Suspects(15)

He made his way back through the crowd to the door, until he reached the sidewalk, and spoke to the young agent briefly and casually on the way past him.

“Is he still here?” Mike asked in a low voice about de Vaumont, and the agent nodded.

“Good. Stay with him. I’m leaving.” He walked away then and hailed a cab to take him downtown. He felt as though he was in a daze. He couldn’t remember any other woman who had affected him that way before. He had no idea if he’d ever see her again. It seemed unlikely. He felt like a moonstruck boy as he rode downtown in the cab, holding the bag with the red purse he could never give to his sister, or anyone else, except one of his secretaries at Christmas. Theo looked like a lost soul and he wanted to protect her from the evils in her world. He still wasn’t sure if Pierre de Vaumont was one of them. All he wanted now was to see her again. She was addictive, and he was hooked.





Chapter 4


Mike took off his jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves, and went back to his computer when he got home. He checked the clippings Robert Richmond had sent him and read them again—everything about the kidnapping and murder, with all the grim details. In hindsight, it was easier to see the mistakes that the French police had made, withholding the ransom for too long and only doling it out partially, which infuriated the kidnappers and then caused them to panic, afraid of their bosses perhaps. He dug back further then, into articles about her successful internet business. It had been hugely innovative. He saw pictures of her with Matthieu, and read about him too. His name was globally known, with his luxury empire that had earned him a fortune. Mike found one article that fascinated him about Matthieu Pasquier’s history. He was an attractive man, but he had a stern, somewhat forbidding look about him. He seemed like an unlikely partner for Theo, being so much older than she was. But as Mike read more about him, he was intrigued by his background.

Matthieu’s family had been among the most important industrialists in France at the beginning of the twentieth century. They owned most of the steel business in France, and were the leading members of the haute bourgeoisie. They had been immeasurably wealthy and led a very grand life, and they had profited heavily by supplying the country’s need for steel during the First World War in 1914. The Second World War had been equally profitable for them and they had become the most visible collaborators with the Nazis when they occupied France in 1940. They had even advised the Germans on how to make their factories in Germany more efficient. Their alliance with the Germans had filled the Pasquier coffers.

Matthieu’s grandfather had been an outspoken supporter of the Nazis, and the family had continued to live extremely well during the war, in great luxury, while others suffered. His wife had been a famous couturière, a rival of Coco Chanel, with the same political views and sympathy for the Nazis. For German sympathizers, it had been a glittering time in Paris.

At the end of the war, the family had been severely punished for collaborating with the Germans and opening their doors and factories to them. Their entire fortune was taken by the French government as restitution. Their factories became government-owned. All of their holdings and possessions were confiscated. Matthieu’s grandfather had committed suicide when they lost everything. The only thing left to them was their chateau outside Paris, and a small apartment in the city. Everything else was gone. Matthieu’s grandmother died of tuberculosis not long after her husband’s suicide. His father had been a wastrel, a playboy, and a gambler, and had sold the family chateau to pay for his gambling debts. He had died, shot by the husband of one of his mistresses.

Matthieu had been born in the family’s days of poverty and disgrace, fourteen years after the end of the war. His father had disappeared, and his mother had died shortly after he was born. The article said that Matthieu had grown up in Jesuit boarding schools as an orphan, and his mission had become to restore the family name and rebuild their fortune. He worked hard and saved his money, bought back the family chateau when he was able to, and systematically purchased failing, long-established luxury brands. He restored them to glory, and turned an immense profit, until he owned the largest conglomerate of luxury brands in the world. It took him most of his life to do it, but his story was one of extraordinary success rebuilding what his family had destroyed and lost, and then donating vast amounts to French charities. He had a very unusual biography. Both of his early marriages were unsuccessful, but his marriage to the American, Theodora Morgan, was supposedly a happy one. The article said he had one son, who was the heir to the vast Pasquier fortune his father had built from the ashes of what his family had once been. Their money was clean now. Matthieu had atoned for his ancestors’ sins, but sadly, Mike realized, the boy was gone. He had died after the article was written. It all belonged to Theo now, as well as the chateau and all of her late husband’s holdings. He was still alive when the article had appeared in Le Figaro, and there was a photo of the three of them with the chateau behind them. Matthieu looked stern in the photograph—he was brilliant and seemed somewhat tormented, from what Mike read about him—and Theo had Axel in her arms. He looked to be about two or three years old. Happier times for her. Now she was one of the richest women in France, but had lost what was dearest to her in the world.

Mike thought about having seen her that night in the back room of the pop-up store, as she wrapped his package for him—the pretend gift for his sister, who would never even see it. His sister would have laughed at him if he gave it to her. He had no idea why, but he had felt compelled to meet Theo. She was such an obvious target for dangerous criminals now, her circumstances were well known, too much so, and there was a fragility to her that brought out all of Mike’s protective instincts.