Revenge in Paris Read online

  Revenge in Paris

  First in the Noir Travel Short Stories Series

  Valerie J Brooks

  Noir & Blanc Publishing

  Contents

  What Others are Saying

  Follow Valerie and Receive Updates

  Noir Tales & Travel in One Short Story

  REVENGE IN PARIS

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part 3

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Dear Reader

  BACK PAGES

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  What Others are Saying

  about Revenge in Paris

  “Beware of disguises and those who wear them. Val Brooks has crafted a cunning tale of revenge, grief and unwanted desire that lets you walk the streets of Paris as bereft sister, confident attorney, vengeful murderer, and confused lover. By the time you're done, you and your anxious narrator are left wondering which of those identities you'll need to go on living with yourself.”

  —Paul Skenazy, former thriller reviewer Washington Post, and author of James M. Cain

  “Revenge is a dish best served hot, at least in Valerie Brooks’ Revenge in Paris, a sexy fast-paced tale of family, love, and murder. Brooks’ Paris setting is a character too: a two-faced lover who charms as she kills. Can’t wait for the next installment!”

  —Cindy Brown, Agatha-nominated author of the Ivy Meadows mystery series

  “Jan Myrdal famously said, ‘Traveling is like falling in love; the world is made new.’ In the first of her Noir Travel series, Valerie J. Brooks offers up a darker, if no less enthralling view of globe-trotting. With her first jaunt, Revenge in Paris, we follow jaded criminal lawyer Angela Porter to the City of Lights where she seeks to avenge her sister’s tragic death. With a whipcrack voice and delicious twists through the streets of the 15th arrondissement, Revenge in Paris is a thoroughly engrossing page-turner. After it, I’m seeing Paris in a whole new way.”

  —Bill Cameron, author of the award-winning Skin Kadash mysteries

  “Button up your trench coat! Valerie J Brooks’s short story Revenge in Paris puts an original twist on the classic elements of noir. The first in her unique NOIR TRAVEL STORIES SERIES, Revenge successfully and poignantly balances Paris’s travel destinations with the darkest compulsions of the human heart. This series, with upcoming stories set in Portland, Oregon, the Cook Islands, and Brooks’ future travel destinations, promises more creatively chilling mysteries!”

  —Chris Scofield, author of The Shark Curtain

  To

  Daniel

  Always

  * * *

  REVENGE IN PARIS

  Text copyright © 2016 by Valerie J Brooks

  Cover design by Ana Grigoriu-Voicu

  Cover photo copyright of author

  Author Photo by Shannon O’Dell

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US

  Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

  or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

  or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

  Published by Noir & Blanc Publishing

  Created with Vellum

  Follow Valerie and Receive Updates

  About her next story, giveaways and drawings

  SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER

  Follow Valerie

  Gobsmacked Writer

  Facebook

  Twitter

  Pinterest

  Google

  If you signed up for this free short story,

  access the author’s photographs here:

  “Revenge in Paris” Pinterest Board

  Noir Tales & Travel in One Short Story

  Love noir, crime and mystery novels? Crave mysterious and suspenseful stories set in exotic and ordinary places? Wish you could travel to those places?

  Then pack your virtual bag! Noir Travel Stories carry you on dark and atmospheric trips spawned by love, money or revenge in classic noir style.

  After you finish reading the story, explore the story’s settings and locales via hotlinks on the Back Pages.

  Back Pages include my notes and travel tips, hotlinks to related websites and recommendations, plus access to my Secret Pinterest Board where I’ve posted photos from my travels and the settings in the story. Perfect for the armchair traveler.

  REVENGE IN PARIS

  * * *

  Part I

  1

  As I walked down Boulevard de Grenelle, I was tired, cranky, and not used to being stared at. The blonde wig I wore over my usual brunette bob caused my scalp to sweat and itch like crazy. And where was the seasonal weather? Around noon, three days before Christmas, and I was wearing sunglasses, a lightweight coat, scarf, and a silk dress. I never wore dresses. Paris in winter, and it was sunny and cool?

  Better than freezing rain, I told myself.

  But freezing rain would have better fit my mood.

  My arm ached from hauling my carryon behind me and slinging it on and off the train, then up and down the Metro stairs. I didn’t care. The Metro had become my ally, reminding me of why I’d come to Paris. Above entrances and exits hung the same large photo of Marilyn Monroe, an advertisement for a Halsman photography exhibit at Jeu de Paume. Monroe sits cross-legged and gorgeous on the floor, barefoot, naked shoulders, bra strap hanging, head bent over a book, so much like my sister Sophie, so vulnerable, so precious, you wanted to wrap a blanket around her and say come with me, anything to keep her from ever being hurt again.

