Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender
Too shocked to speak, I turned back to Hannah, trying to think of a way to get out of this.
“There must be something better,” she said. “How about that beige one?”
That was too much for the attendant. “Actually, I’m so sorry. We are closing.”
We all turned to look at her. She didn’t look sorry, for the record.
Hannah scowled. “It’s just one more dress.”
The girl shrugged, palms up. “No time.”
“Hello, we’re wearing these to Versailles,” Hannah said. “Colette’s supposed to go naked?”
The woman blinked. I don’t think she knew what the word naked meant.
I touched Hannah’s arm. “Maybe I can come back … it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal,” Hannah said hotly. “You can’t just show up to an embassy party in a burlap sack.”
Bristling, I wanted to tell her I wasn’t in the habit of showing up anywhere in a burlap sack. But I swallowed the words and cast an apologetic look at the attendant. “I’ll figure something out.”
I saw in her eyes that we were united in our disdain for Hannah’s hissy fit. “If you call, you can make an appointment for Wednesday or Thursday.”
“See?” I said. “I’ll come back.” It didn’t save me from paying 350 euros, but it bought me a little time. Suddenly, I remembered Mathilde’s offer of a dress, and I felt a wave of relief. Maybe I could ask Jules tomorrow.
Hannah pulled out her well-worn Amex and paid for her own gown. As she folded the receipt and slipped it into her red patent-leather shoulder bag, she turned to me. “You know, you can be very passive sometimes. You really need to learn to stand up for yourself, Colette.”
I was no expert on Parisian geography, but I knew the taxi was heading away from our hotel, not toward it. Not wanting to offend the driver, I leaned over and spoke quietly. “Hannah … do you know where we’re going?”
Her smile was as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s. “Oui, Colette. I know exactly where we’re going.”
But she wasn’t going to share. All right, then.
Finally, we pulled to a stop on a small side street. Hannah paid and then scrambled out as if her seat were on fire.
This neighborhood was different from Saint-Germain — the boulevards and sidewalks were wider, the buildings were bigger, and the people walking by seemed like they were on their way to work rather than ambling around for the pleasure of it. Pilar and I followed Hannah warily as she led us down the street, looking at the addresses and names of the places we passed.
“There!” she cried, catapulting across the road, dodging traffic. She was headed for a park that occupied a whole block. Pilar and I hung back until the traffic light changed, and then we went after her.
A green metal fence surrounded the park, and in the center was a domed structure that looked like a small museum or church. There was a playground and some benches and a big old tree stump. But still nothing that would indicate why we’d come there.
As Hannah looked at me, her face lit up. And then someone’s hands were over my eyes.
“Guess who?”
I was momentarily flustered by the sound of Armand’s voice, and even more flustered when he took his hands away and I found myself on the receiving end of Hannah’s most toxic glare.
But before Armand could see, her expression changed into one that was sweet and charming. “Bonjour,” she said, positioning herself between us.
He kissed her knuckles, and she was instantly under his spell.
“Hey, Armand,” Pilar said, sounding slightly bored.
“Bonjour, Pilar,” he said, and then turning to me, “Bonjour, Colette.” Those liquid-gold eyes flashed.
I gave him a curt nod and turned to Peely. “Want to walk around?”
While Hannah and Armand wandered off, hands lightly linked, Peely and I went up to the big structure. Up close, it resembled a medieval monastery, with a long center corridor bordered by stone arches. The front had a big paragraph of French writing on it.
“La Chapelle Expiatoire,” Pilar read.
“Chapel of …”
“Expiatoire means atonement,” Pilar said. Then, seeing my face, she gave a good-natured huff. “Don’t look so surprised, please. We played Sauguet’s Symphonie Expiatoire at music camp last year. But that was about World War II. This is way older than that.”
We studied the plaque and tried to work out what it said. The words I could understand seemed to suggest that this had been a burial place … but then it said something about “transférées” to Saint-Denis. When I saw the words Marie-Antoinette, my heart jumped.
I stumbled backward. Wait. Was this the Madeleine Cemetery that Jules had mentioned?
I let out a long exhale, and my breath came out in a tiny cloud of fog. I suddenly wished I was back at the hotel with the rest of our group. Anywhere, actually, but right there.
“Can we go sit down?” I asked, my voice rising.
Pilar shrugged and followed me toward a metal bench near the exit. “Do you think the lovebirds will be back soon?”
“What’s Hannah expecting from Armand?” I asked. “Does she think he’s really serious?”
“He seems pretty serious to me,” Pilar said. “And Hannah’s never been more serious about anything in her life.”
I didn’t want to come out and say that I thought Armand was just toying with her. “But we’re here for only a week.”
Peely shrugged. “Hannah could easily talk her parents into sending her to a boarding school in Paris.”
Hannah was one of the smartest people I knew. Would she really throw her life into total turmoil for a boy who’d whispered sweet nothings to her a few times?
