The Bennett Sisters Mysteries Box Set by Lise McClendon

Author:Lise McClendon [McClendon, Lise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780981944272
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ms. Bennett. I heard you’re sick. I hope it’s just that “French Flu” you hear about when people go to Paris and don’t want to come home. I found one more email. It was in Gillian’s spam folder.

Merle downloaded it. It was again from a strange IP address and in French.

‘Votre reservation est confirmée. Nous vous accueillerons le jeudi 27 Juin, pour deux nuits. Merci de votre visite.’

Gillian had made a reservation somewhere in France for two nights, last week. Merle read it over three times, wondering why the hotel name wasn’t listed. Had Gillian scrubbed it somehow? Had she meant to delete it and it ended up in spam? Merle forwarded it to Pascal, asking for another Internet Provider search.

This was the first solid lead since Gillian turned in the rental car in Toulouse. Someone had written to her from near Nice, but had she actually gone there? Merle did a Google search for “hotel pastis” and up came dozens of hits, chief among them the Peter Mayle novel and a ritzy joint in St. Tropez. She searched for “café pastis” and again, hundreds of mentions of the concoction on menus popped up.

Maybe it was a clue, not a place. Somewhere they’d met for a pastis, that foul-tasting anise drink, milky green and only palatable when watered down massively. Merle had one, and only one, years before. But the French loved them, especially in the south.

If it was a clue, it was useless to her. Merle stared at her notes then dialed the Hotel Pastis in St. Tropez. Putting on her best sweet-sounding voice, she tried to wrangle some information out of a clerk who sounded like she was born with a posh spoon up her ass. Client visits are “utterly” confidential.

Merle kept at it, searching the Internet and Gillian’s emails until exhaustion and the sun in the west window warming the room caught up with her and she curled into a dead sleep on the bed.

Dinner was late at an inexpensive bistro. Merle insisted on paying, she told Pascal upfront. He was offended, she could tell. But she wasn’t a penniless gypsy or a kept woman. She squeezed his knee between courses, making him forget to be angry. She kept her phone on the table until Pascal recommended putting it in her pocket. The waiter was disapproving. But Albert didn’t call before they walked back to the hotel through narrow streets in the glow of streetlights.

In the room she turned to Pascal. “I’m sorry this isn’t Périgueux again,” she said. “Not as much fun.”

He kissed her and said, “We will always have Périgueux.”

She smiled. “Such a romantic.”

“I am French. We invented it.”

He was back in his uniform, black T-shirt, jeans, and motorcycle jacket. She buried her nose in the leather of the collar, smelling him, memorizing it for the long winter ahead. She didn’t want to think about winter or home. But she was practical. It would come; she would go home. With Francie. Definitely with Francie.

They were standing there, arms around each other, nuzzling and making wishes, when the call came.

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