The Inquisitor's Key Read Online Free PDF

turned toward the line of faces, and a slight, bookish-looking man, forty or so, stepped forward, limping slightly—not one of the Frenchtraits I’d imagined. I extended my hand, and he shook it weakly. “Stefan Beauvoir, Bill Brockton.” Suddenly Stefan took me by the shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks. I’d known that cheek kissing was a common French custom, but in my imagination only men and women greeted one another this way; I’d somehow overlooked the fact that men kissed other men. I preferred the American handshake. Strongly preferred the American handshake.
    Stefan cast a dubious eye on the yellow L.L. Bean duffel I was carrying. “Where is the rest of your baggage?”
    “This is it,” I said. “I didn’t have time to pack. Besides, I didn’t think I’d be staying long.” He shrugged and smiled. It was a slight, cryptic smile, as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s but a bit more coy, as if he enjoyed prolonging my suspense.
    It was lucky my bag was small, because Stefan’s car—a Fiat Punto—was built for midgets. The engine was proportionately tiny, too. A few miles north of the airport, the car slowed to a crawl as the road angled up a narrow valley between rocky hills. When we finally topped out, we’d left the coastal plain for the rolling farmland of southern Provence.
    Miranda kept deflecting my questions, promising to explain everything once we were in Avignon, but with each deflection I found myself growing edgier. Now that my panic about her health had been resolved, I resented being manipulated—tricked and scared into coming—and I hated being kept in the dark. “It’s not a good idea to talk in the car,” Stefan finally interjected when I launched another inquiry. “We might have bugs.”
    “He means it might be bugged,” Miranda explained.
    “I knew what he meant,” I snapped.
    “Ouch,” she said.
    “Sorry,” I grumbled. “I’m tired from the trip—I can never sleep on planes. And somebody tried to barbecue me yesterday. So I’m kinda cranky at the moment.”
    “ Barbecue you?” She sounded slightly concerned but mostly amused.
    “Barbecue,” I repeated. “What’s the French word? Flambé? ” I told them the story, and ended by leaning forward, putting my scorched head between the front seats.
    Miranda rubbed the stubble. “Wow, that’s crispy. I’d say you just used up another one of your nine lives.”
    Stefan took a glance, then looked in the rearview mirror. “Is there any possibility that the barbecue chef—the guy who was shooting at you—followed you to France?”
    The thought had not occurred to me before. “Why? Is someone tailing us?” I turned and looked out the rear window and saw half a dozen cars behind us on the busy highway. How would we know if one of them was following us? “I doubt that the guy shooting at me had any idea who I was. And he certainly wouldn’t have any way of connecting me to you, and to Avignon.” But despite my confident words, Stefan’s question had planted a seed of doubt in my mind, and it was already germinating into anxiety.
    “I’m sure you’re right,” Miranda said. “And I know you’re exhausted. And of course you have a right to know what’s going on here. Please trust us and be patient a little longer. Relax and enjoy the countryside.”
    I tried. But with Stefan’s eyes darting to the mirrors again and again, my jangled nerves refused to settle. “You still seem worried that we’re being followed,” I finally said. “Do you think someone is tailing you ?”
    “Non,” Stefan said curtly.
    “There might have been a car following us in Avignon this morning,” Miranda added. “But Stefan managed to lose it before we got out of the city.”
    Stefan held up a hand for silence. The farther we drove, the louder the silence became.
    An hour after leaving Marseilles, we crossed the Rhône—a beautiful river, almost as lovely as the Tennessee—and then Stefan abruptly whipped off the highway and