“I’ve been meaning to tell you …” Pilar faltered. “I saw you and Armand the other night.”
“That wasn’t what it looked like,” I said.
“Colette, I might be sort of dumb, but I’m not blind, okay? I can see what goes on in front of my face. And I’m just saying … be careful.”
I thought about telling her she wasn’t dumb, but that seemed beside the point. “I know. I’m not looking to make Hannah angry.”
Pilar’s eyebrows went up. “Angry wouldn’t even begin to cover it. If Hannah thinks you’re trying to move in on him, you’ll be the one looking for boarding schools five thousand miles away.”
The air was quiet around us, except for the sounds of cars driving by on the roads that bordered the park.
“Hannah’s my friend,” I said at last. “I would never do anything to hurt her. And I’m sure she feels the same way about me.”
Pilar tried to turn away before her face betrayed her thoughts, but I caught the way her lips flattened into a hard, doubtful line.
We both knew what she was thinking — that Hannah would hurt me in a heartbeat if it came down to it. Especially if it had anything to do with Armand.
After a little while, Hannah and Armand appeared. Their hands were clasped, and he looked smug. Hannah was practically skipping.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
We found a taxi stand, and Armand pointed out his apartment — it had windows looking over the park. When a cab stopped for us, Hannah and Pilar climbed in.
“Oh, Colette,” Armand said. “One moment, s’il vous plaît.”
We all stared at him.
“Come here,” he said.
I didn’t want to go, but it was like an order. I slowly walked over to him.
He smiled down at me.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” I said, my voice low.
“Don’t worry about Hannah.” His white teeth looked almost blue in the cool light. “I spent a whole hour talking to her just so I could spend one minute with you.”
My heart was racing. “Why would you say that?” I asked, not daring to glance back at the taxi. “I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why do you think I’m special?”
Despite the cold, the gleam in his eye made
“Laclay?” I asked. “Who’s that?”
“Colette!” Hannah’s voice was cold and rigid. “The meter’s running.”
I turned back to Armand. “I’m going now.”
“You and I will have a chance to talk soon.”
“I doubt it.” I said, already stressed about Hannah.
“Colette, we’re going to leave without you!” she snapped.
“You should go.” Armand reached over to straighten the collar of my jacket, and I yanked away.
His laugh roared behind me as I hurried to the waiting taxi and climbed in.
“Au revoir, mesdemoiselles!” he called.
Hannah stared icily at the back of the seat in front of her.
“What did he want?” Pilar asked.
My mind raced for something, anything, that would explain Armand’s actions.
“Yes, Colette, tell us,” Hannah said through her teeth. “What did he want?”
“It’s … a surprise,” I said. “I can’t tell you.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“All right, fine,” I said. “He wanted to know what size you wear. For a present.”
That threw her off. She sat back, trying to look angry but unable to conceal her curiosity. “What do you think he’s going to get me?”
“I told you,” I said. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. I’ve already said too much.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “Wait, did you tell him size two or zero?”
“Zero,” I said.
“Okay.” She looked relieved — but not as relieved as I felt that she’d bought my lie.
WE ATE DINNER with the rest of the group at the hotel café. Hannah treated me exactly like usual — at least, that was what I tried to tell myself. Afterward, she and Pilar got into the elevator, and I hung back, trying to think of an excuse to take the stairs.
“Hey, Colette, hang on!”
I turned to see Audrey and Brynn coming up behind me.
“Oops, sorry,” Hannah said, letting the elevator doors slide shut.
“Hi,” I said, hoping they hadn’t noticed Hannah would have had plenty of time to hold the elevator.
“Are you busy tomorrow morning?” Audrey asked.
“Um … just with whatever’s on the itinerary.”
Audrey nodded. “We’re going to the Conciergerie at ten. But before that? Are you busy?”
Only a person like Audrey could make plans before ten in the morning and expect other people to have plans, too. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be … eating?”
“I want to show you something.” Her face was lit up, like she had a big secret. “Will you meet me in the lobby at eight thirty?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Great!” She grinned, and then she and Brynn turned as the elevator returned with a soft ding.
They held the door for me, and I shook my head. “I hate elevators,” I said. “I’m claustrophobic.”
“Oh, okay,” Audrey said. “See you in the morning.”
When they were gone, I stood there for a moment, wondering what had made me spit out one of my deepest secrets to people who were basically strangers, when in eight months I’d never found the right moment to say it aloud to Hannah and Peely.
The next morning, I went down for breakfast at eight and found Audrey already there. Because there was no way not to, I joined her at her little table, and we ate our chocolate croissants together.
“What am I going to do without French food?” she asked, taking a big bite of the pastry.
“I wonder if you could melt a Hershey’s Kiss on a regular croissant,” I said.
“Blasphemy!” Audrey laughed. “Not the same at all.”
She refused to say a word about the mysterious place she wanted to take me, even when we were on our way there. All she would tell me was that she’d spotted it the day before, when the group was walking back to the hotel.
