The Missing Sister Read online

  He turns to me, angling his body in the tight space. The bustle of the restaurant resumes with a roar, breaking my focus on the tremor of his voice, the rise and fall of his chest. He musters a smile that stops at the apples of his cheeks. “It took me years to really understand that it wasn’t my fault. Even though I’m complicit because Benoît and I did that together—I’ll always be part of that story—sometimes, awful things happen. What we do with that knowledge is what counts. You know?”

  Sunshine peeks through the thin fabric of the curtain, turning his hair golden brown. A hopeful mien replaces the pained expression of seconds before. So optimistic, so sure I’ll agree and understand. The words Yes, I know lodge in my throat, tucked away and frozen because I can’t say them out loud. Even if Jean-Luc has come to terms with his role, I know he’s wrong—I am to blame, indefinitely, without reprieve. He doesn’t know the whole truth. Not even Angela does, and yet she shunned me after their deaths anyway.

  A rogue tear slips down my cheek as Jean-Luc wraps his hand around mine.

  “You know, my sister was no picnic,” I begin.

  Jean-Luc lifts his eyebrows. “Everyone here seems to think so.”

  “Yeah, exactly. She was wonderful in so many ways. Kind, enthusiastic, supportive of others, and smart. But she had another side that only the family saw. Once, when our parents went to a conference in Orange County and didn’t tell us, she went home and found the house empty; she was furious. She broke a super-expensive designer doll that our mother specially commissioned for her when we were ten, that looked like us. Like our mom.”

  Jean-Luc hesitates. “I . . . Ah, is that so bad for a kid?”

  “We were sophomores in college, living in our own apartments. I was with her when she called them, demanded they tell her when they were leaving town next time; her anger was so intense, almost irrational. Like she didn’t trust them not to up and leave one of these days.” I pause as the irony hits me. “Which, in hindsight, was correct.”

  “What did your parents do?”

  “What they always did. They talked her down and reassured her they were coming home the next day. They promised they would tell her their travel plans in advance next time, and she calmed down. My mom was really hurt Angela broke the doll, but she never said anything, not wanting to upset Angela again.”

  Jean-Luc gives a sympathetic nod. “Everyone’s got skeletons, Shayna. And a few loopy relations.”

  “Sure.” I sigh, saying things I’ve only said to my therapist. “And that example might not seem all that shocking. But it was typical of the Angela we lived with—her ups and downs, a tendency to fly off the handle suddenly and unpredictably. There was one time when we were kids on the beach, when my parents had to separate us for a while because she tried to . . .” I trail off, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter. Here it seems she’d put those issues behind her. Like Paris, or getting space from me, from all of us, was what she needed.” The thought jabs me just below the ribs, a self-inflicted wound.

  The waitress returns with our check, and Jean-Luc pays in cash.

  Outside, the streets are full of hungry white-collar workers shuffling by in a hurry to grab a bite. We navigate the crowds without words or looking at each other. Against our brick apartment building, the same homeless man rises with the help of a cane I hadn’t noticed before. He stretches, joints audibly cracking. His tuft of graying black hair seems freshly showered. Pale skin appears ruddy in the shadows.

  We climb the stairwell to Angela’s apartment. Thick beige carpet muffles our steps on her landing. There are wooden beams, sound and heating insulation in between Angela’s apartment and Jean-Luc’s, but I remember how I heard the chime of his cell phone yesterday. I wonder whether he’s heard me crying at some point.

  Jean-Luc follows me to the door. “So did you find what you were looking for at the restaurant?”

  I pat the sheaf of papers he gave me, tears well behind me now. I’m not sure how I allowed them to make it as far as my eyelashes. “Not really. But this is a great alternative.”

  He steps closer. “I’m around for whatever you need this week. I hope you know that, Shayna. Even if it’s just to talk.”

