The paris widow, p.1
The Paris Widow, page 1
Praise for the novels of Kimberly Belle
“Riveting suspense, truly surprising revelations, and silky smooth writing make this one unmissable!”
—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Never Have I Ever
“An enthralling plot with compelling characters that make it impossible to pull yourself from the page. Belle has hit another one out of the park!”
—Liv Constantine, internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish
“Belle explores the shocking depths people will go to keep their secrets buried in her latest slow-burn thriller before building to an explosive and unexpected finale. A must-read!”
—Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of She’s Not Sorry
“Absolutely superb. Kimberly Belle is the queen of domestic suspense.”
—Cristina Alger, New York Times bestselling author of Girls Like Us
“A spellbinding tale of lies and deceit that unfolds piece by devastating piece.”
—Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
“Masterfully written... Belle has outdone herself with this thrilling and emotionally complex tale.”
—Jennifer Hillier, bestselling author of Jar of Hearts
“Not even the most astute suspense fan will see what’s coming until the final, jaw-dropping twist. Five breathtaking stars!”
—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of Everyone Is Watching
“The suspense builds rapidly... A compelling adventure.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A surprising and fast-paced read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With plot twists around every corner, Belle isn’t afraid to keep her readers guessing until the very last page.”
—Booklist
The Paris Widow
Kimberly Belle
To Bella.
This one’s all for you.
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Author’s Note
Prologue
Nice, France
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.
—Oscar Wilde
At Nice’s Côte d’Azur Airport, the pretty woman coming down the Jetway looked like every other bleary-eyed traveler. Rumpled T-shirt over jeans with an indeterminate stain on the right thigh, hair shoved into a messy ponytail mussed from the headrest. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder, weighed down with items that weren’t technically hers but looked like they could be. She’d sorted through them on the seven-hour flight, just long enough to make the contents feel familiar.
“Don’t lose it,” the Turkish man said when he hung it on her arm, and she hadn’t.
The Jetway dumped her into the terminal, and she trailed behind a family of five, past gates stretched out like spider legs, along the wall of windows offering a blinding view of the sparkling Mediterranean, a turquoise so bright it burned her eyes. The backpack bounced against her shoulder bone, and her heart gave a quiet little jingle.
She made it through passport control without issue, thanks to her careful selection of the agent behind the glass. A man, first and foremost. Not too old or too young, not too handsome. A five to her solid eight—or so she’d been told by more than one man. This one must have agreed, because he stamped her passport with an appreciative nod. Frenchmen were like that. One smile from a woman out of their league, and they melted like a cream-filled bonbon.
She thanked him and slid her passport into her pocket.
In it were stamps to every country in Europe and the Americas, from her crisscrosses over every continent including Antarctica, from her detours to bask on the famous beaches of Asia, Australia, the South Seas. More than once, she’d had to renew the booklet long before it expired because she’d run out of empty spots for customs agents to stamp. She was particularly proud of that, and of how she could look any way you wanted her to look, be anyone you needed her to be. Today she was playing the role of American Tourist On A Budget.
At baggage claim, she slid the backpack down an aching shoulder and checked the time on her cell. Just under six hours for this little errand, plenty of time, assuming she didn’t hit any unexpected roadblocks. If she didn’t get held up at customs, if the taxi line wasn’t too long, if traffic on the A8 wasn’t too awful, which it would be because getting in and out of Monte Carlo was always a nightmare at this time of year. If if if. If she missed the flight to London, she was screwed.
A buzzer sounded, and the baggage carousel rumbled to a slow spin.
At least she didn’t look any more miserable than the people milling around her, their faces long with jet lag. She caught snippets of conversation in foreign tongues, German, Italian, Arabic, French, and she didn’t need a translator to know they were bitching about the wait. The French were never in a hurry, and they were always striking about something. She wondered what it could be this time.
Thirty-eight eternal minutes later, the carousel spit out her suitcase. She hauled it from the band with a grunt, plopped the heavy backpack on top and followed the stream of tourists to the exit.
Walk with purpose. Look the customs agent in the eye. Smile, the fleeting kind with your lips closed, not too big or too cocky. Act breezy like you’ve got nothing to prove or to hide. By now she knew all the tricks.
The customs agent she was paired with was much too young for her liking, his limbs still lanky with the leftovers of puberty, which meant he had something to prove to the cluster of more senior agents lingering behind him. She ignored their watchful gazes, taking in his shiny forehead, the way it was dotted with pimples, and dammit, he was going to be a problem.
He held up a hand, the universal sign for halt. “Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?”
