The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free PDF Page B

she hadn’t forgotten the argument they’d had on the phone three days ago—their most serious to date. She watched her brother, whose presence had filled up the small space. From the smile still on his lips, she knew he wasn’t thinking about the fight any longer. He just looked quietly pleased to see her.
    She waited for him to say more. But like their father, Robbie often preferred to communicate with gestures rather than words. It sometimes frustrated her as much as it had Audrey. Jac glanced over at the marble bench. The apparition was gone. Had Robbie chased Audrey away? She looked back at her brother.
    Jac used to resent that of the two of them, she was merely handsome, while Robbie was beautiful. They had similar features, but his were too refined for a man, and hers, she felt, were slightly too coarse for a woman. Looking at him was like looking into a mysterious mirror and seeing another version of herself. Their androgyny, she thought, made them closer to each other than most brothers and sisters. That and their shared tragedy.
    “I’m surprised you came,” she finally said. Instead of being glad that Robbie was here now, she was resenting all the times he’d left her to do this alone. “Aren’t you the one who always tells me that we shouldn’t commemorate the anniversary of anyone’s death? That you don’t even believe Maman is really dead?”
    “Oh, Jac, of course I believe she’s dead. Of course I do. The mother we had is gone. But what I believe . . . what I know . . . is that her spirit isn’t gone and never will be.”
    “It’s a charming sentiment,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “It must be comforting to have such a life-affirming belief system.”
    For a few seconds, he searched her eyes, trying to communicate something that she couldn’t read. Then Robbie walked over to her, bent down, and gently kissed her on the forehead. “I thought I’d keep you company. It’s always a sad day, isn’t it?”
    Jac closed her eyes. It was a relief to have her brother here. She took his hand and squeezed. It was hard to stay angry at Robbie for long.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    Robbie spoke to her in French, and Jac automatically responded in the same language. Both were bilingual—with an American mother and a French father—but she preferred English, and he, French. For better, but mostly for worse, she was her mother’s daughter, and he was his father’s son.
    “Fine.”
    She’d never told him about hearing their mother’s voice, though for most of her life she’d shared everything else with him. Despite being so different, they’d always been desperately connected, the way children of damaged parents can be.
    Robbie tilted his head again, and Jac saw the doubt in his eyes. He didn’t believe her, but she knew he wasn’t going to press her. It wasn’t her brother’s style to push. He was the patient one. The calm one. The one who never argued.
    Or at least he had been until recently.
    Jac was fourteen and Robbie was eleven when Audrey died. The next year was the lost year, when her delusions had become even more serious and she’d been shuffled from doctor to doctor, first diagnosed as delusional by one, then as schizophrenic by another. Finally, she’d gone to a clinic in Switzerland that did help, and a year later, she emerged almost whole. After that, at fifteen, she’d come to live in America with her mother’s sister and her husband, while Robbie had stayed in Paris with their father. But every summer, brother and sister each traveled to Grasse in the south of France and spent twelve weeks together at their grandmother’s house, where their bonds were renewed.
    Six months ago, their father had been declared incompetent—due to Alzheimer’s disease—and the two of them had inherited the family business. They’d had no idea it was so close to bankruptcy. Robbie had been working on his own line of niche perfumes. Jac wasn’t in France