The Collector of Dying Breaths Read Online Free PDF

grandmother in the photographs of when she was young. Lovely with almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones, the very essence of chic. Even as an older woman, Grand-mère was a bit of a flirt in that utterly charming way French women had. Jac remembered being at the beach in the South of France with her grandmother and Robbie when a gentleman—
    Her cousin Luc was talking to her. Jac came out of her reverie and asked him to repeat himself.
    “We don’t want you to feel obligated to the House of L’Etoile. If you want to sell us your shares of the company, we’ve discussed it and we would be interested.”
    “I’m not sure how I want to arrange my life right now,” she said. And she wasn’t. In New York she had an apartment and a successful career as a mythologist with a cable show that examined the origins of myths. It was on hiatus now, and she had until June to decide whether or not to sign another contract. In Paris she had this house and the family business. She’d spent all her time off this year with Robbie, being a full-time perfumer for the first time in her life, and she’d loved it. But how much of that feeling came from working with Robbie?
    “I don’t want to sell my shares.” She shook her head. That would be akin to voluntarily amputating a limb.
    “We’re glad about that,” Luc said warmly. “We don’t think that would be the right direction for the company.”
    “Neither did your brother,” the lawyer interjected. “Robbie’s wish was that you take a leave of absence from your job in New York and run L’Etoile with your cousins for at least two years.”
    It was like Robbie to advise.
    “We can discuss having an office in New York if you preferred to work from the States,” George suggested.
    Jac had rarely seen her cousins in the last twenty years until recently because she’d spent so little time in France. And now she was surprised how easy it was to be with them. They had the classic L’Etoile family features—mahogany hair, aquiline nose, light-green eyes—that reminded her of her father, her grandfather and her brother.
    “Robbie hoped you might all merge the running of both perfume companies,” the lawyer said. “He outlined a scenario that he thought would work.”
    Jac nodded. It made sense. “I like that idea. While our grandfathers might have had their problems, we don’t.” She looked at her cousins. “Your fragrances are wonderful, and Luna seems to be well run. It would be a much stronger company if both halves were reunited.”
    For the next hour they discussed Robbie’s suggestions about how the merger might be financially arranged. Jac thought her brother would be pleased by the solutions they chose.
    She felt an odd peacefulness. A cessation from the grief. Almost as if the last week and a half had been a bad dream and Robbie was just in the workshop and about to join them any moment. Once she’d even turned around, thinking she heard his footsteps, but there was, of course, no one there.
    At four o’clock one meeting ended and another began. Jac greeted Detective Marcher and ushered him into the L’Etoile workshop. The detective looked tired, and Jac offered him coffee.
    While she waited for the water to boil, she filled the French press with ground espresso beans. The smell of coffee was always welcome here. It cut through the mélange of scents that hovered in the air. Coffee beans were to a perfumer like the lemon sorbet a gourmand eats between courses or the crackers wine tasters munch between flights. When a nose was building a fragrance, it was important to stop and cleanse the olfactory palate.
    “We have the preliminary results of the autopsy,” Marcher said
    She was surprised. “An autopsy? I hadn’t realized, but of course . . .”
    “I’m sorry. I know how painful this is for you, Jac.”
    “Thank you.” She nodded.
    Marcher’s face seemed to bear an aspect of perpetual melancholy, as if all the years he’d been on the job and all