LITMIR.BIZ

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not the point. Find her. Get her back."

      "It may not be that easy," Browning admits before revealing that Creston is not the only one who wants his wife. "She's supposed to have killed a cop."

      The international line goes dead as Creston analyzes the new data and crunches the numbers.

      "All right. This may not be bad," he is saying as he thinks of the very last time that he saw her: a snivelling wretch on the edge of life following the death of her third child. "I love you. I'll always do the best for you," he said before she was whisked away to be put aboard the company jet. "You'll get help where you are going."

      "Maybe she needs more than you can give her," he tells Browning. "Maybe they'll help her."

      "She was OK when she wuz here," complains Browning, seeing Creston's funding slipping away.

      "And so she ran away?"

      "She's confused, she doesn't know what she's doing or saying, she's kinda lost her mind."

      "Perhaps she needs a psychiatrist?" suggests Creston, then questions himself, What if she recalls too much?"What does she remember?" he asks guardedly.

      "Hard to tell; all she does is pray."

      "So, the chances are they would think that she is a little unstable?"

      "Sir, your wife's a nut. You know that."

      "She's still my wife," Creston insists sharply, then comes to a decision. "Hire someone… a private detective, a pro, money's no object. I want her kept out of jail. Do you understand?"

      "Yep."

      "And I want her found."

      Bliss is still searching, still seeking direction as he prowls the quays and streets of St-Juan-sur-Mer. His manuscript is shrinking daily as he pares off one implausible scene after another while trying to find a point of historical solidity from which to build his ending. His sticking point is that the fortress on the island of Ste. Marguerite, the Fort Royal, wasn't the first prison to house Louis XIV's famous masked prisoner, and neither was it the last.

      The sight of the majestic cliff-top building rising out of the Mediterranean stops Bliss as dawn arrives with a crimson slash across the horizon and the sea shifts from cobalt to azure. "That's what I call impressive," he muses as if the show has been orchestrated just for him.

      The smell of hot bread and croissants draws him from the scene to his favourite boulangerie just off the promenade, and as he sidles through the narrow doorway of the ancient bakery, he's salivating. A blonde-haired woman with her mind on her breakfast nearly butts him as she meets him headfirst in the doorway.

      "Pardonnez-moi," he mumbles, stepping back.

      She glances up momentarily to reply, "Merci."

      If their eyes meet for a nanosecond neither notices, and Bliss is already at the counter silently practising his order, Deux croissants, s'il vous plait, before he feels a tingle of unease.

      "Bonjour, monsieur," calls Marie, the baker's little wife, her beaming grin barely making it over the mounds of warm bread and pastries.

      "Bonjour…" he begins, though stops abruptly when he finds his gaze locked onto the spiralling coils of a pain aux raisins, his mind spinning as he thinks of the woman.

      "Monsieur?" queries the rotund woman with a smile, but he's stuck in the swirling coils of the sticky pastry, trying to fathom who she was.

      "And how is zhe writing, monsieur?"

      Around and around goes his mind — she must be a local, just a familiar face. Then he stops and catches up to Marie. Disastrous; terrible; feel like giving up. The words are there but they won't take shape amid his confusion, then a prod from behind jump-starts him.

      "Sorry. Very good, thanks, coming along nicely."

      Marie smiles in relief as she takes his order and adds a complementary shortbread in celebration of his apparent success. "It must be very nice to be famous, is it not?" she continues chattily, happy to practise her English.

      "I am not famous," he protests, but she stops him with a floury hand.

      "Here, everyone, they say to me, ‘How is zhe famous number one English writer today?' And I say, ‘He is very good.'" The she leans in closely to add. "But I know zhat you are also zhe detective who finds zhe secret of l'homme au masque de fer."

      "The Man in the Iron Mask," murmurs Bliss as he sits on the quay wall eating breakfast, but his mind is still on the woman in the baker's doorway as he looks ahead at the infamous island through a forest of yacht masts.

      The flotilla of million-dollar boats, neglected since September, bobs idly in the lazy water of the harbour. It is a nautical ghost town. Most of the crews have switched uniforms and now serve the same well-heeled masters, this time as lift operators and chalet girls in the alpine ski resorts, although many of the flashier yachts and their owners have followed the sun to the Caribbean or Seychelles.

      Thoughts of the woman burn like a slow fuse as Bliss wanders the deserted quays once he's finished eating. "For Sale" signs occasionally pull him up and he muses on the possibility of buying something modest and escaping completely, but he knows that even modesty comes at a premium here. And he's well aware that most of the owners are simply trying to rid themselves of an expensive toy before they are drawn back by the arrival of spring.

      "Just one more year, get our money's worth," they'll convince themselves as they begrudgingly pay for a refit and paint job before hiring a crew.

      Bliss scans the boats hoping to glimpse the woman, thinking she could be a crew member, but there are no blondes today. Blondes are the creatures of summer: northern European crew members and ditzy starlets on the make.

      It is winter and the olive-skinned locals have taken back their town, though Bliss sees few of them working. Most of the dark-haired, dark-eyed men and women sit around in the few bars that still bother to open and wait for spring. Their euphoria following the departure of the summer vacationers has waned since the realization that the visitors took off with the money. And with most of the restaurants and clubs closed for the season, and stores cut back to a minimum, there won't be a lot of joy until the conferences and festivals begin. Then, by the end of May, when the International Film Festival in Cannes lights up the whole coast, everyone will paint on smiles, ready for the sun. Christmas comes in August on the Côte d'Azur, when the stores will be laden with glitz and trash and filled with wallet-happy holidaymakers determined to wear the lustre off their credit cards. Sleep finally catches up with Bliss on a quayside bench. Daisy finds him two hours later.

      "Where you been?" she demands, angrily poking him awake. "I look everywhere."

      "Sorry, Daisy."

      "Why you no love me?"

      How many times has she asked? How many times has he wanted to say, I do, in a way, but there is someone burnt so indelibly in my heart that I can't escape.

      "Because she's dead…" he begins angrily, then stops himself and softens as he explains. "There's someone else, Daisy, but she died. I tried to save her, but I couldn't, and she took my heart with her to her grave."

      The news hits Daisy harshly and she stands with a deeply furrowed brow as she tries to process the information.

      "Someone else?" she questions vaguely after a few moments.

      "But she's dead," he reminds her, though knows that won't be enough, that it isn't enough for him either.

      "Oh, Daavid. Zhat is terrible," says Daisy, sitting beside him. "But why you not tell me?"

      Bliss shrugs. He knows how unfair it would be to say to a woman, As much as I want to be with you, it is only because my one true love is not here.

      "I've tried counselling, therapy, self-talk…" Welling tears stop him as he replays memories neither coloured nor faded by time, perfect memories of a perfect relationship — just a few weeks of

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