Haunted Echoes

Interpol agent Ana Reisner has big problems. She's been ordered — by the president of France — to solve a murder that hasn't happened yet and recover a stolen item that the owner refuses to name. Worse, she must work with an ultrasexy former thief — a man she could end up arresting — and she's receiving warnings from what Ana can only believe is a ghost.

To solve the puzzle, Ana must uncover the truth about her own connection to a lost cult of women, the caretakers of the Black Madonna icon. But as she turns from hunter into prey, Ana realizes that her unknown legacy might just be her death warrant — and that some things are worth dying for.

Conceived in love and forged in stone,

Legend says in her belly alone Lie the hidden seeds of eternity — 

The Lady, the Babe, the Sword and Key —  And he who holds her safe from strife Shall be rewarded with the Gift of Life.

 — from the Legend of the Lady

The soaring notes of the aria washed over me, exquisite. Like Swiss chocolate melting into satin decadence on my tongue. Well, okay. Maybe not that good. But close. I have a few guilty pleasures in my otherwise bland life, and opera and fine chocolate are two of them. On my salary I can't afford either often, but when I do, I make sure to savor every last morsel.

The opera was close to ending when something vibrated against my right hip. Oh, hell. It was Saturday night for goodness' sake. I was off duty. But my cell phone continued to vibrate insistently. I leaned over to the side and made the guy beside me grumble as I dug out my phone and flipped it open. And gulped. Uh-oh. Armande St. Germain. My boss's boss. A big dog in the hierarchy of Interpol. Chief of the Stolen Cultural Property Group, also known as the Painting and Pottery Patrol.

St. Germain was calling me from Interpol headquarters in Lyon this late on a Saturday night? My voice message light blinked on, indicating I had a new voice mail. I slipped out of the theater, tromping on the toes of my neighbors and generally irritating an entire row of patrons in the process.

I stepped out onto the Grand Staircase and looked around. Chandeliers the size of small cars dripped crystals from the ceilings, and the matching marble staircases swept downward toward the main floor, guarded by two giant carved women in togas, reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. Huge, cast-iron streetlight-type fixtures on tall posts lit the stairs. I tried my phone. As I expected, no signal in here. Too much steel and stone.

I walked toward the Grand Foyer to my right. It was possibly even gaudier than the cavern I'd just left. Ornate gold pillars rose to the painted ceiling, which was divided into gilt rectangles and ovals framing naughty-looking cherubs. Curly, cast-iron chandeliers lit this space with thousands of electric candles. I felt as if I was trapped inside a giant, turquoise-and-gold Fabergé egg.

I tried my phone again. Better. I called my voice mail service. "Agent Reisner." St. Germain's clipped tones bit my ear. He took pride in his command of English and always used it on me, since I'mAmerican. "An urgent situation has come up that requires your immediate attention. Call Littmann right away. He will fill you in on the details. This...problem...has come down from the highest levels of the French government."

High enough that he was calling me just to make sure I got on it right away? I so didn't like the sound of that. I'm an art historian. I catalogue works of art at museums and galleries in the Paris area. If one is later stolen, I'm occasionally called upon to verify the details I've entered into Interpol's master database of cultural property. But I don't get calls on Saturday evenings asking me to attend to urgent problems of national importance.

Thoroughly alarmed, I stepped outside into a triangular courtyard made up of rue Auber on my right and rue Halevy on my left. The limestone gingerbread facade of the Opera rose behind me, completing the triangle. The pavement was wet. It had rained while I was inside, lending a certain chill to the September evening. A steamy smell associated with wet worms rose from the shiny asphalt.

I dialed my boss, François Littmann, on his cell phone. I had no idea whether he'd be at home or the office at this hour of the night. You never could tell with him. He alternated between fretting over his blood pressure and giving in to his workaholic tendencies. He picked up on the second ring. Sounded more upset than usual, which was saying something. He was as hyper as a French poodle most of the time.

