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

his baccalauréat at a French-English bilingual school in Paris and earned an advanced degree at the requisite elite grande école , he traveled to London and New York for three years to further perfect his English. When he returned, he chose to become a high-level civil servant.
    Thierry’s subsequent fluency in English, French, and Arabic, his prestigious education and training with the French national police, landed him in an elite division of the police. He was part of the Groupe de Sécurité de la Présidence de la République, the unit that had direct access to the Élysée Palace and protected the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy. And he usually accompanied the prime minister and the minister of interior on their trips to English-speaking countries. His father had arranged for him a prestigious office post as head of the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA, where he would have delegated fieldwork to agents. He preferred to be in the field.
    Since he had insisted on living in Paris and also refused to pursue the decidedly lucrative and discreet family professions of law and business, for the sake of the family’s standing, his father requested that he at the very least keep up an apartment in the bon chic, bon genre , or “bcbg” as it was commonly called, sixteenth arrondissement. His father had had after all a membership at an exclusive, but well hidden club on the very top floor of a building overlooking the Avenue des Champs-Élysées where wealthy conservatives dined, played board games, and met their mistresses. Bernal and Anne Gasquet lived in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris. He couldn’t have his son living some bourgeois bohemian lifestyle in the ‘hot property’ sixth arrondissement. He wanted him to settle down with a wife and children in a respectable Paris neighborhood.
    Thierry compromised only because he had upended his father’s other plans for his life. He purchased a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the Seine at 24 Quai de Bethune on the Ile St. Louis. It was a renovated sandstone-colored building where the former French president Georges Pompidou lived from 1969-1971. Given its presidential connections, it was respectable enough for his father. From his terrace he could see Notre Dame, the Institut du Monde Arab, and the celebrated restaurant La Tour d’Argent. While he lived in the heart of Paris, the views from the apartment represented the various points of contact that had shaped his worldview. “Your room is ready,” he informed the American professor.
    * * *
    Havilah looked over her sunglasses at Thierry Gasquet. His tall, lean but not lanky figure cut a long shadow over the chair next to hers. An hour in the sun at the crime scene had further bronzed his skin.
    “The room met with your approval I take it?”
    The sun felt warm. She had eaten one of the best salades niçoise of her life at this little Provençal hotel built on Cassis’s white rocks. The Badoit went down smoothly. She had had her brief respite. This is no vacation, Havilah. Kit is dead .
    She raised herself from the reclining poolside chair. Havilah hoped the room had a bathtub. She knew a workout would have helped to clear her head, but she was too wound up for it to be relaxing. A nap would have to do. She needed to be on her A-Game when she rendezvous’ed with Laurent. Having figured out a way to get into Kit’s apartment, she had to shake Thierry Gasquet loose. That task would now be more difficult.
    “I think you will find your accommodations more than suitable, Havilah.”
    New York, NY, Monday, June 21 st
    MonaLisa Caren eased out of bed at 5 a.m. Monday morning. She quickly showered and had a breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice with calcium and vitamin D. At 48 years old, she knew she was a prime candidate for osteoporosis, so she consumed calcium-laden foods with a vengeance. She thought about her good-natured, humped-back