Intrigue at a Small Hotel

Intrigue

PROLOGUE

I approach my small hotel, Hotel Marcel, on the avenue near The Eiffel Tower in Paris, from a different direction, not on a plane from New York City in the United States, but driving North with Brit in his Peugeot from St. Paul de Vence in the Alpes Maritimes of Southern France.

We have had a delicious sojourn for four days and nights, this first week of November, in that beautiful part of the Côte d’Azur. With the blue Mediterranean across from our bedroom window, in a charming inn outside the town, we have delighted in being together in this place.

While there, I have received enigmatic phone calls from Jean-Luc Marcel, my favorite hotelier in all the world, warning me of a strange, nameless woman who seeks me out. The woman, by her secretive tone of voice, appeared to him to be a menace to me, his friend, Madame Elizabeth. He sounded worried.

And this worries me, as I know Jean-Luc not to be alarmist, not to be overly dramatique, and certainly fond enough of me to be concerned about my wellbeing. As we near the great capital of France, as we gain the Périphérique, the main route that rings the city of Paris, I cringe in the bucket seat of Brit’s car, in anticipation of what? And I am frightened.

Thank God for Jean-Luc. But thank God, most of all, for Brit, the lover by my side, who gives me the shield of the innocence of a love that with all its vulnerability, provides strength against the unknown.