"Ana. There you are. Finally. I hope I haven't interrupted a romantic interlude?" The guy could not leave the subject of my nonexistent love life alone. Flatly refused to believe me when I swore there were no secret lovers lurking in my off-duty hours. Not since the bastard.

"I'm at the Opera. What do you want?" I asked brusquely.

"There's been a murder. And you've been asked to check it out."

"A what?" I squawked. I go to dusty old museums and write down the numbers on the backs of paintings for a living.

I've got just enough rudimentary police training to carry my Interpol badge, but a cop I am not. I don't do murders.

"Someone has requested you by name. Someone who's apparently friends with the president."

"The president? As in the guy in charge of France?" I choked out, for once even more flustered than Littmann.

"The very same. He requested that you personally look into this for 'a friend." You'd better get over there right away." Littmann rattled off an address just off the rue de Bassano, a quiet and ultrachic street leading to the Champs-Elysées.

"Have the police been called?"

"No idea. The president called St. Germain to ask for you, and St. Germain called me. Now I'm telling you to get your derriere over there right now and take care of this."

Right. Whatever "this" was. A murder? Interpol had no jurisdiction in such a case. The Paris police did. Maybe some art had been stolen in the course of a murder being committed? In that event, our department usually got a call the following Monday morning. During business hours. The proper forms were filled out and the filched pieces were duly added to our database of recently stolen art. No self-respecting policeman fooled around with trivial details like that within the first few hours of discovering a murder. They had better things to do —  like secure and collect evidence, and catch the murderer. Besides, it takes art thieves time to move a piece. There's no rush in reporting a theft to us.

Art thieves rarely resort to murder. It's a code of honor among them. They may take valuable objects, but they are not violent criminals. Who could've broken that code? I reviewed the list of Interpol's Ten Most Wanted art thieves. A thief called Dr. Moon had been tearing up Europe recently, but none of those thefts had involved any hint of violence.

Patrons were just starting to trickle out of the theatre. I'd have to hurry if I wanted to get a cab any time soon.

Why I happened to look over my shoulder just then, I have no idea. Maybe I felt Jean-Michel's presence at some subliminal level. At any rate, there he was, the ex-love of my life. Ex by nearly a year now. I probably ought to be over him, but I admit it — I'm the type to hold a grudge. The scumbag had dumped me like a bad stock investment the second he found out I couldn't have children the old-fashioned way. We were already engaged, for goodness' sake. His dragon of a mother even approved of me! But then I had to go and bring up the fact that I'd been diagnosed with a condition called polycystic ovaries — no big deal really. It just requires the use of in vitro fertilization to get pregnant — and boom, that was that. I was history.

Funny how the bastard hadn't forgotten for a second to be sure I'd signed the pre-nup, but had completely neglected to bring up the requirement that I be able to produce the next dynasty of LaRoche-Neuilly's in "God's way." What the hell was wrong with modern medicine's way? But there you have it. We were finished, and he was officially a jerk. And now he stood not twenty feet from me, wearing a piece of leggy, blond arm fluff as if nothing had ever happened between us.

I confess.

I hid.

I ducked behind a big, bald man and his equally corpulent wife. I scrunched down, keeping the couple between Jean-Michel and me like I was some sort of petty criminal on the lam. I couldn't trust myself not to smile politely at the blonde and pop off with something like, "I'm so pleased to meet you and your ovaries. And how is your uterus tonight? Fertile, I hope."

Rue de Bassano's north end runs right up to the George V Metro stop. But if the police were at the murder scene, which they were bound to be, I'd look more official arriving in a taxi instead of on foot and out of breath after hiking from the Metro. Interpol does have a reputation to maintain, after all.

I stumbled to the curb and waved half-heartedly for a taxi. It wasn't that I felt inadequate as a woman or anything. I'm perfectly healthy. My ovaries are just too thick and hard to let eggs escape, and I happen to require in vitro egg collection.

In spite of the rain and people pouring out of the opera now, I rather miraculously got a taxi in under three minutes. I gave the driver the address and he smiled and sped off, no doubt anticipating a fat tip.

