The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence by Tracy Whiting Read Free Book Online Page A

car and reached for her bag in the back seat. Gasquet nabbed it just out of her reach and then moved quickly to her side of the car. He turned, putting his hand on her elbow and leaned into her ear. She got a faint whiff of something spicy, but floral.
    He whispered discreetly, “You may call me Thierry. We are old friends on vacation together, Havilah. Remember that. I will see about the reservations and then check out your room. Please don’t wander off in search of an out-of-the-way bathroom or talk to strangers.”
    Before she could respond, he guided her into the lobby. He did say ‘rooms’ at least . She exhaled.
    “Don’t go too far, Havilah,” he said over his shoulder.
    “Wouldn’t think of it, Thierry.”
    She had decided to take a stroll by the infinity pool. She took off her shoes and sat down on one of the pool chairs. The view was spectacular. The Mediterranean, the Cassis bay and harbor, the Cap Canaille. They were all there for the taking in. The sun was streaking across the sea, leaving splashes of cerulean and brandeis blue and ultramarine. Cassis was quite warm. The weather was perfect for eating on the hotel’s terraces. Just as she took out her sunglasses, a server appeared.
    “ Voulez-vous quelque chose à boire ?” he asked.
    “ De l’eau pétillante, s’il vous plait .”
    “ Perrier, Badoit, ou San Pellegrino ?”
    “ Un Badoit. Et une salade niçoise, si c’est possible, s’il vous plait .”
    She realized she was famished. She looked at her watch. She knew she was past the bewitching hour when French kitchens closed until dinner. It was 3:15. She hadn’t eaten since the early breakfast of a pain chocolat , orange juice, and a hot chocolate. Crashing from the carbs, adrenaline was the only thing sustaining her. So she gave him her best pretty please smile and a wink for the cause. That always seemed to work with French men. He’d think she was easy, which was also typical of French men. To hell with it. I’m hungry.
    She could overhear Gasquet at the reception. He had asked to see Havilah’s room. The svelte young blonde graciously and coquettishly obliged to escort him there.
    * * *
    As the agent had expected, the professor had reserved herself a junior suite with a private balcony with views that rivaled those by the hotel’s pool. The large bed had a white matelassé coverlet with bed skirt and pillows of the same fabric. The room’s chairs were covered in the whitest muslin. Except for the splashes of color from the silk red, gold, and green pillows, silk damask curtains, and a Persian rug that left parts of the hardwood floor exposed, the room was awash in whites, which made it seem brighter and larger. It was scented with a mix of lavender and vanilla.
    The room flirted with contemporary furnishings while incorporating Orientalist touches. Such was the attention to the minutest of details for certain effects it reminded him of something out of an Alexandre Dumas novel. He then scanned the very contemporary large white-tiled bathroom. Thierry Gasquet liked nineteenth-century French literature. He realized such predilections could be perceived as incongruent with his profession. But those were the only French novels his mother brought with her that first summer when she decided to leave a position as a professor of literature at the Sorbonne to follow his father to the family villa in Essaouira. His father’s father was ill.
    Gasquet was descended from a line of French-Moroccan liaisons. Beautiful, educated French women left France to follow dark, handsome, educated men from well-to-do Roman Catholic Moroccan families to the white-walled North African province on the Atlantic coast. It began with a promising French-Moroccan doctor, his great grandfather, and ended with a high financier— his father.
    The family moved back and forth between these two worlds. The children were without fail born and educated in France. Much to his father’s chagrin, after Thierry completed