Getting Old Is Très Dangereux: A Mystery by Rita Lakin Read Free Book Online Page B

her niece. Jack, wanting to help, stacks the cart with the books Colette hands to him.
    “I’d be happy to change places with you,” he offers Michelle.
    Michelle smiles down at him. “Thank you, but it is not necessary. I am used to rickety ladders all over the world.”
    Colette shakes her head in dismay. “What I never get used to is my controlling aunt who has to do everything herself. Does it make sense that she should climb the ladder, when it’s obvious that a much younger, more agile me should be doing this silly job? And even more preposterous when a very able male like you could do it easier. A handsome man with whom she could be relaxing and having a cocktail instead.”
    Michelle laughs, and with a tingle, Jack remembers how that throaty, sexy sound turned him on years ago.
    “She’s right, you know,” he says.
    Michelle steps down and rearranges the books on the cart to her satisfaction. “I am a businesswoman, and to run a successful business, I make sure I know everything is done exactly the way I want it.”
    Colette shrugs. “And drives her publishers crazy. She doesn’t know how to delegate, even though I am her only assistant and PR person and vice president of her company.”
    Michelle hugs her and says deprecatingly, “
Ma petite
, you exaggerate. Come, let us set up before my eager fans arrive.”
    Colette addresses Jack. “Tell me, how am I to learn the business when all she does is keep secrets from me? Have you ever heard of an author who never lets her closest in command even see her manuscript as she writes it? Not a word said, not a clue. Not even a charming sentence to whet the appetite. All locked up in her laptop and not one word seen until finished.” She points to the small briefcase hanging from Michelle’s shoulders. “And I might add, a laptop that never leaves her side for a moment.”
    Jack doesn’t want to get between these two. He shrugs and takes a wild guess. “Maybe Michelle finds it necessary not to ruin her concentration when she writes.”
    Michelle shifts her shoulder strap and puts her arm through Jack’s. “You see,” she says to Colette, “he understands the author’s need to keep solely in touch with her muse.”
    Colette pouts. “Sometimes I think she should write spy novels. She has the paranoid mind for it.”
    Michelle moves past the book cart and indicates it to Colette. “I am giving over control to you. Right now. You can wheel the cart all by yourself.” They all laugh.
    “And so, after three months of living with the Marais brothers in Ghent, I had enough materialfor this exposé. And now here it is.” Michelle hefts the book. “And here I am. And soon the brothers will be eating jailhouse food. No more
chocolat
for them. Not even their own scandalous marzipan. I thank you very much for attending.”
    Jack, sitting next to Colette in the front row, watches proudly as the small meeting room erupts with applause from the audience.
    The questions begin.
    A voice in back calls out, “How did the brothers not know it was you, madame? You are famous everywhere.”
    Michelle smiles.
“Voilà!”
She waves her bracelet-filled arms. “Not the way I come to them. No jewelry. Poorly bleached hair of an unattractive color. Cheap clothes. A poignant, made-up story which flatters men into revealing their secrets. Nerves of steel. And, last but not least, professional acting lessons.”
    The audience loves her. And the questions continue on. Colette whispers to Jack, “This happens everywhere we go. If she let them, they’d keep her here for hours.”
    Jack surreptitiously looks at his watch.
    Fortunately, Michelle wraps up the Q&A and signing in an hour. As the last fan leaves, Jack attempts to wheel the cart, but this time Colette insists she iscapable of returning the few unsold books back to the book room without his help. Taking it from him, off she goes, calling over her back, “Your dinner is waiting.”
    Michelle admits to starvation and