Chapter 8

Pascal and Amanda closed the gallery two hours early on Friday evening to start hanging the show, and were going to finish the installation on Saturday.

It was a big show, with a lot of work and huge canvases, which was challenging and fun to do, to figure out how best to showcase each painting.

It took them two days to hang a show that size.

They had two young men with them to hold the work up for them to adjust heights and lighting.

It was going to be a big job, and Amanda had been making notes about it all week.

She laid it out on the floor first and showed it to Pascal, and he suggested some changes they tried out, and she liked them.

They worked well together, and each contributed to the look of the show.

"I love this guy's work, don't you? I love his brushwork, his palette, the way he takes over the canvas,"

Pascal said.

The artist had rapidly become successful in the past two years, and they were excited to be showing his work and wanted to hang it well.

He had recently signed with them.

Once they locked the doors, they had paintings leaning against all the walls, and Amanda had made diagrams, which she was still playing with, to show the work at its best possible advantage.

It took concentration and a sense of balance to put the right pieces next to each other.

And the large paintings were cumbersome to get up on the walls.

The men helping them were tired after three hours up and down ladders.

Pascal was helping one of them with the lighting.

A lot went into hanging their shows.

Pascal always said that Amanda had an unfailing eye, and they made a number of changes and decisions as they carefully hung each piece.

They stopped for half an hour around nine-thirty that night to eat a slice of pizza, while observing what they'd done with a critical eye.

They switched two paintings around.

"I like the red one there, do you?"

Amanda asked Pascal.

"People will see it as soon as they walk in, and it will knock them on their asses.

I'll bet we sell it in the first hour,"

she said, looking pleased with what they'd hung, and Pascal agreed with her on every placement so far.

They loved working together and agreed the show was going to be a hit.

They were wrestling with the biggest canvas in the show at midnight.

It took two of them to hold it, and two to hang it.

They had to set it down several times and try again before they got it placed to Amanda's satisfaction.

But it was perfect when they did.

The piece was spectacular: a red background, heavy black brushstrokes, Chinese characters integrated into the design, a bold swath of royal blue with a circle of yellow.

Amanda was going to place a large red sculpture near it to enhance it.

She looked like a kid in a candy factory.

She grinned at Pascal when they got the biggest piece right, and he smiled at her.

She loved the work they did.

They built the rest of the show around the main painting to complement it and balance the show.

"God, I love that piece,"

she said, and sat down on a chair to admire it.

"I love the way you love what we do,"

he said happily.

The show was already looking great, and it wasn't even half hung.

"Do you want to call it a night?"

he asked her.

"Why don't we do one more? It'll be that much less to do tomorrow, and we're on a roll."

He nodded, agreeing with her.

He liked hanging the shows at night when they had no distractions, and no one wandering around the gallery.

The rest of the pieces were slightly smaller, so they would be easier to hang.

In the end they hung two more pieces, which looked perfect together and strengthened each other.

They stopped at one-thirty in the morning, with half the show left to hang on Saturday.

The opening was on Monday.

Pascal had to photograph the show once it was up.

They were admiring their work when the two young men left, promising to be back at ten the next morning.

Pascal and Amanda were closing the gallery on Saturday, so they could finish hanging.

"Where's Olivier this weekend?"

Pascal asked her, as he put their tools away neatly.

He was surprised he wasn't with Amanda, and hadn't dropped by.

Olivier liked hanging around the gallery and being with her whenever possible.

He was a frequent visitor and admired the work they showed.

He was learning a lot about it from Amanda.

"He's at home,"

she said quietly, in answer to his question.

"Home at your place, or his?"

Pascal could see that Amanda was upset about something.

He thought maybe she and Olivier had had an argument, although it had been smooth sailing so far, according to her, and most of the time she looked ecstatic when his name was mentioned.

"His.

His boys flew in this week for their mother's birthday.

She got back on Sunday from some horse show or other.

