When Chantal reached the bottom landing, she turned to make the long journey across the marble floor to flick the lobby switch, but her heart stopped at what the half-darkness presented. She sobbed quietly at the fearsome vision before her. Near the switch on the far sidewall, the creaking was explained harshly. Suspended by a rope from the ceiling beam, a woman’s body was rocking from side to side in the breeze of the open window.
Chantal’s knees buckled and she had to hold back a primal scream that begged to be born. It was Brigitte, her housekeeper. The tall, thin, thirty-nine-year-old blond was blue in the face, a hideous and ghastly warped version of her once pretty guise. Her shoes had fallen to the floor, no more than a meter from the tips of her feet. The atmosphere down in the lobby felt like the Arctic to Chantal, almost unbearable, and she could not tarry long before she feared she would lose the use of her legs. Her muscles burned and stiffened from the cold and she felt the sinew taut inside her flesh.
I have to get upstairs! she shouted in her mind. I have to get to the fireplace or I’m going to freeze to death. I’ll just lock myself in and call the police. With all her strength she waddled up the steps, taking them one by one, while Brigitte’s staring dead eyes followed her from her the periphery. Don’t look at her, Chantal! Don’t look at her.
In the distance she could see the cozy, warm drawing room, something that had now become pivotal to her survival. If she could just make it to the fireplace, she only needed to guard one room, instead of trying to search the vast hazardous maze of her huge house. Once she was locked into the drawing room, Chantal calculated, she could summon the authorities and try to pretend she didn’t know about the loss of the diamonds until her husband found out. For now, she had to deal with the loss of her beloved housekeeper and the killer that might still be inside the house. She had to stay alive first and be chastised for bad decisions later. The awful strain on the rope sounded like a recurring breath as she passed along the banister. It made her sick while her teeth jittered from the cold.
A horrible moan ensued from Louise’s little office, one of the spare rooms on the first story. From under the door, a freezing gust of air flowed forth and crept over Chantal’s boots to stalk up her legs. No, don’t open the door, her reasoning urged. You know what is happening. We don’t have time to discover evidence of what you already know, Chantal. Come now. You know. We can feel it. Like a terrible nightmare with feet, you know what is waiting. Just get to the fire.
Subduing the urge to open Louise’s door, Chantal let go of the handle and turned to leave whatever was moaning inside to itself. “Thank God all the lights are on,” she muttered through her clenched jaw, hugging herself as she walked to the welcoming door that led through to the wonderful orange glow of the fire.
Chantal’s eyes widened as she looked ahead. At first, she was not sure if she really saw the door move, but as she approached the room, she noticed that it was visibly closing slowly. Trying to hasten, she held the poker at the ready for whomever was pushing it shut, but she had to get in.
What if there are more than one killer in the house? What if the one in the drawing room is distracting you from the one in Louise’s room? she thought as she strained to see any shadow or figure that could help her discern the nature of the incident. Not a great time to bring that up, her other inner voice remarked.
Chantal’s face was ice cold, her lips colorless, and her body trembling terribly when she reached the door. But it slammed shut just as she tried the handle, throwing her backwards from the force. The floor was like an ice rink and she scuttled to get to her feet again, weeping in defeat with the horrid sounds of moaning emanating from Louise’s door. Filled with horror, Chantal tried to thrust open the drawing room door, but she was too weak from the cold.
She fell to the floor, peeking under the door even just to see the firelight. Even that would comfort her somewhat to imagine the heat, but the thick carpet impaired her sight. Again, she tried to get up, but she was so cold that she just curled up in the corner next to the closed door.
Go to one of the other rooms and get blankets, you idiot, she thought. Go on, light another fire, Chantal. The villa has fourteen fireplaces and you are willing to perish because of one? Shuddering, she wanted to smile at the relief of a solution. Madame Chantal struggled to her feet to get to the nearest guest bedroom with a hearth. Only four doors down and a few steps up.
Passing the laborious groans behind the second door was taxing on her psyche and nerves, but the lady of the house knew that she would die of hypothermia if she did not make it to the fourth room. It had a drawer with matches and lighters galore, and the grid on the cheek of the hearth had enough butane to blow up. Her cell phone was in the drawing room and her computers were all in different rooms on the ground floor — the place she dreaded to go, the place where the window was open and her dead housekeeper was keeping time like the mantle clock.
“Please, please, let there be logs in the room,” she shivered, rubbing her arms and pulling the point of her shawl over her face to try and catch some of her warm breath in it. With the poker firmly clutched under her arm, she found the room open. Chantal’s panic jumped between the murderer and the cold and she constantly wondered which would kill her quicker. With tremendous ardor, she tried to stack the logs in the fireplace of the guestroom while the haunting moans from the other room grew weaker.
Her hands fumbled to take hold of the wood, but she could hardly use her fingers anymore. Something about her condition was strange, she thought. The fact that her home was properly heated and she could not see the vapor of her breath directly negated her assumption that the weather was unusually cold for this time of year in Nice.
“All this,” she seethed at her misdirected intentions as she struggled to light the gas under the logs, “just to keep warm when it is not even cold! What is going on? I am freezing to death from the inside out!”
The fire took with a bellow and the ignition of the butane gas instantly colored the pale interior of the room. “Ah! Beautiful!” she exclaimed. She dropped the poker so that she could warm her palms in the furious hearth that came alive with crackling tongues and sparks that would fade a mere pulse into their existence. She watched them fly and disappear as she stuck her hands into the fireplace. Something rustled behind her and Chantal swung around to look into the face of Abdul Raya’s emaciated face and black sunken eyes.
“Mr. Raya!” she uttered involuntarily. “You took my diamonds!”
“I did, Madam,” he said calmly. “But for what it is worth, I will not tell your husband what you did behind his back.”
“You son of a bitch!” She slurred her anger, but her body refused her the agility to lunge.
“Rather stay close to the fire, Madam. To live we need heat. But diamonds cannot keep you breathing,” he imparted his wisdom.
“Do you realize what I can do to you? I know very efficient people and I have the money to hire the best hunters if you do not give me back my diamonds!”
“Spare your threats, Madame Chantal,” he warned cordially. “We both know why you would need an alchemist to perform some magical transmutation on your last precious stones. You need the money. Tsk tsk,” he lectured. “You scandalous rich, only seeing wealth when you are blind to beauty and purpose. You do not deserve what you have, so I have taken the liberty of relieving you of this awful burden.”