We crossed the river and walked through the streets near Notre Dame, where the buildings were elaborately trimmed with stone and iron scrollwork.
“It’s unbelievable,” I said, gazing up at a doorway adorned with carvings of lions. “It’s like somebody decided to take the time to make every single part beautiful.”
“They were artisans,” Audrey said. “They’d rather not build something at all than make it ugly.”
She snapped photos and occasionally took out a small brown notebook and made a note or a sketch.
“Ugh,” I said. “I keep forgetting to send my mother a postcard! She’s going to kill me.”
“Get one now,” Audrey said. “You can buy a stamp at the hotel and mail it this afternoon.”
So we stopped at a tiny storefront and I combed through the racks of postcards. I found one for Mom that was a photo of Notre Dame. Then I found one with a picture of the Paris city skyline for my father, figuring I could write something clever on it about New York.
“Oh, look,” Audrey said, pulling a card off the rack. “Wow.”
I leaned in to see the picture and then did a double take.
It was a painting of a woman sitting on a bench by a little pond … but not just any woman.
It was me.
Or rather, it was the not-me me I kept seeing in place of my own reflection. The same light hair, done up in an elaborate twist and covered in powder. The same full lips and wide blue eyes.
“It’s crazy,” Audrey said. “She looks just like you. Do you see it?”
I couldn’t answer.
I turned the card over to read the caption, which was written in French and English:
ONE OF THE MANY PORTRAITS PRESERVED AT THE ROYAL PALACE AT VERSAILLES: LA DUCHESSE, PAINTED BY DIEGO ROSTANO, CIRCA 1786.
I remembered the old lady back at Versailles taking my photo and saying I was the girl from the picture. This must have been the picture she meant. So I wasn’t just inventing this woman, dreaming her up. She was … or had been … real. Alive. Long ago.
“Are you going to buy it?” Audrey asked.
I forced a smile and slid the card back into its slot. “No,” I said. “I don’t need any more postcards.”
I don’t need that woman staring at me from my carry-on for the rest of the trip, is what I really meant.
We kept walking, my thoughts racing, until finally, Audrey stopped on a street corner. “There it is!” she said, pointing.
I stared at a tile set into the stone wall of a building. It was streaked with lines from centuries of rain, the carving on its surface rounded and softened with age.
But the design was unmistakable:
It was the key. The key with the cornflower in it.
I gasped. My hand automatically went to the neckline of my shirt, which the medallion was tucked behind — but something, a sudden shy feeling, stopped me just short of pulling it out.
“It’s the thing from your necklace!” Grinning, Audrey reached into her bag for her travel journal and opened it, revealing the page on which she’d originally sketched my medallion. Next to it, in pencil, was a sketch of the tile. “We passed by here yesterday and it jumped out at me.”
“What is this building?” I asked, stepping back and looking up at it. It was three stories tall with wrought-iron balconies and a steeply sloping metal roof.
“It looks like they sell camping supplies,” she said, studying the sign hanging down. “But sometimes they have signs saying what they used to be.”
We walked from one edge of the structure to the other but found nothing.
“Let’s go inside and ask,” Audrey said. “It’s nine fifteen, but we can still make it back in time if we hurry.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “I mean, I could always come back —”
“But this is important,” she said, reaching for the door.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I mean … it’s important to you, right?”
“Oh. Well, yeah, k
“So we’ll go in.”
We walked up to the counter.
“Parlez-vous anglais?” Audrey asked.
The clerk, a guy in his late twenties, made an uncertain face. “No so good.”
In his halting English and our halting French, we quickly established that he knew absolutely nothing about the building’s history. Audrey showed him the photographs she’d taken of the tile, and he shook his head.
Another employee, a girl who was apparently bored, came over. The clerk showed her the picture of the key, and they spoke to each other in French. I didn’t understand a single word they said, until I heard the girl say, “Laclay.”
“Excusez-moi,” I said. “Laclay? Who is that?”
The clerk gently turned Audrey’s camera so I could see the screen, and pointed at the image. “La clé,” he said slowly.
“The key,” Audrey said. “Clé means key.”
Suddenly, the female employee’s face brightened. “L’ordre de la Clé!”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“The Order of the Key?” Audrey said.
The girl cast a glance around the empty store, said something to the guy in French, and then beckoned to me and Audrey. “Come.”
A mix of anticipation and uncertainty simmered in my stomach as she led us through a door marked ENTRÉE INTERDITE. We passed through a stockroom and made a left turn. There was an old wooden door tucked behind a pair of bikes, which the girl moved out of the way. She reached for the doorknob and yanked on it, hard, until it opened with a loud screech.
She held up a hand, telling us to wait, and darted away, returning a minute later with a camping flashlight still in its package. She flipped the light on and went through the door.
“Attention!” she called. Be careful. Just inside the door was a rather steep stone stairway.
I hesitated. Already, my heart was beating faster.
Audrey looked at me. “Are you okay? I can go down and see what it is, if you want.”