With the boys back, he wanted to be at home this week so he'd have time with them.

He thought it would look better to everyone if he stayed there and didn't make waves or bring attention to himself.

He claims she doesn't care where he is, but he was definite about being with his family this week."

"And you're upset about it?"

Pascal quizzed her.

It was easy to see she was.

Amanda turned to look at him then and he could see the pain in her eyes.

"I thought I'd be fine, and he always tells me he's totally free.

But the reality is he's married, and I've gotten used to having him around.

It hit me like a wrecking ball after he left.

I've been sick about it all week.

What if he's more attached to her than he admits? Or she objects to his sleeping out anymore? We're at his wife's mercy and what she'll put up with.

Maybe he's unrealistic about how free he really is."

"Have you heard from him?"

Pascal asked.

"He's been calling two or three times a day, but he's busy.

He can't talk much, and he's working and staying there at night to be with his boys.

I don't want to bother him, but all I can think about is that he's with her this week, and not with me.

I hate this situation.

And he's so generous with his time, I can't complain to him.

He's trying to meet everyone's needs.

Hers, mine, his sons'.

It was always bound to be hard at times, but it's harder than I thought.

And he doesn't like talking on the phone from that house.

He never knows who's listening.

It feels like shit having him there.

I hate it.

It makes me feel like I'm a second-class citizen and I don't matter."

"Of course you matter.

More than she does,"

Pascal reassured her.

"That's what he says, but who knows if that's the truth? I feel like an adulterer again.

It's just the way it is."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too.

And I don't want to complain to him.

He's doing the best he can to keep everyone happy.

And he's so good to me.

He really is a wonderful person."

"So are you,"

Pascal said gently, then looked at something past her shoulder, through the picture window.

She saw him react and was startled.

"Did you see something?"

she asked him.

"I thought I did.

It's probably an illusion or a reflection.

I thought I saw a guy watching us, wearing a beanie and a face mask.

Like a science fiction movie."

They both stared through the picture window and saw nothing.

"I must have imagined it.

I'm seeing things."

Pascal stuck his head out the front door before locking it again.

There was no sign of movement anywhere on the street.

"That's so weird.

It looked so real."

And then he remembered something.

"Someone told me today that Johnny Vegas is out of rehab.

They weren't absolutely sure, but they thought so.

They heard a rumor.

That would be bad news if he is, if he's still pissed at us for firing him."

"I'm sure he isn't.

We didn't put him in rehab."

They'd been told by another artist it had been court-ordered.

"Yeah, he really is a mess.

I hope he isn't out yet, and I don't want him showing up at this show and making trouble.

It will frighten the clients and the artist."

"He wouldn't have the nerve,"

Amanda said with assurance.

"He might.

Let's pray to the gods of rehab that they didn't let him out.

That would be a big mistake. Huge,"

Pascal said seriously.

He didn't like guys on drugs hanging around the gallery, risking that they'd damage the art.

The gallery had insurance, but art was irreplaceable.

Each piece was unique.

Pascal checked the front door again before they left, and they walked out the back door, double-locked it, and set the alarm.

He gave Amanda a ride home.

It was almost two a.m. by then.

—

When Olivier came home from Amanda's on Sunday evening, Stephanie had already arrived from the horse show she'd been to in Dordogne that weekend.

She had dropped her horses off at the stable where she kept them and got them settled.

There were three stable hands hired to drive the trailers, as well as exercise the horses between shows.

Stephanie and her three friends had driven into the city together, in the SUV they always rode in, which belonged to Stephanie.

Olivier had bought it for her.

On the drive back to Paris, they talked about the results of the show that weekend.

Two of the women had done well.

The third had had a disappointing showing with a horse she was trying out, and wasn't fully trained yet.

It had been his first show.

"He's just a baby,"

Valerie said in a forgiving tone.

"He has a long way to go."

The four women had done the show circuit together for the past twenty years.