  But I hadn’t wrapped that blanket around Sophie, and now my sister was dead.

  Another Metro line clattered overhead. I shivered as my energy waned and my spirits sank into the gray of the neighborhood, the lack of holiday lights, the doubts of whether or not I could pull this off. The 15th arrondissement was unfamiliar to me. When Hank and I stayed in Paris years before, we’d rented apartments in the Marais, a more upscale area. This was a working-class neighborhood even though it was only a ten-minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. I probably wouldn’t have chosen this arrondissement—if I’d had a choice.

  But the Frenchman lived here, and he killed my sister.

  He’d also killed my unborn niece or nephew.

  A man stopped to appraise me. I shoved past him and walked by three souvenir shops. From one shop the song “Hotel California” played on a cheap boombox. I hated that song. As I approached a neighborhood supermarket, the Franprix, a beggar dressed in the saddest Santa outfit I’d ever seen sat on the sidewalk and held out his paper cup. He looked up at me. I glanced away and hurried past.

  The apartment was somewhere nearby. I couldn’t wait to take off the wig and all the make-up, too—foundation, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, the works. I never wore this crap and felt as phony as that Santa suit. When you work at a law firm like mine, conservative dress is a given. I preferred to call it classic. But I wasn’t in Paris as me, Angeline Porter. I was here as journalist Helen Craig.

  I searched for th
e address of my apartment. Square Desaix, Square Desaix, where the hell was Square Desaix? I found the street where a flower shop on the corner was decorated for the season. That brightened my mood a little. I turned up the dead-end road and found the address, rang the bell, and was greeted by the “guardian,” a concierge of sorts. She gave me the key. I remembered little French, but I managed. When I tried to cram into the phone-booth-size elevator with my carryon, I couldn’t, so I put my suitcase on the elevator, pressed the 3 button, and walked up the curved staircase to meet the elevator and my suitcase on the third floor. After I unlocked the heavy door, I stepped into a three-room apartment, spacious by Paris standards, and in the bedroom, pulled off my wig and boots, collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep.

  Two hours later I woke with a start. It was late afternoon. Back home it was the middle of the night. I made coffee with the stash in the cupboard, pulled back the curtains on the French doors, walked out onto the wrought iron balcony with its potted red geraniums, still blooming, and looked down on Grenelle. Two women on the corner talked and smoked while their small dogs sniffed each other.

  On the dining room table, I spread out the papers from my file on the Frenchman. He lived off Rue du Commerce. On my burner phone, I Google-mapped the address.

  Before I left Oregon, while planning my revenge, I struggled with how to meet the Frenchman. From working in the criminal justice system, I’d recognized that the more complicated a defense or prosecution, the greater the possibility of losing a case. Don’t confuse jurors with facts. It pisses them off. Go with an emotional appeal or story. So I made my decision. Create a cover story, call the Frenchman, and set up a meeting. Appeal to his sense of being French. Establish trust and need. Maybe even desire, if I could pull that off.

  All I needed was a disguise and a cover story, something the Frenchman would swallow, nothing too fancy.

  2

  My sister met Gerard Duvernay at the Miami Business Fair. She told me a little about him, but research provided the rest. He worked for the French government in a new program called “Creative France,” a force to showcase the country’s economic expertise to the world.

  My strategy was to call him, tell him I’d been assigned to write a piece for Travel World Magazine about vacationing in Paris during the holidays. I’d tell him I had a contact at the Wall Street Journal who might be interested in an article about France’s new program and could I take him to lunch or dinner over the Christmas-New Year holidays?

  Now I needed a different identity. What would I call myself? I chose the name Helen after the famous White House reporter Helen Thomas. The surname proved more difficult, but I settled on Craig for Daniel Craig. “Spectre” was the last film Sophie and I had watched together.

  So I bought a GMS burner smartphone with cash, waited until it was eight in the morning his time, and called.

  When he answered, my mouth went dry and a rope tightened around my chest. I hadn’t expected him to answer and was ready to leave a message, then remembered I had called a business number. I’d better up my game. I couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

  “Allo? Gerard Duvernay,” he said again.

  French accents always turned me a little watery. “Bonjour,” I said. “My name is …” I almost said my real name, Angela Porter, “… Helen Craig. I’m calling from the States.”

  From there I followed my script while tempted to mention my sister’s name, just to get a reaction. But I would save that for later. He spoke excellent English, which made sense as Sophie had flunked out of high school French. Yes, he would be in Paris for the holidays. Yes, he would be happy to meet with me. Who was I again? He sounded unsure. I told him I was a writer, a journalist. I told him I’d heard about him at the Miami Business Fair. He recognized that. I’d be staying in the 15th and asked for a specific meeting date and time as I would be busy with my travel article. He suggested the day before Christmas Eve, if possible. I said yes. He offered to make a reservation for dinner at an excellent seafood restaurant Le Suffren in the 15th. I couldn’t help noticing, besides his sexy French accent, the resonant timber of his voice.

