A Deal with the Devil by Blake Ellis & Melanie Hicken

Author:Blake Ellis & Melanie Hicken
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

The Trip

TEXT MESSAGE:

Saturday, Jan. 23, 11:45 a.m.

Melanie: Holy crap check your email

Antoine emailed me

Antoine’s email, which we quickly translated into English, landed in our inbox just hours before we set off on our trip.

Hello,

I am the son of Mrs. Maria Duval. You tried to contact me several times. My mother does not want to get in touch with you unless it’s through her lawyer.

I would ask you in the future to stop contacting my wife or children. Contact me but do not involve my family anymore.

I’d appreciate if you told me what you want from me.

Cordially,

Antoine PALFROY

The timing couldn’t have been worse, as we were planning to knock on her door as soon as we arrived in Callas. We were thrilled to have made contact with him—Maria’s very own son—but we worried that we had gotten off on the wrong foot by bothering his wife and adult children, who we thought might lead us to him or his mother. Antoine’s stern warning to leave Maria alone surely gave us second thoughts.

This was just the beginning of the day’s drama. As we wrestled with Antoine’s email, we grew increasingly concerned that we were going to arrive in France unable to speak with anyone around us—not to mention with Maria. Julia Jones, the French-speaking colleague who’d made the last round of phone calls for us, was scheduled to meet us in Callas. Much to our dismay, she lost her green card the day before our scheduled departure. We worried that she wouldn’t be able to leave the United States without it. At the same time, a massive winter storm was brewing across the East Coast, which threatened to throw a wrench into her travel plans even if she was allowed to get past airport security. Without Julia, our expensive trek to France could all be in vain.

Then we began to worry about the two of us being able to make it there, especially since we were both coming from different cities. If we’d been able to watch the day unfold on a movie screen, the dramatic narration may have gone something like this.

Of the two intrepid female reporters, Blake had always been the free spirit. So while type A Melanie sat at her gate hours in advance, Blake wasn’t quite as prepared. Thanks to unusually long security lines stretching around the Denver airport, as travelers from across the country were being rerouted because of the storm, she began her journey by missing her flight to Chicago, where she had been set to rendezvous with Melanie before the long red-eye flight to London. Melanie was already in the air as Blake pleaded with the gate agents to let her on her plane, which was still sitting on the runway. When Melanie landed and turned her phone on, she received a rapid-fire series of frantic text messages and emails from Blake alerting her that she’d missed her flight and would be flying straight to London. Melanie’s stomach sank. She was already becoming increasingly nervous

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