There were no police cars clustered out front when I arrived at the gray-white limestone building matching the address Littmann had given me. Odd. Absently I paid the driver — minus the fat tip, which I couldn't afford — and had a look up and down the quiet cul-de-sac. No discreet unmarked police cars. There wasn't even a bored-looking cop lurking in a doorway, smoking a quick Gauloise.

Despite the empty stillness of the street, I got a powerful sense of not being alone out here. It felt as if eyes were boring into the back of my neck, no matter which way I turned. Probably just my imagination. Either that or a nosy neighbor was peering out a window and sending these creepy chills up and down my spine.

There was, however, a burly man in a green doorman's uniform standing just inside the vestibule of my destination. He let me in and said politely, "Mademoiselle Reisner?"

I blinked, startled. "That is correct."

"Madame Villecourt is expecting you."

Never heard of her. But apparently, she'd heard of me. I prepared myself for the Madame to be an aristocrat. Achingly polite but tremendously demanding. Not exactly my favorite kind of person to deal with. Rubs my American sense of equality the wrong way. The French national motto might be "Fraternity, Equality and Liberty," but the unspoken — and more accurate — version was "Fraternity, Equality and Liberty in Direct Proportion to Your Wealth and Social Status."

The doorman led me to an old-fashioned cage elevator. He reached inside and poked the button for the fifth floor with a white-gloved finger, but did not join me in the elevator. It rose smoothly on silent pulleys to the top floor of the building.

I stepped out into the hallway. I expected a row of doors with numbers or nameplates on them like a regular apartment building. Instead, I was confronted with a single door. A massive, carved mahogany monster of a door with a brass lion for a handle. Well, then. A penthouse, apparently. Lots of fraternité, égalité and liberté going on here.

I crossed the gleaming black marble floor and lifted the heavy brass ring hanging from another lion's mouth. I dropped it with a thud.

A tinny voice spoke from beside me almost immediately. Out of an intercom with — crud — a doorbell button beside it. I was already messing this thing up and I wasn't even inside yet. My discerning eye was supposed to notice little details like doorbells. Duh.

The giant door before me swung open ponderously.A gray-haired woman stood there. Short. Squat. Bow-legged. Severe, steel-gray skirt, sensible shoes, white turtleneck. Steel-gray cardigan. Steel-gray hair pulled back in a bun. I'd peg her for a nun were it not for the absence of a wimple or collar.

"Madame Villecourt?" I asked.

Her dour face puckered in disapproval, and the abundant hairs on her chin waggled in indignation. "Mon Dieu, non. I am Madame Trucot. The housekeeper. Come in. We have been waiting for you."

Late, was I? Lovely. I stepped inside. And couldn't help but pause to breathe in the incredible ambience of the place. It was like stepping back in time seven hundred years. Gray travertine walls stretched away from me into a long, dim corridor with a tall, barrel vault ceiling. The only light came from flickering gas bulbs mounted in torches along the walls.

Heavy wooden doors with wide, iron hinges lined the hall. To my right hung a magnificent tapestry depicting a dark-skinned woman pouring water out of a white urn into the hands of several children. An unusual subject for such an old tapestry. It looked Belgian, maybe late fourteenth century. The picture was three-dimensional — also unheard of in a piece that old. Maybe my date was off. But the rich color, the milles fleurs border — I thought not. Regardless of its age, the piece was one of a kind. Had to be worth millions.

I was distracted by a giant floor mirror opposite the tapestry. It stood a solid six feet tall, and was dim and gray with age. The frame was intricately carved and decorated. For all the world it looked Arab, and every bit as old as the tapestry. If I were in the castle of a recently returned Crusader knight, I'd expect to see such a piece. It reflected the tapestry perfectly, except my image was projected into the picture standing exactly beside the woman. The effect was eerie. Like I'd been holographically projected into the woven image.

If the murder that had happened here was in conjunction with an art theft and this priceless tapestry had been left behind, the thief was a moron.