  I nod, feeling more like my normal self with each noncommittal shrug. Embarrassment at being so emotional in public, with a virtual stranger, is peeking around the corner and tiptoeing closer to my flushed cheeks. “I know, thanks. I’ll be sure to—”

  His arms draw me in, tightening around my frame, the action so unexpected I stop midsentence and don’t struggle. He hesitates, then presses his cheek against my head. The urge to shove him away rises—to scoff and insist I’m not so needy that after only hours together I would open wide all my wounds and stand them on a crate for him to ogle. Instead, I close my eyes. The anxious fluttering of my stomach moves upward to my chest.

  He pulls back, eyebrows linked in one bushy strip. “I’ll see you later.”

  I step into the apartment, a mass of contradictions: energy, fatigue; relief, despair; clarity, confusion. When his door clicks shut one floor above, I collapse onto the bed and curl into an exhausted ball.

  Chapter 13

  Ambassade (embassy)

  Comment dit-on? (How do you say?)

  Combien? (How much?)

  A nasal buzz rips through the air, jarring my barely legible scrawl. The list I’ve been making—vocabulary, names, notes, and descriptions of people I’ve met so far and their relationships to Angela—extends a page long. Pain shoots across my sleeping foot as I stand and stumble to the square box next to the door.

  “Hello?” I call, pressing first one button then another. It buzzes again beneath my finger. “Hello?”

  “Miss Darby, it’s Inspector Valentin. May I come up?”

  I press the large button, which allows entry, then I survey the studio apartment. It’s trashed, overrun with papers and empty boxes. Valentin’s tight, deliberate gait announces his location in the foyer, up the stairs, rounding the corner to the third floor. I stash a bra in my duffel bag, then fluff the blanket as the footsteps end outside.

  Valentin greets me with a curt smile. He pats down the curly sides of his hair and then shakes my hand. “Mademoiselle.” The scent of mint carries with him despite a heavy perfume of curry that was cloaking the hall earlier. Seeing him again in person reminds me how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve lived since we met four days ago.

  Valentin stares at the mess I’ve made. He steps over a crate of binders and a cardboard box to the desk chair covered in papers. He moves the pile onto the closed laptop, then he gestures to the bed. “Miss Darby.”

  “I prefer to stand.”

  Valentin sits at the desk. “As you wish.”

  “How is Angela’s case going? Are you making any progress?”

  He allows himself a smile. A reddish stubble glows along his jawline, as though he hasn’t slept much, either. Good. “It is . . . progressing. I hoped to ask additional questions, if you are amenable.”

  I slouch along the kitchen counter. “Let’s have it.”

  “Miss Darby, I hear you have been sightseeing much of our beautiful city. Do you consider that wise?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Forgive me, Miss Darby.” Valentin crosses thin legs. “You have come to Paris, presumably to gather your sister’s belongings and say goodbye. Instead, you were seen gallivanting about with someone you just met, while this continues to be an open investigation. Do you think this is wise?” He taps his forefingers together like a disciplinarian actually expecting a response.

  My mouth splits open. “You were following me?”

  “You are an interesting-looking woman. Someone memorable, as your sister was. It is possible that her beauty and friendly nature may have contributed to her demise. The intelligence we gathered on your sister makes it clear how visible she was at the Sorbonne. It would be unwise to imitate the foundations of her death.”

  “I’m not imitating anything. I’m getting by.
”

  Valentin stands. “In France, we do not take this tone with inspectors. You are vulnerable. Especially as a woman who does not speak the language fluently, and in need of trustworthy companions. Angela’s killer is still at large, along with a potential series murderer.”

  As if I’d forgotten. There’s a constant knot in my neck from looking over my shoulder. My instinct when I step into a room now is to scan the space and locate a second exit.

  “Right. And they may be one and the same? Have you made any headway there? Are any of her classmates suspects?” Delphine’s words in her office ring clearly in my head. The shooter did not plan this with anyone who was a student or a member of our faculty and said so in the note he left in his apartment.

  Valentin stiffens. “The investigation is ongoing.”

  “But why would anyone target Angela?”

  “I assure you, the police are working on it.”

  “But as a foreigner, maybe someone felt she was a threat, or something. There’s been a lot of hostility toward outsiders. Maybe—”

  “Miss Darby, thank you for your efforts,” he interrupts. “I know finding Angela’s killer is important to your feelings of closure. I do, really,” he adds when I raise an eyebrow. “However, your priority now is to get home safely. And to avoid spending time with unknowns. Are we agreed?”

