point blank if she’d been having a clandestine rendezvous with Francois Christian. The trouble with his reaction was that Vera saw it too. It told her they knew about her relationship with Francois. It also told her they didn’t know about the breakup.

“I’d rather not say,” she said without expression. Then, crossing her legs, she looked at Lebrun. “Should I get an attorney?”

Lebrun was quick to answer. “No, mademoiselle. Not now, not tonight.” Standing, he looked at McVey. “Already it is Sunday morning. I think it is time we go.”

McVey studied Lebrun a moment, then gave in to the Frenchman’s deep sense of propriety. “Just let me finish a thought.” He turned to Vera.

“Did Osborn know who shot him?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you what he looked like?”

“Only that he was tall,” Vera said politely. “Quite tall and slim.”

“Had he seen him before?”

“I don’t think so.”

Lebrun nodded toward the door.

“One more question, Inspector,” McVey said, still looking at Vera. “This Albert Merriman or Henri Kanarack as he called himself. Do you know why Doctor Osborn was so interested in him?”

Vera paused. What harm would it do to tell them? In fact, it might help if they understood the pressure Osborn had been under, make them realize he’d only been trying to question Kanarack, and had nothing at all to do with the shooting. On the other hand, the police had taken the succinylcholine from Osborn’s hotel room. If she told them Kanarack had murdered Osborn’s father, instead of being sympathetic, they would assume he’d been out for revenge. If they did and connected the drug, and then discovered what it was used for, they might go back over Kanarack’s body and discover the puncture wounds.

Right now, Osborn was only a fugitive but if they had reason to go back and found the puncture wounds, they could, and probably would, charge him with attempted murder.

“No,” she said, finally. “I really have no idea.”

“What about the river?” McVey pressed.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Why were Osborn and Albert Merriman there?”

Lebrun was uncomfortable and Vera could have turned to him for help, but she didn’t.

“As I said before, Detective McVey—I really have no idea.”

Sixty seconds later Vera closed the door behind them and locked it. Walking back into the living room, she turned out the lights, then went to the window. Below, she saw them come out and cross to the white Ford parked across the street. They got in, the doors closed and they drove off. When they did, she let out a deep sigh. For the second time that evening she’d lied to the police.

49

JOANNA LAY in the dark, trembling. She’d never imagined sex could be like that. How she could feel, how she could still be feeling. Pascal Von Holden had been gone for nearly an hour, but the smell of him, his cologne, his perspiration, was still on her and she didn’t want to lose it, ever. She tried to think back on how it happened. How one thing led to another.

The steamer was docking and the men in the tuxedos had gone to make sure the gangway was secure and that Elton Lybarger’s limousine was waiting at the bottom of it. She and Pascal had finished dancing and she had gone to tell Mr. Lybarger the good news, that she was staying on to continue with his physical therapy.

When she’d reached him, he’d motioned for her to take him aside in his wheelchair. She’d looked to Von Holden waiting on the deck outside. She hadn’t wanted to leave him, even for a moment, but he’d nodded and smiled and Joanna had wheeled Lybarger off. When they were safely away, Lybarger had suddenly reached out and taken her hand. He seemed tired and confused, even a little afraid. Looking at him, she’d smiled gently and told him