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I shrug. “Bored and looking for attention. I’m amazed he isn’t shooting the pellets at his mother.”
My oysters have been removed by the time we return to the table. Half a dozen oysters have vanished. My stomach gurgles in disappointment.
“When they insisted on taking the plate, I guzzled them down,” Max tells me. “No point in letting them go to waste.”
“Will you switch places with me?”
Max gets up, napkin dangling from his fingers, and changes chairs, reaching over to swap out the glasses and silverware. No need to worry about the gift totes. They are both going to the same place.
“When you were assessing the loot before, was there anything in there besides books?” I ask JL.
“Some items for the toilette. And a pocket handkerchief. Silk, I think. Perhaps there are scarves for the women. I wonder who provided such generous gifts.”
“The organization is prestigious. I assume they don’t have a problem attracting sponsors.”
“But only for a select group. I don’t think it has the cachet of Cannes, or the Oscars, or even the Booker Prize.”
“Advertising.” We all swivel our eyes to Honor’s husband, who has now gone back to demolishing a large serving of sweetbreads. He swallows, pats his lips, and goes on. “The companies give these things because even though this isn’t a big event, you will use their products and talk about them with your friends. And they can write it all off as a business expense.”
Honor’s smile is indulgent. “Hugh is a consultant. He knows all about advertising and product placement.”
Talking through a mouthful of onion, he says, “I wish Honor wrote contemporary books. She’s a big enough name that companies would pay her for product placement in her books. Same as TV. Can’t really do that for the seventeenth century, unfortunately.”
“If I wrote a contemporary novel and used brand names like Apple or Coke or Coach or Le Creuset, they might pay me for it?” JL cocks his head, looking like a cross between a sparrow and a vulture.
Hugh shakes his head. “You’d have to be a blockbuster bestseller. Maybe if you sell as much as Dan Brown or someone, it might work. If your publisher could guarantee sales in the millions.”
“Fleeting dreams of fortune.” I let out a breath.
The microphone at the front of the room crackles to life. Henri, a small Frenchman with a large mustache, stands on a small riser, tapping it. He looks remarkably like David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. “Attention, s’il vous plaît.”
The room quiets as the awards ceremony begins.
Before Henri can begin, footsteps sound on the floor of the antechamber. Like boots, heavy boots crashing on the tile. Max’s gaze is fixed on the corridor visible through the doorway.
“What is it?” I whisper. “Is something happening?”
My eyes rake the room, expecting Allan and Inspector Poulliot to magically appear. But they don’t. JL and Max yo be on the edge of their chairs. Honor and her husband are focused on the podium and James is still obliviously playing games on his phone. Yavuz, his eyes never leaving Max’s face, calmly sips wine.
Then I see a glint of metal just past the doorframe and men in fatigues, heads covered by balaclavas, swarm in to the room, automatic weapons waving, threatening us with immediate annihilation. One man strides to the podium and calmly shoots Henri in the head.
As he slumps to the floor, someone yells in French, “Police! Put down your guns!”
A hand grips my arm. But it’s not Max. Lips against my ear, a voice whispers, “Time to go, Cress.”
A gun presses against my side as Yavuz pulls me out of the room.
* * *
Max
So far the dinner has been dull, but I’m grateful that nothing has happened—until it does. The sound of tramping feet from the hallway has me assessing the threat level, but before I can react, armed men have swarmed into the room. A shot rings out and the host of the event falls to the floor.
I jump up and reach to grab Cress, but she’s not there. A French SWAT team comes and everyone dives for the floor as they start shooting at the terrorists. I try calling her name, but the noise of gunfire and screaming is deafening in the confined space. We’re pinned down and I can only hope that Cress is under the table. I can’t see because the tablecloth obscures everything.
Time stretches out and speeds up at the same time, but after what is probably only a few minutes at most, the shooting stops. Cautiously, people start to stand.
I pull the cloth off the table, heedless of the dishes and glassware crashing to the floor. Honor is under the table, clutching James, but Cress has vanished.