  I cock my head to the side. “Inspector Valentin. Would you be questioning my actions if I were a man alone in Paris?”

  Valentin’s affable air of concern falls like a drape. His upper lip curls. “You are grieving, Miss Darby. Perhaps we should discuss your sister’s case.”

  I huff and turn toward the window.

  “What do you know of Les Deux Moulins?”

  “It’s a restaurant.”

  He nods. “Yes. And it is where Angela went to dinner with Sebastien Bronn the night before she disappeared.”

  I slowly turn back around. “What?”

  It’s not some great surprise Angela went there with Seb; it’s in the neighborhood and of special meaning for her—it’s compelling she left me its coordinates. My eyes flit to the ceiling; I wonder if Jean-Luc can hear us now.

  Valentin stares at me with confidence, like we’re in an interrogation room at the station. “What do you think of Bronn?”

  “I think Angela meant a lot to him. Why?”

  He pauses just long enough for a cold sliver of unease to creep into my throat.

  “Did you know he did a tour of Afghanistan?”

  “No. I . . . I thought his brother fought there.”

  “He did. Baptiste Bronn died from sulfur mustard. A rather antiquated form of chemical warfare you might be familiar with as mustard gas. Both Baptiste and Sebastien were deployed in separate medical units.”

  Valentin observes me like a lab rat, tallying every muscle spasm. My head is spinning. Why didn’t Seb share he had his own experience at war? We spent a full day together and discussed his brother’s military stint over Calvados. “Why is that significant?”

  He whips out a journal and starts making notes with a stubby pencil. “He was dishonorably discharged from service. I was hoping you could shed some light on that period.”

  Dishonorably discharged? “I . . . I can’t. Did you ask for his alibi for the time of the shooting?”

  Valentin dots the paper with a jab, then flips the cover closed and secures the elastic strap. “Believe it or not, Miss Darby, I have done this before. Mr. Bronn was working at the Paris Saint-Germain hospital that afternoon. He is on video purchasing cigarettes from a tabac at the time Angela disappeared.”

  I rack my memory trying to recall whether he’s ever smelled of smoke. We only spent a few hours together each day.

  “There is something else,” he continues. “There have been new developments—”

  “Oh thank God. I knew you didn’t come here with only bad news.”

  Valentin exhales. He takes a long, slow look at the ceiling. The certainty I’m wrong punts my snide optimism.

  “There have been new developments in an adjacent case. As part of your sister’s investigation, we traced Angela’s activities to several days before her disappearance. On Friday the twenty-ninth, she was at the Sorbonne. On Thursday she only left her apartment to perform dissertation work and to go to dinner at Les Deux Moulins with Bronn. On Wednesday she visited Emmanuelle Wood, and Tuesday she was seen on the Champs-Élysées. What do you know of Emmanuelle? You texted me about her.”

  Manu. Angela’s frenemy. The blood leaches from my face. “Angela never mentioned her to me, but we didn’t speak for a long time. I don’t know much,” I hedge, wanting him to confirm before dishing Nour’s hearsay. “Why?”

  Valentin whips out his pad again and makes a check mark on the first page. “I am sorry to add to the discomfort you must be feeling, Miss Darby, but I must confirm your text: Miss Wood and your sister were known to be hostile to one another. Now Miss Wood is a missing person; she has not been seen in several weeks. Angela may be implicated in her disappearance.”

  I stare at him, through him, struggling to understand. “How is that possible? Angela has been declared missing or dead for weeks, too. My sister had some tension with this Wood woman, and now you’re investigating her as a suspect?”

  “Wood went missing just two days before Angela did. The day Angela visited her apartment.” Valentin returns my glare with steady eye contact. Not a flinch from him, while I feel myself begin to shake.

  It’s an ugly thing to think, let alone say out loud, but a tiny, cowardly part of me was anticipating this information, waiting for some example of it to crop up—Angela was capable of violence. My stomach clenches the way it always does when I stop to think of my last day on the beach with my sister. The phantom smell of the ocean hits my nostrils, and my mouth waters at the sudden taste of salty air.

