“I often talk to myself. Nothing to be ashamed of.” I shrug again, my face giving him nothing. “You’re up early. Trying to beat me to the office?”
“I have a meeting in Lyon, have to make the train,” he says. “Give me a ride into the city.”
I stare at him. No manners at all. A please would be nice.
“All right,” I tell him. You would have thought we would have made a habit of carpooling from the start, but the one time I suggested it (mind you, this was years ago), he told me that it went against what we stood for. We weren’t about saving anything, we were about spending. The excess was what drove us. Besides, the both of us go to and from the office at different hours, and he definitely isn’t putting in the hours I am.
Also, there’s the fact that these days I can’t stand to be around him, even for a little bit.
I also doubt that this is a business meeting for him.
I wonder if he ever thinks he’ll get caught. Even though my mother knows he’s stepping out, and even though it’s expected of men with power and money, if the tabloids got wind of it, it could be pretty embarrassing for us.
Most likely he thinks he’s above it. Above the law, as the letters said.
Am I a bad son for now wishing he would get caught?
Probably.
But he raised me that way.
I go to my car, and while I’m sitting there, waiting for my father to join me, I take the envelope out of my jacket pocket. In some ways it feels like a clandestine love letter from Gabrielle, a secret only the two of us keep.
The envelope itself looks the same as always, the same stamp, same markings. Except this time the letter is no longer addressed to The Dumonts.
It says Gautier Dumont on the front.
Relief floods through me like a raging river. Not only am I relieved that the letter and the blackmailing aren’t addressed to me, but that Gabrielle was quick enough to retrieve it from the mail last night. It’s hard to say what would have happened if my father had gotten it. There’s a chance he would have confided in me, and there’s a bigger chance he wouldn’t have, depending on what he’s done.
And what hasn’t he done?
My gaze goes to the door, making sure my father isn’t there, and then I deftly open the envelope, taking out the letter.
There’s no place to hide. Soon the letters will end and I’ll be coming for you.
A little more of a threat this time. Something tangible. Someone will come for him, in what way I don’t know.
There’s something else different about this one. I’m not sure what. The ink looks the same, but the way it sits on the paper is somehow different, maybe because the paper is different. I flip it over a few times, but I can’t glean anything else from it.
It doesn’t really matter anyway.
There will be another letter.
CHAPTER NINE
GABRIELLE
“Pack your bags, little sprite. We’re out of here.”
I look up from Pascal’s desk in his home office, where I was entering some things on his spreadsheet, to see him standing in the doorway, a large leather duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
I glance at the time and date on the computer. It’s Tuesday, July 16. I’ve been working for Pascal for two weeks now and have been really getting into the swing of his schedule. There’s nothing on his agenda about going anywhere this week, let alone with me. Plus, he should be at work right now.
“When did you get home?” I ask. “And what are you talking about?”
He puts his bag down by the door and strides on over to me, his eyes dancing mischievously. “We’re getting the fuck out of here, darling.”
“I gathered that,” I say, glancing once more at the calendar. “And how long have you been planning this?”
“Since lunchtime, when I almost punched my father in the face at the office.”
I want more details on that, but I don’t press him. I’ve done such a good job of avoiding Gautier ever since I saw him last, and so far he’s not sought me out. Helps he’s been traveling on “business” as well. The less I hear about him, the better it is.
“Bad day?”
“Bad few months, more like it.” He sits on the edge of the desk and reaches over, shutting the screen of the laptop.