Some of some of them had been barely more than kids themselves then.

It was their passion, and they were top-notch riders.

Stephanie and Lizzie ranked in the top ten in France, Valerie and Veronique in the top twenty.

Stephanie was the strongest rider of the four.

She was a tall, thin dark-haired woman, not a beauty, but she had grown into her looks as she got older.

At forty-seven, she could be called handsome.

For the shows, she wore her dark brown hair in a tight bun, at other times she wore it down, to her shoulders.

She was a no-frills person, dressed simply, and wore very little makeup, just a touch of lipstick in a neutral tone.

Her closest friend in the group was Elizabeth Bonnard, a petite redhead with a personality to match her hair.

She was lively and fun.

Veronique and Valerie were slightly portly blondes.

They had gone to school together and almost looked like twins.

The three women had known each other since their early twenties, and Lizzie was ten years younger.

They were the senior pros of the show circuit, and entered dressage shows and jumping competitions all over Europe.

Veronique and Valerie had both been married briefly and divorced, and neither one had children.

Lizzie had never been married or had kids.

She and Stephanie were inseparable and Lizzie worshipped Stephanie.

Stephanie had taught her how to perfect her jumping skills and show techniques.

Lizzie was thirty-eight.

Veronique and Valerie were approaching fifty, and Stephanie was forty-seven.

"Will Olivier be home?"

Lizzie asked her, and Stephanie said she assumed he would.

The boys were due in on Tuesday, and her birthday was the following weekend.

"It'll be nice to see the boys,"

Stephanie said, and smiled at Lizzie.

"What are you going to do this week?"

They were taking the week off while they were home.

The horses would be exercised every day.

"Sleep,"

Lizzie said with a mischievous grin.

Preparing for the shows was grueling.

Veronique and Valerie had families who helped to pay their expenses and could afford to, and Olivier paid for Stephanie's.

Lizzie's family didn't assist her, but Stephanie had helped her protégée for years.

It was an expensive sport, but for all four of them, it was their first love and their passion.

They had been on the road for a month from show to show and had done particularly well in Italy and England.

And they'd done well in Dordogne and Périgord that weekend too.

Stephanie dropped them all off at their homes in the city, where they all lived.

Valerie and Veronique shared an apartment, and Lizzie had a studio not far from Stephanie's house.

It was convenient when they got together to discuss which shows they wanted to enter, and they had plans to go to the States that summer, to enter shows in North Carolina and Virginia.

Lizzie had done well there the year before.

When Stephanie got home, she drove her car into the garage and saw that Olivier wasn't home yet.

She had spoken to him last week, to make plans for the boys' visit.

She hadn't seen him in weeks, and her sons in four months.

It was hard to find time for a personal life with all the training and traveling they did.

All four of the women rode every day.

Stephanie was in the kitchen eating a sandwich when Olivier walked in.

He looked at her in surprise and didn't approach her.

He knew how much she hated being embraced.

She had a cool, distant nature, like a wild horse.

"You're home.

How did the show go yesterday?"

he asked pleasantly.

"We did well.

I got first, Lizzie second, the other girls didn't do as well, third and fourth in another category."

Olivier knew it was the only language she spoke and the only thing she cared about, other than their sons.

He wasn't on her radar most of the time.

"Congratulations.

You must be tired,"

he said, and poured himself a glass of wine.

Stephanie already had one.

With Amanda to compare it to now, he was startled to realize how bloodless their relationship was.

There were no hugs or embraces, no visible pleasure to be seeing each other again.

They used to talk about their children, now they talked more about her shows and horses.

They shared no personal information, and behaved like strangers even after she'd been gone for a month.

They hadn't shared a bedroom in years.

Stephanie used to say Olivier's snoring kept her up at night, and they were both relieved when they gave up the pretense of sharing a room a few years after Edouard's birth.

Stephanie had a lithe, athletic build, and worked out every morning.

