Murder in Nice Read Online Free Page A

spring in
anybody’s step and no cheerful mood spreading into the late morning
and the afternoon. Lately there had just been motions being gone
through and items ticked off a vast to-do list.
    Not at all Laurent’s style.
    Maybe Grace would have some luck finding out
what was up, Maggie thought. This was actually a perfect
opportunity for her to use her quiet skills to find out those
things Laurent worked to keep hidden—Laurent, who was the most
closed, private and secretive of men. But then, Maggie thought with
a smile, he’d never really been up against a true Southern belle in
her prime before.
    She took the airport exit and parked the
car, focusing on the task at hand. She hoped Lanie’s mother would
lean on her. Annie admitted on the phone that she spoke no French,
had in fact never been to France. Maggie hurried to the receiving
line of the incoming flight from Atlanta and scanned the crowd for
sight of her, wondering if she’d have trouble recognizing her. The
last time she’d seen her, nearly eleven years ago now, the woman
had been seriously overweight.
    Annie was easy to pick out in the crowd, and
Maggie realized with a sinking heart it was not because Annie was
heavy. While everyone else was moving quickly—to locate luggage,
greet loved ones, find ground transportation—one woman was
trudging, head down, through the throng as if looking for something
on the ground. Maggie’d had plenty of time on the drive over to
imagine the horror of losing your only child. Now that she was a
mother herself, the thought was especially harrowing. She couldn’t
imagine what Annie was going through. And she didn’t want to.
    “ Annie!” she called to the
heavyset woman walking toward her. Annie lifted her head, her face
flushed for a moment, but the light that flickered in her eyes
quickly extinguished when she saw Maggie.
    For a moment she thought it might be…
    Maggie moved to her side and put her arms
around her. As soon as she did, Annie began to weep, her shoulders
shaking in Maggie’s embrace. Seeing the naked pain of Annie’s grief
was almost unbearable. But when Maggie reminded herself of what
Annie was attempting to bear, she held her tighter and let her cry
as long as she needed to.
    An hour later, they were driving up the
coast to Nice. Annie spoke very little. When Maggie’s hand wasn’t
on the gearshift, Annie was reaching for it.
    “ Where did you book?”
Maggie asked gently.
    “ I…Lanie’s hotel,” Annie
said, her voice raspy and hoarse from hours of crying.
    “ The Soho,” Maggie said.
“Do you want to check in first?”
    Annie shook her head. “No. I want to see my
baby.”
    Her words raked a chord of
pain across Maggie’s heart. They’ll always
be our babies , she thought as she pictured
Jem laughing and clapping his hands; her gut twisted
painfully.
    She drove to the Bureau du Coroner off
the Rue de la Prèfecture and parked in the public parking lot. Hand in
hand, she and Annie walked into the police morgue where Lanie
awaited them.
    After giving their details to the officer at
the front desk, Inspecteur Alphonse Massar met them in the lobby.
Maggie was surprised to see he was elderly. In fact, he looked to
be nearing retirement. A tall man with grey hair and a tightly
trimmed, grey pencil mustache, he entered the lobby and bowed
curtly to both women. He had such a strong military bearing about
him that Maggie half expected him to click his boot heels together.
He glanced at her, but without much interest. If Maggie had been
expecting him to reach out to Annie with words of comfort or
solace, she was disappointed. She held Annie’s hand tightly and
stayed close.
    This next part was not going to be easy.
    They followed Massar down a long hall of
offices. Maggie was surprised to see Massar’s name on one of the
doors. It made sense, she reasoned, for the police to share real
estate with the bodies they collected from the city. It was
certainly tidier and more convenient that way.