“I understand that,” I said, almost in a whisper. I knew it was true.
“But I need someone to handle my interests here, someone to deal with the investigation, to stand up for me.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, Luc. We’ll take care of that in the morning. Are the detectives okay with your going back to France?”
“They seem to be fine with it,” Luc said, relieved that I accepted the idea of his leaving town, and finding him good counsel. “You know who I want to represent me, Alex? That man you introduced me to on the Vineyard last summer. I don’t care what it costs. The guy you said was the smartest lawyer you’d ever known. You remember him? You know who I mean?”
I looked at Luc and nodded. “I know exactly who you mean. Justin Feldman.”
“Yes, Alex, that’s who I want at my back. He’s wise and brilliant and strong. Will you call him for me?” Luc said, looking more optimistic than he had all week.
“I wish I could, Luc. But he died, darling. I’ve never known a better lawyer than Justin-he was truly a giant-but he died last fall. He can’t help you with this.”
Luc had every reason to be thinking of himself right now, but for me, the mention of my dear friend’s name-and his sudden loss-added a profound layer of sorrow to the tension of this moment.
“Désolé,” Luc said. Three short syllables, but one of the most powerful words in the French language. “Vraiment désolé.”
I was totally disconsolate, too. I bit my lip to fight back tears.
“What will I do?”
“Let me think about it tonight, Luc. I’ll have a name for you in the morning.”
“I want to tell you something.”
“Better to save it. Better I don’t know anything else.” I helped myself to a glass of wine.
“It’s about Brigitte, Alex. You’ve got to know it.”
“I think I’ve known it all along, Luc. You still love her-there are photos everywhere,” I said, thinking of the one in the bedside table in Mougins. “There’s no room for me in your life right now, and I’m beginning to accept that.”
“You’re wrong, Alex. Mike’s right about how stubborn you are, how thick-headed. You’ve never believed me when I’ve told you that I’m way over Brigitte.”
“What is it, then?”
“You want to know why she left me? You want to know why our marriage broke apart?” Luc asked, as full of anger as I was full of tristesse. “We split because she’s an addict. She has been for all of her adult life, and it’s unlikely now that will ever change. We broke up over that.”
“But you never told me.”
“What’s to tell? I thought she had beaten it again by the time we’d met. She’s been addicted to cocaine since she was a kid at university. She tried to stop for me-I’ve had her in the best rehabs in Europe-in Switzerland, in England, in Belgium,” Luc said. “At best she’s sober for a few months, then she relapses. It’s going to kill her before too long if no one can get her to stop.”
I tried to think of all the times we had talked about Brigitte, and whether there were hints of her addiction in the conversation.
“Why do you think I’ve fought so hard to be with my sons, Alex? Why do you think it has meant everything to me to be near them? To make sure to see them as often as I could? To try to keep them safe?”
“Didn’t the subject come up when you divorced? It should have been easy for you to get custody, with Brigitte’s drug history.”
“Right after we split, Brigitte spent six months in a rehab facility in Zurich. The kids stayed with me, and Brigitte’s mother moved down to help me. I thought she was heaven-sent. The boys were in their home, going to their own school, cared for by me and their grandmother, two people who loved them more than life itself. Then-boom!-it all backfired.”
“How?”
“The hearing before the judge was set right after Brigitte’s release. She was perfectly sober, of course. She was the model of a repentant ex-addict. As you Americans like to say, for three months she walked the walk. The judge was charmed and thoroughly convinced that Brigitte had kicked the habit. Maybe the judge was just ignorant about addiction-didn’t realize it’s a fight that goes on every day of a person’s life.”
“What backfired then?”
“The last straw was that Brigitte’s mother testified against me.”
“Against you? How is that possible?”
“Like coming to praise Caesar, not to bury him…but bury me she did. What a good father I wanted to be-tried to be. But it was all about the lifestyle and how much my work kept me away from the house. And that my business required me to be in the restaurant from five or six in the afternoon-when the boys got home from school with their homework-till one or two in the morning.”
“But, Luc, all anyone has to do is see you together with those boys. You live for them. You spend the rest of every waking moment with them. They adore you, they want to be you. I’ve seen them follow you to the restaurant and pretend to be your helpers,” I said, laughing at the sweet memory. “Little Mini-Mes.”
“That was another strike that grandmamma threw in. There’s liquor at the restaurant, as she reminded the judge. The wine flows like water and the boys are even allowed to sip it from time to time.”
“Quelle horreur!” I said in mock surprise. “French kids start sipping wine when they breast-feed. How dare she?”
“All I can say is that it worked like a charm. Brigitte was at her very best-her million-megawatt smile on display and totally pulled together for the judge. I was the dad who was working his ass off so hard to keep the boys that I wasn’t responsible enough to be in charge.”
“And the fight with Lisette several years ago,” I said, starting to put a more complete picture together. “Did Brigitte really catch the girl stealing money?”
Luc looked me straight in the eye. “Money was the least of it. It was Lisette who was supplying the coke to Brigitte, delivering it to her anyway. When I learned about that, I cut off Lisette’s access to the cash in the office, where she’d been working for me. That cash drawer was the fund that fed both their habits. Lisette threw a tantrum and broke into our house to steal money-from me personally.”
“So when Brigitte found out, there really was a catfight, wasn’t there?”
“A major one.”
“And when Captain Belgarde asked why you’d never filed a police report about the theft,” I said, “it wasn’t because you were afraid of being investigated by the tax authorities.”
“Not at all. If I called attention to Lisette’s drug habits by going to the police, I’d be dragging Brigitte into the very same mess. We cut the girl loose instead, and off Brigitte went for another round in rehab,” Luc said. “It was shortly after her return from that trip that we split up.”
I was trying to put the time line together, and more importantly trying to fathom how someone measures the love of a parent for a child.
“You’ve got to go home, Luc. The rest of it will fall into place,” I said. “You’ve got to know that your boys are protected in the midst of everything that’s going on.”
He stood up again and came around the table to me. I also stood, and put my arms around his neck.
“You understand then, if I leave this weekend?”
“Completely,” I said, thinking of the 24/7 demands I still faced on the Gil-Darsin case, as new information seemed to be unfolding every day. “And do you understand that I can’t go with you?”
“I don’t want you to come, Alex.”
“But-?”
“I think it’s too dangerous for you to be there right now.”
“What is it I don’t know, Luc? Is this part of why you want a lawyer?”
Our bodies were against each other. I could feel Luc’s heart pounding as strongly as the beats of my own were coming. “I put you in harm’s way, Alexandra.”