She was most at ease in her riding habits.

She had admitted to her friends that she felt like a freak now in a dress.

She claimed to have knobby knees and bony legs, and she was tall enough that she never had to wear high heels.

She said she couldn't walk in them anyway.

She had been a tomboy as a child, with three brothers.

She could run faster than they could, climbed trees better, and was a better rider now.

All of her family were avid horsemen.

It was all they talked about.

Olivier had thought she'd outgrow it, or be less interested in horses once she married and they had children, but she hadn't.

And her riding world bored him to tears.

He had thought her athletic prowess was sexy when they were young, but it was less so now.

He had no illusions, she was stronger than he was and could do a hundred pushups on one hand.

He could barely make it through ten, or five, with both hands.

Gymnastics had never been his strong suit, and he hated going to the gym.

But fortunately he didn't need to, and was naturally in good shape with a minimum of exercise.

He played tennis once a week.

Tennis bored Stephanie as much as horses did him.

Olivier sometimes wondered how they had fallen in love, or if they really had.

He'd been shy as a boy and was friends with her brothers, and she was always hanging around competing with them, so when he first got interested in girls, she was close at hand and easy to talk to.

He knew her well and he didn't have to make much effort with her, having known her since they were children.

Their families were enthusiastic about the match, and the next thing he knew they were married, and he realized it was like marrying one of the guys.

They were both inept at sex, had both been virgins, and had no idea what to do with each other.

He thought having a baby might bring them closer, but it didn't.

She hated being pregnant and not being able to ride for several months, and once the baby was born, Olivier took care of Guillaume more than Stephanie did.

But she was relieved it was a boy.

She talked about teaching him to ride one day.

Until then, he was Olivier's baby.

The first time he cheated on her was after Edouard was born.

A beautiful young woman moved in next door to them, and he suddenly realized that women were a great deal more alluring if they didn't act like one of the guys.

He was twenty-four years old, had been married for three years and had two children, and the neighbor was twenty-two and had a body like a Playboy model.

There had been many girls like her after that, until he finally settled down in his thirties and became more discriminating.

He and Stephanie had never had sex after Edouard was conceived.

He was disappointed and embarrassed about it at first, until he realized that Stephanie was relieved.

She didn't want to get pregnant again and had developed an aversion to sex.

Any time he approached her, she had an excuse.

The sexy girl next door was much more willing.

She was the first of many partners he had in his twenties.

He was surprised to find that other women found him attractive, even though his wife didn't.

"Where were you today?"

she asked him when he got home.

It was Sunday.

He had come straight from Amanda's, and had made love to her before he left her.

"I stopped by to see a friend.

I meant to get back earlier.

We were watching a football match,"

which meant soccer in France.

She nodded and didn't ask him anything else.

She didn't know his friends anyway, or like the few she knew.

They had dinner together in the kitchen on Monday night.

They each cooked their own meal and conversation was sparse.

He was distracted.

Amanda texted him a few times and he didn't stop her, and before they left the kitchen, Stephanie gave him a knowing look.

"You've got someone new again, don't you? You always get that starry-eyed look.

It makes you look like a kid again."

It was a statement more than a criticism.

She was never jealous, acting more like a sister or a friend than a wife.

"Is that a compliment or an accusation?"

he asked her, and didn't answer her question.

He never did.

They shared no details about their lives.

"Neither one.

More of an observation.

Someone decent, I hope."

"What does that mean?"

He bristled at her comment.

"Just someone who won't make trouble, or blackmail you, or put you in an embarrassing position and try to extort money from you."

"When did I ever get blackmailed?"

he asked her, annoyed.

"It can happen.

Men are drawn to women like that like flies to honey.

We don't need a scandal,"

she said.

She and her family were very conservative and proper.

"You won't have one,"

he said simply, and walked out of the kitchen, leaving his plate in the sink, and went upstairs to his room.