Her fingers curled around the suitcase handle, clamping down. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I don’t speak French.”
That part was the truth, at least. She didn’t speak it—at least, not well and not unless she absolutely had to. And her rudimentary French wasn’t necessary just yet.
But she understood him well enough, and she definitely knew that last word. He was asking if she had something to declare.
The agent gestured to her suitcase. “Please, may I take a look in your luggage?” His English was heavy with accent, his lips slick with spit, but at least he was polite about it.
She gave a pointed look at the exit a few feet away. On the other side of the motion-activated doors, a line of people leaned against a glass-and-steel railing, fists full of balloons and colorful bouquets. With her free hand, she wriggled her fingers in a wave, even though she didn’t know a single one of them.
She looked back at the agent with another smile. “Is that really necessary? My flight was delayed, and I’m kind of in a hurry. My friends out there have been waiting for hours.”
Calm. Reasonable. Not breaking the slightest sweat.
The skin of his forehead creased in a frown. “This means you have nothing to declare?”
“Only that a saleslady lied to my face about a dress I bought being wrinkle resistant.”
She laughed, but the agent’s face remained as stony as ever.
He beckoned her toward an area behind him, a short hallway lined with metal tables. “S’il vous plaît. The second table.”
Still, she didn’t move. The doors slid open, and she flung another glance at the people lined up outside. So close, yet so far.
As if he could read her mind, the agent took a calculated step to his left, standing between her and the exit. He swept an insistent arm through the air, giving her little choice. The cluster of agents were paying more attention now.
She huffed a sigh. Straightened her shoulders and gave her bag a hard tug. “Okay, but fair warning. I’m on the tail end of a three-week vacation here, which means everything in my suitcase is basically a giant pile of dirty laundry.”
Again, the truth. Miami to Atlanta to LA to Tokyo to Dubai to Nice, a blur of endless hours with crummy movies and soggy airplane food, of loud, smelly men who drank vodka for breakfast, of kids marching up and down the aisles while everybody else was trying to sleep. What she was wearing was the cleanest thing she had left, and she was still thousands of miles from home.
She let go of the handle, and the suitcase spun and wobbled, whacking the metal leg of
She stood with crossed arms and watched him spread her suitcase open on the table. She wasn’t lying about the laundry or that stupid dress, which currently looked like a crumpled paper bag. He picked through her dirty jeans and rumpled T-shirts, rifled through blouses and skirts. When he got to the wad of dirty underwear, he clapped the suitcase shut.
“See?” she said. “Just a bunch of dirty clothes.”
“And your other bag?”
The backpack dangling from her shoulder, an ugly Tumi knockoff. Her stomach dropped, but she made sure to hold his gaze.
“Nothing in here, either. No meat, no cheese, no forgotten fruit. I promise.”
She’d done that once, let an old apple sink to the bottom of her bag for a hyped-up beagle to sniff out, and she’d paid for it with a forty-five-minute wait at a scorching Chilean airport. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.
“Madame, please. Do not make me ask you again.”
The little shit really said it. He really called her madame. This kid who was barely out of high school was making her feel old and decrepit, while in the same breath speaking to her like she was a child. His words were as infuriating as they were alarming. She hooked a thumb under the backpack’s strap, but she didn’t let it go.
And yet what choice did she have? She couldn’t run, not with those senior agents watching. Not with this pubescent kid and his long grasshopper limbs. He’d catch her in a hot second.
She told herself there was nothing to find. That’s what the Turkish man had promised her with a wink and a smile, that nobody would ever know. He swore she’d cruise right on through customs. And she had, many, many times.
As she slid the backpack from her arm with another dramatic sigh, she hoped like hell he wasn’t lying. “Please hurry.”
The agent took the bag from her fingers and emptied it out on the table. He took out the paperback and crinkled magazines, the half-eaten bag of nuts with the Japanese label, the wallet and the zippered pouch stuffed with well-used cosmetics that had never once touched her face. He lined the items up, one after the other, until the contents formed a long, neat row on the shiny metal surface. The backpack hung in his hand, deflated and empty.
She lifted a brow: See?
But then he did something she wasn’t expecting. He turned the backpack upside down, just...upended the thing in the air. Crumbs rained onto the table. A faded receipt fluttered to the ground.
And there it was, a dull but discernible scraping sound, a sudden weight tugging at the muscles in his arm, like something inside the backpack shifted.
But nothing else fell out. There were no internal pockets.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” With a clanging heart, she pointed to the stuff on the table. “Can I put that back now? I really have to go.”