  Christ, now I was waxing cliché poetic about a man I hated.

  No matter. I had my date, and I had a plan.

  But for the plan to go without slip-ups, I had to keep up a pretense and I told myself to act charmed. That didn’t come naturally to me.

  Then I called in a favor. Working in criminal law, I’d met all kinds. Plus I’d saved a few from a life in prison. One of them owed me big time. I made contact with him. I hated doing it, but I knew he’d keep his mouth shut because I could put him away. He gave me a contact in San Francisco. I’d be able get a passport, a press pass, and the pill that would kill Gerard. All this anonymously. I just had to drop off a piece of clothing at this particular drycleaners with the money and information for my new identity, and voila! Next day delivery to my hotel, too. It required a shitload of money, but I had a personal “shadow bank” savings account that would cover the expense.

  And now I was in Paris.

  Down Grenelle, Parisians were heading home after work, carrying bags of groceries, baguettes, briefcases. Cars tailgated, honked for no reason, played hip-hop music loud enough for me to hear. A flutter of homesickness hit, a wave of loss so strong I almost folded into a fetal, fucking mess. I didn’t want Sophie to be dead. I didn’t want to go home and face her ashes in a silver urn on my dresser. I dreaded knowing that my sister’s personal effects, including the blue dress, would be waiting for me when I returned. I had refused to let the funeral director cremate her in that abomination. She was cremated instead in her favorite dusty rose dress with birds on it, the one she wore when we last went to the movies, when I was too judgmental to recognize her pain.

  I sat down on the couch and pulled my knees to my chin. The only way I would get through this was to act like a reporter, be a reporter, not an avenging sister. On my phone, I checked a map of the neighborhood, located a few cafes, a brasserie, even a Starbucks. I also located Brasserie Suffren in the Frenchman’s neighborhood, about seven blocks from my address.

  3

  Back home, I’d planned this trip like preparing a case. I’d taken two weeks off from work, told everyone a lie, that I was going to Todo Santos to give myself time to grieve and recuperate, so no one would check on me. Then I’d get so ill and bedridden with fever and delirium that I’d be unable to tell anyone that I’d cancelled the trip. That was my cover story.

  I didn’t need to involve Hank. He was somewhere in China for a few months working on a top-secret project for his chemical engineering firm, somewhere with no connectivity, not unusual. He’d never known about the Frenchman. Sophie had sworn me to secrecy about the affair because Hank would disapprove if he knew the Frenchman was married.

  With Hank not knowing that Sophie was dead, well, that worked for my plan, too. He could never know anything about what I was going to do, not this time.

  Hank knew I’d flaunted the law before. I was working for a law firm that had defended an influential land developer accused of rape. I didn’t work on the case, but I heard rumors that our team suppressed damning evidence so the guy got off. One night while working overtime alone at the office, I was curious about the evidence. In the file were photos of the young woman, bruises on her face, a cut lip. He’d not only raped her, he’d beat her into submission. My anger at the injustice of this boiled over and, when I found the incriminating evidence, I made copies of it. A few years later, after moving up to a different law firm, I heard the guy was again up on charges of rape, this time a girl of fourteen. I secretly slipped the damning evidence to the prosecution. He went to jail.

  Afterwards, I was shaken, scared that I was now no better than the perpetrator. Hank noticed my distress. I ended up spilling my story to him, not knowing what to expect. He poured me a whiskey and said, “Other girls would have been raped. Maybe even killed. Could you live with that?”

  No, I couldn’t.

&
nbsp; 4

  Six days before Christmas I took a thousand dollars from a stash I kept in a fake book in my library, plus three-thousand from my private savings, set lights to go on and off in certain rooms at certain times to make it look as if I were home, locked the doors, and paid cash for a taxi ride to San Francisco. I checked into the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the airport.

  On my burner phone, I called a number in the city and, using the code I’d been given, asked if they dry-cleaned Ocelot fur coats and told them Octavio recommended them. They said yes and to drop it off around noon the next day.

  Then I bought a first class, round trip ticket to Paris and booked an upscale apartment in the 15th (figuring a criminal would make the most of it) under my real name with my credit card. When I returned home, after I had finally “recuperated,” I would discover I’d left my purse in my unlocked car and it had been stolen, along with passport, ID, license, credit cards, and cash. As perfectly planned as any legal case.