Just seeing Stephanie made him miss Amanda, and he realized now how right she was, about how pointless it was to stay married to someone you didn't love, just to avoid a divorce.

What they had wasn't a marriage and never had been.

It had been a travesty, but they had stayed married anyway.

It was the only victory they could claim.

It depressed him to think about it, and he lay down on his bed and called Amanda again.

He had closed his bedroom door before he did.

"How's it going?"

she asked him.

He didn't mention Stephanie's comment.

He wondered how she always knew that he had met a woman he liked.

Most of them didn't last long, but this one would.

For twenty-three years, until now, it had always been purely physical.

Amanda was different.

He was in love with her.

By the end of the week, he and his wife had run out of even minor conversation with each other.

The boys were leaving on Sunday, after their mother's birthday, and all Olivier wanted was to go back to Amanda's arms and bed.

He had stuck around more than usual all week because of the boys, but even they seemed eager to leave.

Their home was a hollow shell with no love in it, or too little.

Olivier felt love-starved by the end of the week.

And he wondered if Stephanie felt that way too.

Her friends were in and out of the house every day.

He would hear them talking and laughing in the kitchen, but they felt awkward around him and fell silent the minute he walked in.

He felt like an intruder in their midst.

It had been a hard week for all of them.

The whole horse group was leaving for England soon, and all he wanted was to spend the night with Amanda.

He knew he could spend the night out while his wife was there, but he didn't want his sons to notice it, or have it cause comment.

He had always tried to set an example for them, of being a responsible and respectable family man.

They admired Olivier, and he didn't want to disappoint them and show his needs and flaws to them.

It made their relationship less real, but he felt he had a role to play in front of them, without letting his failings show.

Stephanie did the same, although Guillaume and Edouard knew their parents' relationship wasn't warm.

He could wait a few more days, and then Stephanie would be gone.

Then he could go home to Amanda and bask in the warmth of the love she lavished on him.

It had become familiar to him, and he needed Amanda like air to breathe, and nourishment.

He had been starved before he met her.

—

Amanda was almost falling asleep on the way back to her apartment after the first night of hanging the show.

She couldn't wait to get to bed, and to finish installing it the next day.

Pascal dropped her off in front of her building, and watched her go in.

Once the outer door closed behind her, she ran up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the front door, and walked in.

She hadn't bothered to put the alarm on.

The building was safe.

There hadn't been a robbery in the building in all the years she'd lived there.

She walked into her bedroom to find Lulu and saw that the bedroom door and window were wide open, her closet door was open, and the light was on, and it suddenly clicked that someone had been in her apartment, and possibly still was.

She grabbed Lulu and her keys, with her phone still in her pocket, and ran out the front door of the apartment and down the stairs, out of the building and onto the street.

And from there she called the police and told them that her apartment had been burglarized, and she thought the burglar might still be inside.

She didn't want to ask Pascal to come back, they were both so tired, so she called Olivier.

He was awake in his room, reading, and grabbed his cellphone immediately, as soon as he saw it was her.

"Are you okay?"

he asked her.

It was unlike her to call him so late.

"No, yes.

I'm fine, but my apartment has been burglarized."

"Is Lulu okay?"

"She's fine.

I grabbed her and ran and called the police from the street.

They said they'd be here in ten minutes."

As she said it, she could hear the police siren approaching, and saw the flashing blue lights a minute later.

"I'll be right there,"

Olivier said hastily.

He got up, put on jeans and a sweater, slipped his feet into loafers, grabbed a jacket and his phone, wallet, and car keys, and ran down the stairs and out of the house.

Everyone was sound asleep, and no one heard him drive away.

He was at her front door in fifteen minutes.

The police had just checked the apartment, and said that there was no intruder in it, and they asked her to come upstairs and see if she could tell what was missing.

She followed them upstairs and Olivier went with her.

He kissed her, thrilled to see her.

He had dropped by the gallery briefly several times that week, but hadn't spent the night with her, because of his sons.

