Filled with alarm, he left the kitchen and raced down the hall. “Lee?” he called out before opening her door.
His gaze fell on the purple dress and shoes laid out neatly on top of the made-up bed. Alongside them were the coat and his mother’s sweater. He groaned as if someone had just planted a fist in his gut.
“She’s gone!”
Philippe was right behind him. “Maybe she went out the front door for a walk.”
“You don’t believe that anymore than I do.”
“I’ll contact the taxi service and find out when she left.”
While Philippe phoned from the bedside table, Raoul picked up one of the shoes she’d worn dancing. As he dangled it by its dainty strap, a certain conversation came back to him in full force.
I feel like Cinderella who got her dance with the Prince.
Except that the enchantment isn’t over yet.
Mon Dieu, how wrong could Raoul have been?
Philippe hung up the receiver. “There’s been no call made from the chalet.”
“She might have gotten a ride with Greta and Franz on their way to mass,” Raoul theorized, but he didn’t believe it.
“We didn’t go this morning.”
At the sound of his housekeeper’s voice, Raoul spun around.
“Franz isn’t feeling well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Greta? Do you know anything about Lee’s disappearance?”
“Nothing.” She turned and went back down the hall, mumbling.
“I’ll phone Roger,” Philippe volunteered. “Maybe she asked for his help.”
“Thanks, but you’d be wasting your time. He would have let me know if she’d tried to use him. It’s evident Lee sneaked out of here on foot. The question is, when did she go?”
“Probably while you were on the phone to your parents.”
“I told them I was bringing her back to the château to meet them,” Raoul muttered.
His mother and father had been more understanding than any son had a right to expect. Touched by Lee’s allegiance to Sophie, and the tragedy that had befallen her family and fiancé, they had urged him to bring her home so they could get acquainted.
He checked his watch. “If she left that long ago she ought to be arriving at Beau Lac any time now.”
“Then let’s fly you to Nyon right away!”
“You’re reading my mind.”
Philippe pulled out his cellphone and punched some numbers. “I’ll alert the guys to have the helicopter ready for us.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE sight of the Tetons had thrilled Lee all her life. But as her rental car rounded a bend in the highway, and she glimpsed those glorious mountains tinted an orange-pink by the setting sun, they brought back such powerful memories of Raoul she was staggered by the pain.
Why did I come this way? She groaned.
During the last month and a half she’d been living in a kind of limbo with her mother’s sister and family. Between their love and a busy schedule guaranteed to keep her distracted, she’d managed to keep her heartache simmering beneath the surface.
After this long, she’d actually thought she was doing better. But one glance at the Grand Teton, reminiscent of the Matterhorn knifing through the thin atmosphere, and her agony came rushing to the fore, raw and unbearable.
She could never live here! There was no way. Lee needed to move to a part of the country where there’d be no possible reminder of Raoul.
During her time with the family she’d talked to her aunt about moving to Sacramento, where there was an opening at a private college for a teacher with her foreign language skills and experience. Though she couldn’t imagine ever being happy again, she had to make a new start somewhere.
After checking into the Mount Moran Inn in Jackson, Wyoming, Raoul got back in his rental car and followed directions to the Greshams’s modest ranchstyle home a mile away. Thanks to Madame Simoness, he’d been given an address.
He got there in time to watch an elderly couple drive away from the empty house in a U-Haul truck. Over the last six weeks he’d badgered them for Lee’s whereabouts. They’d insisted they didn’t know anything about her. But during one of his many phone calls from the château Raoul had found out they’d be vacating the house on the twenty-eighth of August.
That was the news he’d been waiting for.
Knowing the date, he’d made arrangements to leave Switzerland for as long as it took to find Lee and take her back with him. Her disappearance had created a living nightmare for him.
If the headmistress of Beau Lac had been able to give Raoul even one clue where to look for Lee in Montana, he wouldn’t have left a stone unturned tracking her down.
To compound his pain, Sophie and her parents had left Geneva that same weekend as Lee, to go to an undisclosed location. Sophie had remained incommunicado. The last he’d heard, she had married Luciano and had gone on an extended honeymoon.
Without her help, Raoul had been left with no choice but to wait for Lee to show up in Jackson. It had been agony, and it wasn’t over yet.
He got out of the car and walked up to the front porch. There was no Realtor sign or “For Rent” card anywhere. No phone number he could call.
That familiar sinking pit in his stomach was growing. He descended the steps and explored around the back of the house. Beneath a hot noonday sun his gaze took in the property that held so much meaning for her. From tiny baby to a seventeen-year-old, this had been her world, where she’d known happiness with her family.
Mon Dieu- How long did she intend to torture both of them? He knew in his gut she was far from indifferent to him.
Where are you, Lee?
He checked his watch. Two detectives from a local PI firm he’d contacted would be meeting him here in a few minutes. He was having the house put under surveillance to make certain he didn’t miss her.
She had to come back here sometime. Until then, he wasn’t leaving town.
By the time Lee reached Jackson it was dusk. Every motel had a “No Vacancy” sign. As usual the town was filled with tourists taking advantage of the last weekend in August before school started.
Since she’d made reservations at the Mount Moran Inn from her aunt’s house, it didn’t matter when she checked in. While there was still some light, now would be a good time to drive by the house for one last look. She had no desire to go inside and dredge up childhood memories.
Tomorrow she’d ask her attorney to put the house on the market. Then she’d leave for California.
As she drove through Jackson she noted that it had grown some over the last few years. Maybe six or seven thousand people made up the town. But the street where she’d once lived hadn’t changed.
The old ranch-style home came up on the left. She pulled into the driveway and sat there for a while.
Was there anything emptier than a house without people in it? Especially when you’d loved those people and knew you wouldn’t see them till the next life?
Her emptiness grew as her thoughts flicked back to Switzerland and all that she’d left behind.
“Raoul-” His name burst out of her on a sob before they began in earnest. Great heaving sobs that shook her whole body. “Dear God, how am I going to make it through this life without you?”
She buried her face in her hands.
Eventually the tears subsided enough that she could start the car and go back to the inn.
After checking in at Reception, she took the card key and walked down the left hallway to room twenty-five.
“Lee?”
A masculine voice that sounded achingly familiar caused her to drop everything: the card, her purse, the overnight bag.