  Delphine’s portrait of Angela seemed to indicate she had changed for the better. But what if Angela’s composed Grace Kelly imitation had, in fact, cracked?

  “Are you all right, Miss Darby?”

  “She didn’t . . . Angela would never hurt anyone. What about her killer, Inspector? Is this slowing the investigation into Angela’s death?”

  Valentin reaches into his pocket, unwraps a candy mint, then pops it into his mouth. “We are doing everything we can. A suggestion, if I may?”

  I nod.

  “Finish packing your sister’s belongings this week, then go home to California. What will reveal itself will occur with or without your presence in Paris. I will update you as we verify more information. Again, I am sorry to convey this news.” He crosses to me, then places a hand on my shoulder. “Please. Paris is a large city for a young woman, regardless of your independent nature. Call me, should you have the need.”

  He leaves. I stay rooted to the spot, listening, until the front entry slams shut below.

  I stare across the thin carpet of papers to the open shutters overlooking the square. If I crane my head to the left, the white basilica, the Sacré Coeur, is visible on the hill in the corner.

  When I landed in Paris, I knew I was at a disadvantage. Angela and I hadn’t spoken in years; I didn’t have a clue about her life here or the person she had become. I didn’t know what was waiting for me or what painful and surprising things I would find in her apartment. Valentin’s words ricochet in my head like a studded boomerang, ready to wound: Angela may be implicated. I sink to the ground and wrap my arms tight around my knees against her bed. We had our issues. We had moments that we could never bring ourselves to mention again. But what could have happened in those three years that my sister could be linked to the abduction of another person? Just forming the thought is absurd.

  Another glance at the basilica and I cross to the door, nudging a box containing the stun gun Angela owned. The dead bolt slides shut with ease this time, but its eerie whine underlines my growing fear.

  I step into the sunlight at the window and find a reprieve from the cold doubts of Valentin�
��s visit. She didn’t . . . Angela would never hurt anyone.

  My own words reverberate in my mind, echoing with their lie.

  Chapter 14

  from: Angela Darby

  to: “Darby, Shayna”

  date: Jul 12, 2015, 7:17 p.m.

  subject: James and Claire’s estate

  My dear sister—

  Twin of my heart and blood—

  Onetime roommate—

  First friend, and first enemy—

  It’s been a little over a month since our parents met their fate. Even now the words don’t come willingly, but I type and erase and type again to force the keys in place. To form the words my fingers were never meant to write.

  None of this is fair. Certainly not Auntie Meredith taking off to Puerto Rico because “the damage was done” and she couldn’t bear the waiting, or normally stoic Auntie Judy being a pitiful, weeping mess. And least of all, you being forced to deal with plans for the memorial service this weekend, less than a month since the accident. No. We have been thrust into adulthood way faster than is fair.

  I know it’s been hard for you. Christ on a cracker, it’s been awful, period. It’s harder for me, though, when I learn—not from my sister, but from the family lawyer—you are the executor of Mom and Dad’s estate. Of course! (Of course.) To the very end, it is the three of you, cozy and warm in your solidarity against me. The outsider. Perpetually in the cold of La Jolla Shores.

  Details on my share of the trust were there, but money is not what interests me—despite them splitting their estate down the middle between us, to treat us the same for once. It was when I read the tiny clause entitled Joint Ownership (the one regarding shared assets) that I knew what I needed: the family home to be sold. To put to rest the memories of a childhood rocked by neglect and disappointment, given their insanely demanding careers. After I reached out to Mr. Decker, to see whether he could draw up that paperwork, he said you rejected the idea—effectively blocked it, per the joint ownership clause. I can guess what your reasons are, but think about mine, please. Let me put to bed the reminder that I’ll never get to repair the hurts I inflicted as a pissy teenager—none of us will. Can you do that for me? You’ll say the home means too much, especially now that they’ve passed, but I’m ready for everything to go away. You owe me that much after what you did to them. What you did to all of us. You do not deserve to decide anything anymore. You don’t deserve anything from them.