The police had already determined that one or several intruders had scaled the fa?ade of the building, using the architectural details as handholds, and entered through the now open window.

Amanda could see that the glass had been broken and knocked out to facilitate their entry.

Her silver cupboard was open, and she thought there were two trays missing that were family heirlooms.

Things were knocked over in her bathroom, like perfume bottles and cosmetics.

The drawers of the chest were open, and she looked and saw that about half the contents of one of the drawers was missing, and when she looked in the laundry hamper, where some people hid jewelry, the police explained, it was empty, and her dirty laundry was gone.

She made a careful tour of the apartment, and forty-five minutes later, all she could tell the police was that a sizable quantity of her underwear and all her dirty laundry was missing, and nothing else.

The two silver trays had been left in the kitchen.

"That's crazy!"

She stared at them and Olivier.

She was still holding Lulu.

"Who would take my laundry and my underwear?"

"That's a sexual crime, ma'am,"

the senior officer informed her.

"It's a different department from burglary.

That's an erotomaniac, probably a stalker, who may have been watching you.

It's not too common, but it happens.

It's usually a stranger, someone you don't know or have never noticed."

He started to tell her what the culprit would do with the stolen clothing, and she said she didn't want to know.

The idea was disgusting, and even more so if someone was stalking her and broke into her home and stole such personal items.

"We'll fill out the report and give it to the right department,"

the police officer told her.

"Get that window fixed quickly, and you need to turn your alarm on next time.

The building is vulnerable because of the architectural details.

It could happen again, if he likes what he got."

She shuddered at the thought, and they left a few minutes later.

It was three a.m.

, and she was exhausted.

"I'm spending the night,"

Olivier said calmly.

"Can you do that? With her home?"

Amanda asked him.

"Of course.

I can do whatever I want.

She's not going to ask me any questions."

They undressed, went to bed, and talked in the dark about what had happened.

It was unnerving, and frightening.

"What if he comes back?"

Amanda asked Olivier.

"If I'm here, I'll grab him.

But the police were right.

You need to use the alarm now."

As Olivier said it, the phone rang, and they thought it might be the police.

Amanda answered without checking the caller ID, and there was heavy panting at the other end of the line, and it sounded like someone was masturbating or having sex.

He was clearly the thief who took her underwear.

She disconnected the call immediately, didn't answer when it rang again, and Olivier put his arms around her.

He was glad she had called him.

There was some very sick guy following her, stalking her.

Olivier held her tight, and she was shaking.

It took them a long time to fall asleep, and Olivier didn't leave her until she left for work in the morning.

He dropped her off at the gallery and made sure that Pascal was there.

He had just arrived, and Amanda was late.

She told him what had happened, and Olivier kissed her and left them.

"I'll come by tonight,"

he promised as he left.

"Are you sure? What about your boys? Aren't they leaving tomorrow?"

she asked him.

"They're leaving early.

I'll say goodbye to them tonight."

Stephanie's birthday dinner was that night.

"We're having dinner together for the birthday, and I've gotten some good time with both boys this week.

They're leaving the house at six a.m.

I'll come to you later, after dinner, so keep the alarm on until I get there,"

he said, and sped away as she explained the details of the situation to Pascal, about the erotomaniac who had broken into her apartment.

"That doesn't sound like Johnny Vegas,"

Pascal said, worried about her.

"It sounds like you picked up a real nutcase."

Amanda had brought Lulu to the gallery with her, so she didn't get injured by another intruder.

But there was no question that something very nasty was happening to Amanda, and they had no idea who the perpetrator was.

It could have been anyone.

And if not Johnny Vegas, then who? And most likely, just as the police said, it was someone she didn't know, a total stranger, who was fixated on her.

She shuddered, remembering the man panting on the phone.

It took her several hours to calm down, until she got engrossed in hanging the show, and tried to forget the pervert who was stalking her while she did.