Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

“But, my dear, it was a very good school.”

“But a school of a very certain sort,” I said. “They also teach whatever form of martial arts you used to take down Riley?”

“When a man sees the woman he loves held captive with a knife to her throat, who knows what he is capable of doing to free her?”

“You never quite answer the question, do you?” I said. “Monsieur Bernard, when you go back to France and pick up where you left off, exactly what will you be doing?”

“I won’t pick up where I left off at all,” he said, smooching my cheek. “I will be with you, a fresh start.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling a slender book out of my carry-on bag. “Let’s trade information. I will give you this book if you give me a straight answer.”

He looked at the title and laughed: Opticks : Or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions, and Colours of Light , by Isaac Newton. “This is what you have to bargain with?”

“All things are not what they seem,” I said. “Pure sunlight seems to have no hue, no color at all. But in fact, it has all the colors that exist. You wear the mantle of a quite boring businessman, but we both know you are anything but; you are, my friend, very colorful. The same can be said for this book.”

“You find this book fascinating?”

“No, quite boring,” I said. “Difficult to read, especially for a child. After my father read it with me when he was teaching me about optics, he could be very confident that I would never open that book again. But, like you, it holds a very interesting secret.”

He pressed the book between his hands, felt the cover, and then he smiled. “ Bien sûr . May I open it?”

“Will you answer my question?”

“Of course, my dear. If we’re to share a life, you will need to know everything.”

“Then go ahead.”

He opened Newton’s treatise and thumbed through the pages before he flipped to the inside of the back cover, ran his fingers around the edges, found the tiny slit Dad had made near the spine, and slipped out an envelope.

The day before she died, Trinh Bartolini mailed a letter to my parents. She apologized for getting angry when Mom advised her to report the extortion to the authorities. She wrote,

Where I come from, officials are not to be trusted. I had hoped that in this country that would not be true. But I have found that it can be. It is an official who asks of me a price I would rather die than pay. But, for the safety of my husband and my son, I will continue to do what I know I must. I beg you not to turn against them because of what I have been forced to become. And I beg you to tell no one, especially the police.

Help me protect my dear husband from ever learning my shameful secret. I am afraid for what he might do. A man from the FBI came to my house today and I had to tell him that you were mistaken. Please help me and do the same. If they investigate further Bart will find out and others might become dangerous.

Whatever happens to me, please look after my Beto. Tell him his mother will always watch over him.

Jean-Paul read through the letter twice before he slipped it back into its envelope. “She was afraid.”

“She had reason to be,” I said.

“Is this what Riley and Duc were looking for?”

“It isn’t what they thought it was, is it?” I took the letter from him and slipped it back into its hiding place.

Jean-Paul watched the San Francisco skyline slide past his window. After a moment or two, he turned to me. “How did you know where to look?”

“I took one last walk-through before we put the house into the hands of Lyle’s friend. I was thinking about Dad and what he would have said about the flower borders now-pretty enough, but what’s the point of the pattern?-when I saw Newton’s Opticks on the shelf. I couldn’t bring myself to put it in the library’s book sale, and it isn’t special enough for the university, so I left it for the tenants. But in the end, I couldn’t abandon it. One day I might be a grandmother and I might want to teach my grandchildren about the nature of light.”

He smiled his upside-down smile. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“I might be slow on the uptake, but I usually get what I’m after,” I said. “So, I showed you mine. Now it’s your turn. Jean-Paul, what is it that you actually do?”

He wrapped me in his arms and pulled me against him. “Well, to begin…”

Edgar Award-winner Wendy Hornsby is the author of ten previous mysteries, eight of them featuring Maggie MacGowen. She is a retired professor of history at Long Beach City College. She welcomes visitors and e-mail at www.wendyhornsby.com