Chapter 34: What Odette Said

At midnight, the Pont des Arts was empty.

Fog lay on the river like wet wool. The old iron railings gleamed under the lamps, and the city's lights wavered in the black water below. Somewhere far off, a church clock struck twelve. Elara stood at the foot of the footbridge with the cassette in her pocket and her heart in her throat.

Rhys and Tobias were hidden somewhere in the dark behind her. She could not smell them. She could not smell anything but river and rain and cold stone.

She stepped onto the bridge.

Halfway across, on a green bench under a lamp, sat a small white-haired woman in a gray coat, a thermos on her knee. She looked up as Elara approached, and her face crumpled.

"Ma petite."

Elara stopped three paces away.

"You came," Odette whispered. "I did not think you would."

"Neither did I."

The old woman held out a trembling hand. Elara did not take it. She sat down at the far end of the bench, and for a moment they said nothing.

"I heard the tape," Elara said at last.

"Ah." Odette closed her eyes. "Then you know."

"I want to hear you say it."

"I told Conrad Hart where the atelier was." The words came out small and plain, like a stone dropped into water. "Twenty-five years ago. I have never said it aloud to another soul."

Elara waited.

"He came to my studio. He was charming, as he always is. He said he wanted only to buy Lucille's formulas. She had refused him." Odette's fingers tightened on the thermos. "I said no. Then he showed me a photograph of my daughter Margot, aged six, outside her school. He said it would be a shame if something happened to such a pretty girl."

The fog moved against the lamp.

"I gave him the address. He swore no one would be hurt." A dry, terrible laugh. "Two other women told themselves the same lie that night."

"Marguerite."

"And myself."

Elara looked at her hands. They were shaking. "You could have told me. In all those years."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you were ten years old and you had just lost your mother, and I was the only thing you had." Odette's voice cracked. "I thought, she is happy. Why break it? I was afraid you would stop loving me."

A tear ran down Elara's cheek. She had not known she was crying.

"I didn't stop," she said. "That's the worst part."

Odette let out a small, broken sound and reached across the bench. This time Elara took her hand. It was cold and thin, and it held on with all its strength.

"Why did you leave the hospital?"

"Conrad has men outside Margot's house in Lyon. He called the ward at noon. He said if I did not come, they would knock on her door." Odette's chin lifted. "I told him I would bring you and the tape. He believed me because I have always been a coward."

"You aren't."

"Listen to me." Her eyes, bright and sharp as ever, held Elara's. "There is something Lucille never told you. It is the real reason he wants the bottle. He does not want the formula. He wants the boy."

"Rhys," Elara whispered.

"The solvent in the cobalt bottle was meant for Augustin. Rhys breathed it instead. It attacks the olfactory nerve." Odette's voice dropped. "But the damage should have healed within a year."

Elara's heart stopped. "Then why..."

A tiny red dot bloomed on the front of Odette's gray coat. It trembled over her heart, bright as a drop of blood.

Elara saw it a half second too late.

"Down!"

She threw herself sideways. But Odette was faster. The old woman flung her whole body across the bench and shoved Elara backward with both hands.

The shot cracked across the river.

Odette jerked. A dark flower opened beneath her collarbone. She sagged into Elara's arms with a soft, startled breath.

"Odette. Odette."

Boots pounded on the bridge. Rhys's voice, ragged with terror, shouted her name. Tobias fired twice into the dark.

Odette's fingers closed around Elara's collar and pulled her close. Elara bent until her ear touched the cold mouth.

"It was not the fire," Odette breathed. "Someone kept him ill, ma petite. For twenty-one years. Someone has been poisoning his tea."