The agent stared at her through a long, weighted silence, like a held breath.
Hers.
He slapped the backpack to the table, and she cringed when he shoved a hand in deep, all the way up to his elbow. He felt around the sides and the bottom, sweeping his fingers around the cheap polyester lining. She saw when he made contact with the source of the noise by the way his face changed.
The muscles in her stomach tightened. “Excuse me. This is ridiculous. Give it back.”
The agent didn’t let go of the backpack. He reached in his other hand, and now there was another terrifying sound—of fabric, being ripped apart at the seams.
“Hey,” she said, lunging for the backpack.
He twisted, blocking her with his body.
A few breathless seconds later he pulled it out, a small, flat object that had been sewn into the backpack lining. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Almost like he’d been looking for it.
“What is this?” he said, holding it in the air between them.
“That’s a book.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it wasn’t just any book. It was a gold-illuminated manuscript by a revered fourteenth-century Persian poet, one of the earliest copies from the estate of an Islamic art collector who died in Germany last year. Like most of the items in his collection, this one did not technically belong to him.
“I can see it’s a book. Where did you get it?”
Her face went hot, and she had to steady herself on the metal table—the same one he was settling the book gently on top of. He turned the gold-leafed paper with careful fingers, and her mind whirled. Should she plead jet lag? Cry or pretend to faint?
“I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
This, finally, was the truth. Today was the first time she’d seen the book with her own eyes.
The agent looked up from the Arabic symbols on the page, and she didn’t miss the gotcha gleam in his eyes. The way his shiny forehead had gone even shinier now, a million new pinpricks of satisfied sweat. His gaze flitted over her shoulder, and she understood the gesture perfectly.
He was summoning backup.
She was wondering about French prison conditions.
His smile was like ice water on her skin. “Madame, I must insist you come with me.”
One
Stella
Paris
I grab Adam’s hand and tug him hard to the left, dragging my husband into a somewhat sketchy Parisian alleyway. Smooth beige limestone stretches up on either side of us, darker at the bottom with grime from passing bikes and cars—not that many could fit through here at one time. The alley is no wider than a one-way street.
Adam falls into step behind me. There are no sidewalks here, just a narrow street with a bend up ahead and tall buildings rising on both sides, and we stick close to the walls just in case. We’ve been dodging Parisian traffic long enough to know that cars in this city don’t stop.
I pause to point to a pile of brown goo wedged in cobblestones. It’s late June, and smells of the city summer roll on a light breeze: baked bread, geraniums bursting into bloom, heated tarmac, dog poop.
“Don’t step in that.”
Adam’s sole misses it by half an inch, but he doesn’t complain about the close call or the sketchy alleyway, and he doesn’t bother mentioning the many cafés and restaurants we passed along the way. When it comes to food, I like things that are off the beaten path.
“I just hope it’s still here,” I say, even though I’ve already prepared him for the possibility it might not be. My husband loves a good plan. He likes beginning every morning with a mental run-through of the day’s agenda, one that leaves little room for spontaneity. His calendar is a color-coded work of art. He does best when I give him advance notice of any deviations.
But it’s not like I could call ahead for a reservation. The last time I was here was ages ago, and I don’t remember the restaurant’s name or the exact address, only the general location. There’s a very real possibility the restaurant no longer exists.
“It better be, because I was promised food so good that it’ll make me fall to the ground.”
A painfully chic Parisian I once knew told me that about this place, and I didn’t understand her zeal until she made me try the galette trois fromages and I almost died. Falling to the ground is a Frenchism for faint, and my friend was right. That first bite was practically orgasmic.
Up ahead, a motorcycle comes squealing around the corner, a dark figure in head-to-toe black gunning the engine in our direction. We press ourselves to the wall and wait for him to whiz by, close enough to stir my clothes and hair. Adam’s fingers wrap around mine tight like a glove.
“How much farther?” he says once the growling engine has faded. His dark shades, the ones he bought at a junky tourist shop in Portofino, have slid down his nose. He looks at me over the brim. “I’m starving.”
I grin and tug him onward. “Almost there. And you’re always starving.”
My husband’s endless appetite is one of the quirks I love about him, along with his knobby fingers and wonky pinkie toes, his habit of talking to himself in the car and in the shower, and that look he gets on his face when he’s haggling for a precious antique: victory mixed with boyish wonder. These past few days in Paris, we’ve bounced from café to brocante to boulangerie to marché aux puces to crêperie all day long, with an occasional peek at the Seine or the Eiffel Tower in between—all of which was fine by me. I’ve seen all the sights anyway, multiple times.
