Page 109 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
The last question is a blow to the gut, a reminder that perhaps Helene left me by choice. A remote possibility, but still a possibility. Because at 3a.m., Sandrine had called to tell me her team had discovered a purchase on Helene’s credit card in the Athens airport for a plane ticket. Unfortunately, due to Europe’s strict privacy laws, they hadn’t yet been able to get information on where.
Or why.
The phone rings again as I’m rinsing the shampoo out of my hair. I scramble out of the shower and lunge for the counter, where I left the phone. It’s the Julius A. Weiskopf office number; Sandrine must have gone in early.
“Sandrine! Did you find her? Is she all right? Is she…?” I don’t want to finish the question, because there are too many terrible ways it could end. She is leaving you. She is hurt. She is…dead.
“Sebastien, it’s me.”
I nearly drop the phone into the sink. “Helene? Why are you calling from Sandrine’s—?”No, that’s not important.I slide to the marble floor.Please, tell me the curse is nowhere to be found. Let everything be okay.“Are you all right? Are you safe?”
“Yes, but you’re not. Sebastien, last night, I’m sorry—”
“Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter. As long as you and the baby are all right.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Helene says. “I came to Geneva because Merrick knows about your past and we have to stop him from—”
“What do you mean, he knows about my past?” Suds drip down my face and arm, threatening to get to the phone. I throw on a robe and grab a towel to sop up the water. I can’t afford for the connection to short-circuit.
“He, um…”
There’s a shuffling of papers, then Sandrine says, “I can leave to give you some privacy.”
My chest constricts.Merrick knows about my past.And Helene can’t say anything more explicit because Sandrine is there in a conference room with her.
I’ve never told the Weiskopf Group about my immortality because I haven’t had to. They are in the business of carrying out their clients’ wishes, no questions asked. But I’m sure they’ve wondered why my account has been open as long as it has, and why they have to provide new identification papers every couple decades.
I rub the heel of my hand into my eyes. “No, Sandrine. Stay in the room. It’s time you knew my full story. Helene, go on. We can trust her.”
Once Helene starts talking, she can’t stop. She’s had this overwhelming fear bottled up inside her since last night, and I am apoplectic that people she knew—and once trusted—did this to her. And that I wasn’t there when she needed me.
Yet Helene is worried about my secret being revealed.
I’m incandescent with rage that Merrick blackmailed and kidnapped her.
“I’m coming to Geneva right now,” I say, seething.
“No! You can’t,” Helene says. “Aaron’s watching you. If he sees you leave Santorini, he’ll know we’re up to something.”
I punch the wall. It leaves a fist-sized indentation that will costme.
I don’t care.
“Sandrine,” I say, “I want you to ruin Merrick and Aaron. Scorched earth. Whatever resources you have, use them.”
“But wait,” Helene says. “The most important thing is getting those files they have on Sebastien.”
A door opens and closes. Someone else has just come into the conference room at the Weiskopf Group offices.
“I’ve asked Calvin Hasan, my chief of cybersecurity, to join us,” Sandrine says. She must have texted him while Helene was explaining what happened last night.
“Good morning, everyone,” Calvin says while tapping on what I’m guessing is his laptop.
Sandrine gets him up to speed.
My stomach twists as I listen to her lay everything out, and I bury my face in my hands. I’m a fool. If I had told the firm the truth about myself years ago, we might not be in this situation. Their team would have had time to scour the internet for evidence of my past identities and wipe much of it clean. Perhaps not all of it, but the evidence that scum like Merrick and his celebrity-dirt-sniffing bloodhound, Aaron, are able to find.
But I’m a relic of a bygone era and didn’t think of that. It used to be fairly simple to obtain a new passport, shed a past identity, and merge into a new one. The last time I changed my name was before the turn of the millennium. Internet connections were still dial-up modems then, and websites were made of blocky text that took an hour to buffer. Technology posed no danger to me.
